"Part of our problem, I think, was that we were attempting the project while taking classes full time, and working." I think your project was fantastic. I see

"Part of our problem, I think, was that we were attempting the project while taking classes full time, and working." I think your project was fantastic. I see the main problem is the price. Most of the normal people can't justify expending $800 on an spectrometer. They don't even know what they could use it for. People that could justify it because they need it will buy tested equipment anyway, they have money but not time. So you need to fill the gap. The new project is making it super cheap so they could get traction like Reprap machines. At first they are terrible, but with enough people and huge market improvement is so fast like with the PC that at some point in the future it could get better than commercial closed systems. Start small, if you can't detect UV it does not matter, remember it is 100x better than Newton ever had.