Natural Dye Crayons
11.025 D-Lab Development
Collaboration: D-Lab, Avani, traveled in summer as International Development Initiative Technology Dissemination Fellow
September 2011-present
Field Visits: Jan 2012 and June-Aug 2012
Background: Avani is an NGO in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, India. Their mission is to “develop livelihood programs based on appropriate technology, renewable energy, traditional craft, [and] local resources”. Their main project and source of income are the locally dyed and hand-woven textiles that are made in the six field centers by 474 artisans in 41 villages. Avani currently use natural dyes and pigments to color yarn that is then woven into textiles by local women either at the main headquarters in Tripuradevi or one of its many field centers. Avani recently started expanding the products they can make with the pigments in order to make the pigment production process more sustainable. Currently they produce sets of 6 organic watercolors and we have been working on a recipe for organic crayons. With the development of this new product, there will be more demand for the pigments which are produced by people in the region, thereby increasing the amount of income generated. Additionally, once the crayon making process is standardized, there’s the possibility of moving production to one of the field centers or else moving more of the textile process to the field centers, which will provide more jobs for the people there.
Project Status:
After returning to Avani for 6 weeks from June to August 2012, we continued to develop a new recipe and currently have 10 colors. We are aiming for 12 and the two remaining colors are still in the R&D stage. We are currently getting feedback on the product and hoping to launch this fall.
Interested in ordering some crayons? We are planning our first shipment to the U.S. so please fill out this form.
Blog: http://mitindia12.blogspot.com/
Video: Recap of the trip
Testing crayons with kids at Avani: See photos
India Trip Team (Jan 2012): Elliot Avila, Michelle Deng, Kristin Kagetsu, Columbus Leonard, Viral Modi, with trip leaders Nathan Cooke and Rebecca Smith
India Trip Team (June-Aug 2012): Elliot Avila, Kristin Kagetsu, Nathan Landman
Collaboration: D-Lab, Avani, traveled in summer as International Development Initiative Technology Dissemination Fellow
September 2011-present
Field Visits: Jan 2012 and June-Aug 2012
Background: Avani is an NGO in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, India. Their mission is to “develop livelihood programs based on appropriate technology, renewable energy, traditional craft, [and] local resources”. Their main project and source of income are the locally dyed and hand-woven textiles that are made in the six field centers by 474 artisans in 41 villages. Avani currently use natural dyes and pigments to color yarn that is then woven into textiles by local women either at the main headquarters in Tripuradevi or one of its many field centers. Avani recently started expanding the products they can make with the pigments in order to make the pigment production process more sustainable. Currently they produce sets of 6 organic watercolors and we have been working on a recipe for organic crayons. With the development of this new product, there will be more demand for the pigments which are produced by people in the region, thereby increasing the amount of income generated. Additionally, once the crayon making process is standardized, there’s the possibility of moving production to one of the field centers or else moving more of the textile process to the field centers, which will provide more jobs for the people there.
Project Status:
After returning to Avani for 6 weeks from June to August 2012, we continued to develop a new recipe and currently have 10 colors. We are aiming for 12 and the two remaining colors are still in the R&D stage. We are currently getting feedback on the product and hoping to launch this fall.
Interested in ordering some crayons? We are planning our first shipment to the U.S. so please fill out this form.
Blog: http://mitindia12.blogspot.com/
Video: Recap of the trip
Testing crayons with kids at Avani: See photos
India Trip Team (Jan 2012): Elliot Avila, Michelle Deng, Kristin Kagetsu, Columbus Leonard, Viral Modi, with trip leaders Nathan Cooke and Rebecca Smith
India Trip Team (June-Aug 2012): Elliot Avila, Kristin Kagetsu, Nathan Landman
Learning aBout Crayons
In the fall, I did some research about how to make crayons and contacted our community partner about what their needs were. I looked up recipes and ingredients and talked to a former D-Lab student about what she had done in January 2011. I also determined what materials Avani had and needed. Through the D-Lab Development class I also learned about different aspects of international development and how they would apply to our field visit in January.
Crayon: January RecipeIn January 2012, as part of the D-Lab Development class field visit, I traveled to Avani in Uttarakhand, India to work with Dheeraj, the head of the dye room. The dye room is where many of the Avani products are made or packaged. It was also where we conducted all of our research.
We developed an initial recipe for the wax crayons from all-natural local ingredients. I conducted field research and we finalized these six colors. We also made 20 trial sets of six crayons each to show to potential customers and get feedback on them. |
Understanding the Market
In the spring I took D-Lab Supply Chains in order to learn more about supply chain management in the context of international development. In that class, I was able to map out and understand how the supply chain would work for the crayons and what areas still needed to be researched. I also did a UROP where I spent time looking at the potential market in the U.S. so that I could compare it to the market in India.
D-LAB 10th AnniversaryThis year was D-Lab's 10th Anniversary Celebration at the MIT Museum. As part of that celebration, the students in spring D-Lab classes made 1 minute presentations about their projects and then invited guests to see the posters upstairs. This is the poster I made as part of the D-Lab Supply Chains class where I looked into how the supply chain would work for the crayons from raw materials to distributors and retailers.
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MIT De Florez CompetitionThis is my poster entry for the MIT Mechanical Engineering Dept's De Florez Undergraduate Engineering Design Competition.
MIT De Florez Competition: http://pcsl.mit.edu/deFlorez.html |
Crayons: Summer RecipeThis June-August, I returned to Avani with Nathan Landman (MIT '15). We revised the recipe from January and expanded the palette to include four more colors. We also tried to increase visibility of the color so that we could differentiate between crayons.
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Making Sample SetsDuring the last few days, Nathan, Elliot and I made over 34 sample sets of ten colors so that we could bring them to schools in India and the U.S. to get feedback on them.
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