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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

Our client requested help in developing a new fuel additive device to improve the miles-per-gallon ratio in its diesel engines. As their preferred design/engineering project leader, Nectar employed its unique product development process to the challenge.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

1. Developed a comprehensive product requirements document.
2. Conducted chemical/combustion engine research and Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA).
3. Design reviews with outside topic experts were used where necessary to develop mechanical/electromechanical systems and hardware/firmware.
4. Qualified to MIL-STD 810 /461 and OSHA.
5. Added several tests from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

The effort resulted in delivering the first production units on time, on budget, with overall improved engine mpg performance.

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IDSA LA Presents a Duncan Anderson Lecture featuring Nectar’s Darren Saravis

Thursday, October 4th, 7:00 – 9:30pm

In the Duncan Anderson Design Department Gallery at California State University, Long Beach

Over the last few years Darren’s company, Nectar, has engaged in numerous blue sky and concept projects to promote sustainability. He will discuss these activities, their results and benefits.

“Darren Saravis fears we’re losing touch with the natural world. To Saravis, the mountain climber and environmental activist, the notion is disheartening. To Saravis, the designer and engineer, it’s a problem to be solved.” — O, The Oprah Magazine

A socially conscious artist and musician as well as an inventor, Saravis’s newest innovation, Solaflora, is suggestive of a tree or a giant flower, the sculptural device can hold as many as four solar panels and supplies up to 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. Saravis envisions it as a means of mainstreaming the use of solar energy into the contemporary urban landscape, contributing to a more ecologically balanced, and more prosperous, nation and world.

A Long Beach resident, Saravis said he was passionate in his youth about art, science and math, which was a good combination for a career in product development and industrial design. He also works as a professional photographer.

Darren Saravis is the founder and CEO of Nectar, a Long Beach-based engineering and product design consultancy dedicated to innovation and sustainability. For 19 years, Nectar has been known for design that pushes to the edge of art and function. In that time, the company has grown from a one-man operation to a company with more than 20 employees, including product developers, engineers, model makers, program managers and marketing professionals. The firm has worked successfully in numerous fields including medicine, high tech, green tech, and general consumer products. The name Nectar follows the theme of the company, which is to “grow a garden of technology.”

http://idsala.wordpress.com/duncan-anderson-lecture-series/oct-darren-saravis/

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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

For those who spend a lot of time listening to music around water and wish to avoid accidentally submerging their iPods, SKB wanted to develop a line of watertight cases. To meet a rapidly changing market demand, they tasked Nectar to develop a new case, which in addition to being watertight, it should be rugged, and interactive with Apple’s latest family of iPod Nanos.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

1. Nectar developed  a thermoplastic elastomer case over a molded polycarbonate housing providing  substantial protection against water damage.
2. Plus an easily gripped exterior that allows users to operate the click wheel by touch.
3. Prior to water testing rapid prototype models, Nectar engineers performed a finite element analysis to verify design integrity.
4. Engineering process also included production-ready CAD drawings, mechanical layouts, and more.

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

This new generation case, the Drypod, combines a rugged look and feel with the simple form of the iPod Nano. Its clam-shell style design and patented track-lock compression closure will provide watertight compliance to well over 100 feet.

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Breath Coordinated Inhaler

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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

1. Nectar was tasked to design/engineer a new product in the M-Audio family of DJ products, the Torq Xponent, which had to bridge the gap between turntable and digital technologies.
2. Included was the design for its user interface.
3. It had to be completed on a rush-to-market basis.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

1. Linking the past with the future, Nectar’s designers created large tactile scratch wheels, sliders, and faders with a visual reference to the turntables and mixers of past DJ’s.
2. Nectar worked closely with M-Audio’s electronics engineers ensuring the product maintained the design intent and met all engineering requirements.

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

1. Brought professional grade control into the realm of the computer DJ.
2. Expediently developed and brought to market ahead of schedule.

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LONG BEACH, Calif., July 2, 2012 — Today Nectar received four Bronze IDEA awards from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) for its revolutionary Pure Rain garden watering system (purerain.com).

