Hero Kitchen
The Second Project (Dundee houses) did not reach a satisfactory conclusion, due to incompatible timelines (Commercial Housing vs. Development Project) and the impact of the Inventors ongoing chronic fatigue.
Following on from this, a further bid for a Research and Development Grant was submitted, to allow development to continue independently from any commercial partners.
This was for the final testing and development phase, leading to the completion of ten pre-production units. These would be for retrofit into the occupied Blackwood houses, which was deemed an acceptable resolution for all parties.
All the Assessors rated the quality of the Bid's Technical Approach, Work Packages, and Stakeholder involvement very highly.
As the Assessment process had no scoring methodology to match our not-for-profit status, the Bid was unfortunately rejected.
Subsequently, potential EU grants were investigated; however, Brexit impacts shut down those channels.
Crowdfunding
The decision was taken to look at crowdfunding.
We have a unique product, with fabulous design and a solid body of research and development.
We understood there is a wealth of people who would like to get involved, and this is our way of making this happen.
To support content generation and access, we moved the Lead Prototype into a domestic situation.
It had been in an industrial unit, where development and fabrication had taken place.
The washing machine was always intended for domestic use; what better setting than in a house?
How your pledge could impact our research
We know we have the technical capabilities, with the right engineers and low rate production capacity, to produce 25 units, over a 2 year period, that will be distributed to users, who will live with the machines, to get feedback, real world issues and optimise every day interaction.
Our resident expert
A family friend and wheelchair user, Joe, was invited to become our glamorous assistant, with the full agreement and support from his brother Bernard. Joe naturally relished the opportunity. We worked with a highly recommended videographer, Rob Bell, to storyboard and plan the shoot. This gave Joe the chance to talk about his personal circumstances and the differences one of our washing machines would make in his life.
He said it would be transformative to his lifestyle and lessen his dependency on his carer and support system.
As can be seen on the Youtube videos, we achieved exactly what we wanted—to generate relevant, excellent content, in order to support our crowdfunding ambitions. All these plans were cut short by the intervention of Covid and, like millions of others, our lives were irrevocably changed; our efforts to gain something positive are detailed in the next section.
There have been personal, financial and organisational challenges along the way, these are detailed within the relevant sections of the website.
A decision was made to proceed with Kickstarter crowdfunding, to allow us to progress, in the difficult environment.
Without funding or investment, we can’t deliver this revolutionary product, which has the potential to transform the lives of wheelchair and limited mobility users around the world. The Lead Prototype will remain an example of unfulfilled opportunity and we don’t want that, Joe at least, deserves better!
