There are 20 million vehicles in Australia, many of which spend 7 to 10 hours day baking in the sun. Current solutions involve those foldable sunshades. A local entrepreneur has come up with something a little more elegant…
Inspired by the Japanese art of origami (paper folding), Sandy Dasuki has invented the Ori-On sunshade, which easily expands out from a compact cylinder.
The idea came from noticing the cars parked near his Perth city workplace.
“I would walk around the carpark during lunchtime and count how many cars actually use sunshades. After many weeks, I concluded that on average 30 of the 700 cars had some type of shades installed. Half were not properly installed on the windshield.”
Sandy Dasuki
Sandy then interviewed some of his colleagues and friends, many of whom were annoyed by the fussy installation of existing sunshades.
Following months of experimentation, he developed an electro-mechanical system that could expand and fold a suitable origami pattern automatically from the centre point, and collapse back in. A provisional patent for this design has already been filed.
“I think this invention will help a lot of people protect their car interior more conveniently, faster and better.
“Simply take out of the device from inside the glovebox or centre console, attach it to the centre of the window, and press the button at the back.
“The mini solar panels on the top cover of Ori-On will re-charge its own battery while it is installed, so users do not have to charge it every time.”
The Proof-of-Concept Ori-On sunshade measures 120 centimetres by 70 centimetres when expanded, and folds into a cylinder measuring 11 centimetres in diameter and 20 centimetres in height.
Route to Market
Sandy set up a company – Fledge Technology – in order to commercialise his product.
Last month, he posted several images of the proof-of-concept on a number of social media sites. Within 10 days of going online, the post garnered an encouraging response of over 6,000 views and over 550 engagements.
Further development is underway, as with developing a new technology, there are bound to be unknowns and technical challenges to overcome.
“We had some challenges with the mechanical gearbox design, however, the rapid prototyping approach we applied has allowed us to resolve the issue relatively quickly. We are now on track for completing a smaller variant of Ori-On sunshade that will fit into most car’s cupholders and significantly more robust. Once the design is complete, we will produce 25 units to be used in our pilot trials scheduled for next month”.
Sandy Dasuki
Sandy is already thinking about the future. What if the sunshade could also be a solar panel capable of generating power? What if thousands of these could help power the car park itself?
Fledge Technology is currently seeking to raise funds from angel investors to hire more engineers, fast-track its R&D and trial regimes and commence manufacturing for a launch in December 2019.
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For more, visit the Fledge Technology website.