The awards were presented to Nectar for the Pure Rain Essentials Garden Water Spray Nozzle, Garden Water Wand, Garden Water Sprinkler and Garden Water Pro Sprinkler, all of which feature Nectar’s innovative nano-bubble technology.

“Garden hose nozzles and sprinklers have seen very little change over the last decade,” said Nectar CEO Darren Saravis. “We devised a technology that would not only update a product that so many people use every week, but also imbue it with the unique abilities of nature to make lawns and gardens more lush and healthy.”

Leafy plants use oxygen to absorb vital nutrients from the soil. When rain falls, it gathers oxygen, delivering highly oxygenated drops that help plants grow more efficiently. The first-ever nano-bubble technology in the Pure Rain line of products adds millions of microscopic oxygen bubbles to ordinary hose water as it passes through the sprinkler head or spray nozzle.

Watering your lawn or garden with Pure Rain products can increase plant growth by up to 30%. What’s more, with more oxygen in each spritz, you can use less water over all.

The Pure Rain spray nozzles and sprinklers are available in the U.S. at Target, Lowe’s and on Amazon.com, and at more stores in Canada.

For more information, or to learn how to buy Pure Rain products, please visit purerain.com.
About Nectar: Nectar is an award-winning product development firm specializing in medical devices, cleantech, industrial and consumer products and start-up technologies. Our interdisciplinary approach to product design and development puts everything under one roof—from market research to production—providing complete, integrated and easily implementable solutions for our clients. We welcome challenging projects and thrive on innovation. Our comprehensive methodology, which combines industrial design, mechanical engineering and prototyping, gives us the scope and ability to meet a range of needs and the experience to create products that resonate with users.

About IDEA: The annual IDEA awards recognize excellence in industrial design from all over the world. A panel of renowned design experts chose Nectar’s Pure Rain products for honors in the Gardens & Outdoor category. idsa.org/awards

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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

1. KOS pharmaceuticals required an inhaler that would deliver asthma medication deep into the lungs with minimum loss inside the mouth and delivery system.
2. It had to be user friendly and production ready.
3. The device needed a counter to keep track of doses, a valve to time inhalation with the release of medication, and an air passage with a carefully engineered turbulent flow.
4. The device also needed to fold into a compact shape and keep out dirt.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

1. Nectar provided mechanical design, rapid prototyping, prototype tooling and part inspection, and assembly for clinical testing.
2. Special testing apparatus and methods were developed, fabricated, and used to verify the performance.
3. Design history was maintained and documentation supplied for FDA application.

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

1. The improved breath coordinated inhaler provides a simple construction for permitting patient inhalation of air with a directed dose of selected medication, resulting in a highly efficient administration of the medication.
2. It provides an effective seal for closing the interior of the inhaler housing between uses, to prevent entry of dirt and other contaminants.
3. The vent and seal arrangement is provided at the upper end of the inhaler housing resulting in a highly compact inhaler construction which is relatively cost efficient to produce and assemble in production quantities, and is adapted to accommodate tolerance variations in standard medication canisters.

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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

In third world countries, because of the difficulty of adjusting dosages to multitudes of children of various ages and size, traditional pills are often administered incorrectly resulting in poor health outcomes. The Releef Initiative, an international non-profit, collaborated with Nectar to create an easy-to-use dispenser of medicinal pellets.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

Working on a pro bono basis, Nectar supplied all industrial design services for the Releef dispenser, including general research and human factor studies, configuration, refined mechanical layouts, and prototypes.

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

The new Releef Medical Dispenser allows health workers to load and dispense the correct amount of pellets directly to the children — regardless of age or size.

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Tough Challenges Test Creativity

Luminys asked Nectar to develop a new test-facility lighting-fixture system with up to 150,000 watts per fixture. It had to be of the highest quality, flicker-free, and integrate with a new proprietary reflector system.

Nectar’s Success: Experience-/Process-based Solutions

Nectar developed all aspects of the lighting and reflector system as well as a mobile ground unit to position individual lighting units and a battery storage system for use with the SunSource.

Positive Results Exceed Expectations

SunSource’s mega-wattage, flicker-free system has become a highly desirable addition to Luminys’ best in class test-facility lighting line.

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