Hi from Shenzhen

By Phillip Geier July 14, 2019 Edition CHIC 2018-2019Discover NOX project

Hello everyone,

After a long trip to Shenzhen and the introduction of the x.factory team, we continued working on our prototype. We first checked if all the components survived the transportation and tested our system. Once we were all set up, we prepared our presentations for the pitches to come, a 2 minutes pitch and a more detailed 5 minute pitch. The engineers started working on the animation of the lamps, as this was not functionnal before leaving Switzerland, and defined the constraints for the new parts that we want to produce here in Shenzhen with the designers.

Firstly we want to find new sensor lenses here in Shenzhen, as we strugled finding alternative lenses for our PIR sensors in Switzerland. For this we wanted to go to Huaqangbei and we asked Thomas, our chinese student who would help us for the project, to go with us as he knows the location.

Secondly, we want to understand the Chinese market and adapt our product if needed. Our other Chinese student, Tifany, would help us to understand the differences between the european market and the chinese one.

As Thomas was sick and could not help us with our search for components, we went to Huaqangbei to gather the components we needed. In addition to the aforementioned components, we also looked for screws and ribbons for the upper part of the lamp, as we needed them to complete our prototype. As it turned out, searching for specific component in Huaqangbei is not an easy task if you don’t know the exact location of the stores you need. The place is overwealming and has a variety of stores selling electronic components, from more traditional products like computer parts, to reels of resistors. In the end we spent most of our time looking for screws and did not find the other components.

We gathered a lot on information on the chinese market during the meeting with our Chinese student. Most importantly we learned that the white colored ribbons were not appropriate in China, as they are used during funerals. In addition to this important information, we also planed to conduct a survey in China with the help of our Chinese student to see how people would react to our product.

In parralel, we presented two pitches, one at HAX and one at Hardware massive. The usefull feedback from the organisers at HAX allowed us to adapt our presentations for the next pitches to come.

After having spent almost a week in Shenzhen, we are confident that we will have a working prototype before we leave for Hong Kong.

Thank you for reading and see you next time !

NOX team