Arjun B
“A well engineered Jugaad can still be considered as Frugal Innovation.”
In the Indian context when one says Frugal Engineering, the thing that comes to everyone’s mind is ‘Jugaad’. With the kind of numerous colloquial definitions we have for Jugaad, it more often means a hack rather than a solution. We have numerous examples of students evading online class during Covid lockdown, that’s Jugaad. It’s a quick fix without considering the implications of the implementation. It is a hack for a problem you are facing at that moment.
A solution is something where you understand the problem, Quantify the resources you have, have solution ideas, understand the costs involved and the long term implications of the solution. This solution when you squeeze out the most value from the resources you have available is Frugal Engineering. A well engineered Jugaad can still be considered as Frugal Innovation.
Why do we need Frugal Engineering?
There is no better market where this question is relevant than a country like ours. As a society we are obsessed with ‘Value for Money’, it drives most of our purchases we have in our everyday life. This obsession has driven innovations and we have seen so many amazing products specially tailored. There are some institutions which have made their own identity revolving around Value for Money. Maruti Suzuki is one such example which is now synonymous with cars in India, the Tractor Emulsion from Asian Paints and the list keeps on going on and on for different industries.
Coming back to the question of why Frugal Engineering is needed, it’s simple isn’t it. It’s what the society looks forward to, Value for Money and Sustainable Innovation. Understanding what the market wants and making it available with a value proposition is what everybody is chasing.
The Story of Xperimentor’s Microscope
Xperimentor being an Experiential Learning Solution, the challenge before us was to get all the topics of the Science textbook learnt by Hands-on activities. It was really a no-brainer when we learned that the syllabus for middle school involved microorganisms, stem & root sections, and parts of cells; we had to include a microscope as part of the overall learning solution.
The requirements could not have been more clear; Ease of use, a magnification of a minimum of 50x for viewing all microscopic samples in Middle and high school with lucid optics and a minimal setup time. The aim was to have the whole setup within 10 seconds from box to focused.
Imagine the kindling power the students have when they are equipped with the easy to handle Microscope. You want to see what pollen of a hibiscus flower looks like? you don’t have to google. The muck in between your nails, wonder what it looks like up close? What is the difference between clean water or dirty water under a microscope? Instead of students asking such questions, students have experienced the science behind it.
The journey of all engineering solutions begins with a benchmark. A simple Google/ Amazon search shows what is already available in the market. There are brands which have used paper & cardboard as the structural material, there are industry leaders who have world class equipment, there are the DIY type Microscopes and everything in between. The entry level microscopes which used an MDF base, paper or a cardboard base were avoided as they were mostly inconsistent and were at times very difficult to handle. Some of them used a very ingenious solution of using minute spherical glass balls as the main lens. The magnifying power was good, but the delicate usage and handling was not everyone’s cup of tea. Meanwhile, the microscopes above these price bands had good optics in comparison but lacked the build quality and ease of usage.
To ensure we have a good learning experience for the students with the microscope, it was later decided to build the Xperimentor Microscope ground up. For benchmarking we decided to use Magnus SX-100 microscope as a reference. This Microscope was the perfect blend of the crystal clear optics, modular magnification and ease of use.
Now, let’s understand what happened behind the scenes to engineer the microscope.
The requirements were in place, the goal was in sight in the form of matching the quality & usability. The quest to make the microscope was started. If someone had asked a team to conjure a microscope from stract a couple of months ago, that too within the timeframe of 8 weeks. Well, no one dreamt of that.
The optics is the heart and the soul of a microscope, everything else is an attachment. We started with lenses, we went through such a variety of lenses of different sizes, shapes and focal length material. Understand the details of what each type of lens does, how combinations of lens work together and what are the pros and cons of each. You can imagine the number of combinations we would have tried till we could get a set of lenses which would work in combination.
A 3D printer is an engineer’s best friend. There were spools of 3D printer material which we went through to analyse the different types of lens holders, the movement mechanism, the base and the light management. Below are some of the pictures of our iterations.
In all of this the team also realised the importance of the colour black and why major optical based equipment use the colour black and how it affects the performance. Finally we had a proof of concept, this one ticked all the boxes of the requirement, it was easy to use, it hardly took any setup time as it came fully assembled, had a 3 stage brightness controlled Led backlight and the optics performance was just next to par. Below are 4 samples taken from the Magnus microscope vs the one we developed.
Can you guess which is images are from the microscope developed by Xperimentor?
As amazing as it may be, there were 2 issues in the overall design. First, it was 3x the budgetary allocations and second one was if the LED got fused the whole setup would be deemed useless unless the whole bottom base was to be replaced. The second one was a bigger issue because it literally killed our whole emphasis on the microscope being handy to the student at any time. Having an unusable microscope is like having no microscope.
This is where frugal engineering came into full effect. It was back to the drawing board to see what is taking up the cost increments and what can be done to avoid usage of a fixed light.
We started seeing ways to reduce the cost. The base and the upright were taking the bulk of the cost. To not compromise on the performance the lens could not be changed. Then we started to look into ways to reduce cost.
It was clear that we had to use natural ambient light and redirect it using a mirror to get the optimal light in. But this had 2 challenges. If the student wishes to use it in the evenings or indoors under normal room light, the performance was less than adequate. Secondly there is no way we could control the amount of light coming in.
The first solution was right in front of us in the form of the chemistry stand in the science in action bundle. This stand with its attachment is designed for holding test tubes, funnels and experiments like filtration and separation.
Though it is slim it has been engineered to have a lower centre of gravity to enhance its stability under usage. Redesigning the barrels of the microscope to suit the stand allowed us to make 2 similar mounts which could be managed in the single injection mould. This helped in reduction of cost. This maximised the use of the stand and with modular designs we were able to achieve something remarkable. The initial prototypes and testing revealed the stability was at par. Yes, there is an additional setup time required, but designed as a sliding latch it was as easy as fitting a cap to a bottle.
So, One problem down and one more to go. The repurposing of the stand gave us the ideas to repurpose other components of the bundle. In came the torch. Initial tests showed that the light from a fresh torch was too harsh for viewing and was not safe. But the solution showed some promising results. We just had to figure out a way to control the light coming in. A small translucent filter is what was needed to control the incoming light. The students have already learned that translucent based on the types allow only a partial amount of light through it. Equipped with this knowledge students can come up with the combination of filters which allows the right amount of light needed for viewing the specimen under test. A redesign of the base to hold the torch, the filters, a mirror and be clamped to the base of the stand was needed. Some iterations later the design was ready and so was the final microscope. After apportioning the costs involved we were not only able to manage to reach the cost target but also able to marginally be lower than the budget allocated. Well, it’s just good engineering and frugal innovation which evolved into the microscope we see today. Something’s were not possible without the help of our manufacturing partner, Shiv dial Sud and sons for manufacturing the slide holders as per the lab grade microscopes and most importantly helped us procure world class lenses. Partnering with a firm with 79 years of experience in lab equipment has its own perks.
What do you think about our microscope and our journey of frugal engineering?