The SlowLab is a collective trying to promote a resilient lifestyle and the use of alternative technologies to change the way we use energy around us. For now we are focused on creating events that invite people to reflect on this subject and to create a first approach to others. We want to test this low-techs on our own first to familiarize with them and then start thinking of ways of optimizing them. Our goal is to eventually be able to bring this products into people's everyday lives. Everything we're testing has been done before in some way and these ancient technologies have been around for centuries but what we're trying to do is to create a movement in which we can spread awareness and change people's habits.
These devices have been done before by ancient cultures and in more recent years by some people exploring low techs in a very low scale. The materials that we used are reused and are recovered pieces that we found around. This in order to reduce the waste around us. In order of costs we have been trying to keep them to the minimum because we reuse materials but so far its been only buying a few screws and hinges which are less than 20 euros. We think overall we would be spending around 50-100 euros maximum.
There's a lot to think of in these techs because we want to use the least amount of energy possible and generate the least waste. That's why we're not thinking of fabricating anything in mass production but trying to reuse the materials we have at hand. In this case we think making this project open source could be a better idea. In the sense of income we would continue to plan our events and collaborate with other brand that could sponsor these events as well. We want to start participating in festivals as well and get people to know us. Eventually when we have some of our designs improved we could sell some. Most of our products are from wood scraps or reused wood boxes, old bikes and some old parts of cars or bikes. We do use some electronics for our prototypes which could also be recovered or new. We are still in the experimentation stage so we would like to test our prototypes and when we find one that works great then find a way to make it a product adapted to a house and sell it.
As part of our dissemination plan we want to target people who are already in the sustainability movement or are a bit curious about it. As a secondary target we could attract people that look for new experiences and like music festivals or outdoor activities. We think this is a strong point because people will engage with our events and maybe join for the fun but could join the movement slowly. At least to spread the word of what we're doing and what people could do. We want to keep collaborating with people to grow our community and make a stronger movement.
We want to grow our collective to the point in which brands would like to collaborate on joining our events and use our low-techs. We have a few ideas already for music festivals and outdoor spinning classes. We want to communicate the idea that not everything has to be immediate and accessible to us all the time. With these collaborations we could ignite conversation among people outside our circle and get their imagination running thinking about the ways they can use alternative energies in their daily routine.
People can evaluate this by checking if they in fact can replace their usual activities that consume electrical energy for alternative ones. The expected outcome is that they provide almost or the same results as if it would've been done with electricity.
