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  • Truely OT: Paging anyone who does SCIENCE in the Great Outdoors
  • mrgibbons
    Free Member

    Firstly – Go Science.

    Secondly..

    Myself and 4 close friends (all in the mid-twenties to early-thirties, from BSc’s, to life degrees, to MSc’s to Phd’s) all from a wide range of disciplines are in fairly advanced talks/later stages of product design to produce, market and offer to the academic/environmental consulting/forestry industry a range of outdoor science equipment.

    In essence, we got utterly fed up with seeing $50,000 grants from NSERC dissappear like *that* on some Campbell Sci/Licor gear, with some of the most unhelpful moneygrabbing people at the other end happy to relieve us of our cash, happy to sell us the spiel that the equipment could do something it can’t, and happy to bill us for it when it breaks.

    We’re starting off in hydrology fields primarily, Guelph permeameters, flow samplers and collectors, mini-meterological stations, standalone logging rain gauges and so on.

    The idea being to make some of the best designed, idiot-proof, robust and stand-alone gear in the business, which can be serviced easily by the end user, doesn’t use a multitude of propriety parts, and from a software perspective (we have a very good software engineer) uses up to date open-source software coding, with a view to the gear being as greenly constructed as possible in it’s material use as well as being lightweight and generally ‘everything proof’ – I am presently salvaging last years data from some loggers that a bear took a thorough liking too, very chewable apparently.

    I was wondering if anyone experienced in these fields would like to offer any thoughts on equipment they use where there is a present monopoly/overpriced kit offered, which they have to use, and what they’d like to see done better, if you could give the application you use the equipment in that’d be brilliant too. General comments most welcome too.

    It is presently a side project (like much in academia), but given the academic circles we run in (within Canada) and the UK, we believe it could well become our full time jobs with the right level of integration to freely available software and the right attitude towards those looking to purchase such devices.

    The last point I should make, we’re looking to undercut the competition by a pretty substantial margin…huge infact, willing to take lower profit at present for increased market volume/getting our name established…which isn’t decided on yet. Potentially also looking at a leasing model for academics for certain equipment.

    Ideas and thoughts truely welcome 🙂

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