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Company Name: La Dolce Aqua
Funding Source & Value: 1 x 5k Innovation Voucher
Profile of Company:
Premium and luxury hotels offer an inspirational lifestyle experience. This is true for every product and furnishing they touch, except for the traditional inflatable lilo. La Dolce Aquas solution, is a luxury item suitable for its environment. Recently poolside furniture has developed into a luxury product that truly reflects its environment and users. Mark director of La Dolce Aqua thinks this is something the floating furniture market has missed entirely. This has been a special passion project for Mark over the past few years
He had already teased out his ideas with plenty of concept development work that allowed him to define how the product should look and feel. Mark came to TUS to refine his concept with the aim to bring it to fruition.
CAD Redesign After initial meetings and concept reviews, Mark and CISD settled on a concept to redesign in CAD for production. The product contained two parts including the hull and mattress. Gavin developed the concept in CAD which required a few iterations to get the geometry of the surfaces just right. The design of the hull has been developed for rotational moulding to ensure the product is light and durable, while the structural integrity comes from the contours on the top, base, and sides of the product, the mattress cleverly hides an internal ribbed section. Following the CAD stage, CISD explored the incorporating speakers into the hull, after some basic concepts were drawn and discussed with the client, La Dolce decided built-in speakers would be a nice addition, but unnecessary for now. The exercise concluded that if speakers are to be added they should be built into the product to maintain a uniform design and protect the electronics from water damage. Handles were added on the front, back
La Dolce Aqua was a fantastic company to work with, Mark has a history of spotting unmet needs in the fashion and retail industry and producing products of high quality. For Mark, it was essential that the product was developed and built in Ireland. By levering TUS’s experience in polymer product design, engineering and manufacturing, La Dolce Aqua could confidently get the expertise required to bridge the gap from concept to production
I had been working on this pool float project for some time but realized that to move the project forward I would have to get additional technical support. Working through the Enterprise Ireland innovation voucher schem ,we identified the Technology University of the Shannon and Midlands Midwest as the most suitable knowledge provider for our product. Gavin Keane and his dedicated team started work on the project in August 2021 and from the very start demonstrated that they had the skills and expertise we needed to get the project to a commercial level.
We are now on our second voucher and have made very significant progress. We hope to have afull-sizedd prototype ready very shortly. Gavin has been extremely professional and we have had very clear lines of communication which is so important as we develop the concept. Sincere thanks to everyone for all their help.”
Mark McInerne
