Backpack Pole Safety Light

Elevator Pitch

This backpack add-on features a tall pole with lights to assist little people with being more visible in a crowd of taller people.

Story

Problem:

My friend Darren (https://www.instagram.com/darrenblatt/) was at Coachella with his friend Emmalia (https://www.instagram.com/emmaliarazis/). Darren is very popular and has a signature parasol named Parasol Hilton (https://www.instagram.com/parasolhilton/) which he takes with him everywhere he goes, so people see the parasol and run up to him to say hi and give him hugs. Unfortunately for Emmalia, who is a very short person, these people often don't notice her standing next to Darren and run into her, even knocking her over. Darren saw this happen time and time again, and wished there was something he could do to help taller people notice Emmalia.

Solution:

Darren and Emmalia have asked me to design and build a backpack with a light pole extending from the backpack up to the average height of 6ft.

Additional use cases:

We are going to Burning Man this year and taking my 4 year old son. We've been considering many options to keep him lit up at night so that 1) people don't run him over with bicycles or vehicles and 2) we can find him easily in a crowd. This solution would be perfect for these scenarios. We took him to Disney World for his 3rd birthday and had similar problems keeping track of him running around at night. We could imagine a product like this being useful for parents taking kids to an amusement park at night.

Proof of Concept Build Notes:

While prototyping, I enlisted the help of my 4 year old son, Sebastian (https://www.instagram.com/sebastianjrubalcaba/). We took one of his lego base plates, duct taped an LED staff I made to it, and stuffed that inside one of his backpacks. Pics below. Note: The staff was made following this Adafruit tutorial: https://learn.adafruit.com/pov-dotstar-double-staff/introduction

Proof of Concept:

Production Model Design:

Requirements:

Lighting:

Light must be at a height of 6 feet.

Light must be visible from 360 degrees around the wearer.

Light must be significantly bright enough to notice from within 5 feet, ideally visible up to 50 feet.

Light does not need to be visible the full length of the pole down to the backpack, a single light at the top (like a lighthouse) should be sufficient. However, there is an added benefit of having the lights extend the full length of the pole e.g. the inclusion of wearer-chosen patterns, colors, etc.

Lights must remain vertical (parallel to the spine) and not fall over or flail around which could impact people nearby, or hit people in the face while walking through a crowd.

Adjustable Height Pole

One requirement that applies to both use cases, is the ability to use a porta-potty without removing the backpack or lighting kit. One way to address this issue, is to build in a collapsible pole, where the height can be easily reduced for fitting inside porta-potties.

Pole Mounting

The light pole must be operated hands-free, meaning it is mounted to a backpack, shoulder strap, waist strap harness, etc. It cannot be a hand-held "totem" style where the wearer is limited to using one hand. Customers want to be able to use both hands while the light is active. For the kids use-case, any hand-held option is guaranteed to be dropped and lost if it's not firmly attached. For kids, an added chest strap would be ideal for keeping the backpack attached and keeping the light upright.

Battery Life

The lights must run at set brightness for at least 4 to 8 hours.

Battery Sustainability

Disposable batteries are terrible for the environment. All batteries must be rechargeable via a standard USB charging port.

Battery Safety

Mounting lithium polymer batteries on children is asking for a lawsuit. Battery chemistry must be safe, and all electronics must be waterproof.

Build Design

Collapsible Pole

The pole will use a folding design, where each segment is tapered on one end to be inserted into the following segment.

Each segment will contain a strip of LEDs, power injector, and a USB splitter to carry power to the next segment.

A single bungee cord connected to the end segments will travel through each segment, holding the pole together when they are all placed together. This is similar to a folding cane or ten poles, see the appendix for an example picture.

The pole segments will be 3D printed using white or clear filament, to ensure the lights inside are visible from outside.

Using this approach may require more of the shorter 17cm 10 LED strips instead of 2 lengths of 50cm 30 LED strips.

Inside each pole segment would be the 10 LED strip, a USB cable providing power to the next segment, and the bungee cord for keeping the segments together when extended. In between each segment would be the power injector and USB splitter.

USB Splitter Layout

USB splitters will be used for each segment to split the main USB power line from the battery to each NLiten power injector for each segment. The NLiten power injector will inject power to the LED strip before it, and after it. The first power injector will be used to power the controller.

Optional enhancements

Interchangeable Mounting

Ideally this solution can be sold as a kit that could be attached to any backpack. This allows the wearer to select a backpack that matches their style, and use that.

This requires special consideration:

The lighting kit should be removable for the backpack to be washed, or to switch it to other backpacks.

Solar charging

Assuming in either use case, the wearer would keep the same backpack on during the daytime and the nighttime, the use of solar panels could charge the batteries during the day for use during the night. A special light sensor should be added to turn off the LEDs during daylight, and turn them on during night time.

Bill of Materials

Appendix

Appendix A: Foldable Cane

Appendix B: Foldable Tent Poles

Appendix C: USB Splitter

Appendix D: Market Research

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