Author: Michal Cymbalisty

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Course Culmination: An Inflation of Expectation

                Warning: this course completely defied my expectations and was not at all what I expected it to be after reading the course description and past testimonials – and that’s a good thing! When I registered for this course in early January I was looking for a way to get out of my R class. 357 looked enticing and I had thoroughly enjoyed my time with Vishal when I took BADM352 last spring. I sent him a brief email with why some of the concepts we planned to cover this semester enticed me and viola, I was enrolled.

                My initial thoughts were that this class was going to be like other small business classes I had taken in the past. Each student pitches an idea, and then 6 or 7 teams are formed and for the rest of the semester that group of initial ideas grew whilst everyone else’s ideas were tucked away. Instead, Vishal partnered with the Adam Bleakney and the rest of the DRES community to be our mentors for the semester.

                I personally found this scope a lot more fulfilling and impactful than yet another semester long class which goes nowhere after the course is over. Each team ended up with tangible prototypes of solutions to opportunities within our mentors’ lives. Our team worked with Ryan Wilson, a recent Illinois graduate and power wheelchair user.

                Our group’s initial ideas became centered around personalization and identity, but we quickly came to realization that we were trying to personalize through design and not utility. After speaking further with Ryan, he highlighted the fact that he stills uses a Ziploc bag to protect the electronics on the arm of his chair from water damage. Ryan even told that he has gotten stuck in the rain during a storm and he had to wait for someone else to assist him under cover, so his electronics could dry off and power on his chair.

                We then conducted a search for other products which were designed to solve this problem. And to our astonishment we found very little out there. The most common product was a bag like cover which was a pullover and had to be attached and detached each time it was to be used. Other products included canopy-like covers for the entire chair, and attachable umbrellas.

                Throughout this search process we realized two key things: each of the other solutions had to be attached and detached; and nothing could be personalized. Everything had kind of come full circle, except that we were now solving a relevant problem alongside the value-add of personalization.

                After spring break, we regrouped yet again with a concrete focus: We had the goal of creating a prototype during the Makeathon which was held in early April. We knew we wanted a product which did not have to be taken on and off, we wanted it to be a permanent part of the chair. Our team drew immediate inspiration from silicone phone cases. They were also permanent solutions which were made from a waterproof-material that was tight fit. The ridges for the volume and home buttons featured in the silicone cases gave us validation that Ryan would still be able to use the buttons through the silicone case. Additionally, to ensure Ryan could see his screen, we decided that our silicone casing would be clear.

The Makeathon weekend culminated nicely, as our group shared 1st place. After the Makeathon, our teammate Matthew made a phenomenal 3D printed injection silicone mold based on a 3D scan of Ryan’s chair. During further market research we also discovering that there were only 21 wheelchair manufacturers in the United States (IBIS World). By simply creating 1 3D printed injection mold, we have theoretically catered to nearly 5% of the power wheelchair market, a $4B industry in 2018. As a business student I found the intersection of utilitarian design and economic opportunity utterly fascinating.

I enrolled in this class with some expectations that were altered quickly as soon as we were introduced to the scope of the course. It did not give me as much individual freedom as I had expected, but the partnerships and vision made it all worth it. After meeting the other professors, we became one big family at the Makeathon, all united through a mission to improve the lives of others – and that is something that is greater than any individual can be.

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The Makeathon Experience

Personally, the Makeathon exceeded expectations for me and then some. It was riveting to see so many people putting their minds together to solve problems for others than ourselves. After 3 days of brainstorming, designing, prototyping and iterating, our team completed a pretty holistic solution to the presented challenge of protecting the electrical circuits in power wheelchairs.

We ultimately settled on a clear silicon pullover case which mimics on a phone cover. This way the cover will never have to be removed so Ryan or any other user will never have to worry about forgetting it if they are caught in inclement weather.

During the Makeathon we prototyped this from a clear plastic material after recreating the arm of a power wheelchair from Styrofoam and moldable plastic.  Additionally, I created a water sensor to detect leakage during QA and field testing. Our efforts culminated nicely, as our team co-won the grand prize alongside our classmates, Movi – and both teams happily donated the 3D printer from Ultimaker to the DRES facility.

Those 72 hours alone exponentially helped our team swiftly move from validated idea to prototyped concept, and I can personally say I did not expect us to take home the grand prize after it was all said and done. I’m really proud of all the work that was put in during the Makeathon and I’m stoked to see the culmination of it all over the next 2 weeks.

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COZAD

Huge session this week as we finally had to decide on a list of materials before next weekend’s makeathon. Prototypes are as close as ever, and everything slowly seems to be piecing itself together. Nonetheless, I want to take a more abstract focus in my reflection this week as I have been heavily involved in the COZAD competition outside of the coursework this semester.

It was very interesting to see 2 startups in the venture competition actually solely focusing on the disabilities and / or wheelchair user communities. I think we are slowly moving towards a society where even the average individual is beginning to look into solutions and opportunities within these communities.

One of the projects is a focused job board for those with disabilities. The other is a software project which will help urban planners create accommodating environments for wheelchair users. The latter is being started by a 19-year-old sophomore. Unreal.

The new wave of innovation at Illinois must be capitalized on. We are a campus which has prided ourselves and inclusion and entrepreneurship… and it is so cool to finally see everything coming together.

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Architecture. 3D Printed.

Once of the most influential factors in my decision to enroll in the class was seeing the partnership announced between ICON and New Story in early 2018. After settling down post 2017 crypto crazy, I began to look at other technologies which could impact the developing world. I had fallen in love with enabling digital and social finance and in 2018 I slowly began shifting my focus to housing. I had battled and worked through last mile internet solutions through my time with Mesh++, and now I wanted to delve into scalable solutions to solve homelessness, because everyone deserves at least that.

            While researching this topic, I familiarized myself with someone we all should know, Charles Hull, the inventor of stereolithography. This was a process discovered over 30 years ago and it has just begun to go mainstream as 3D printing. It blew my mind that this was a technology discovered before the internet. As with all innovations, it takes time and large institutional investments to drive the price down, but with companies such as Formlabs coming to prominence in the last decade, we can surely say 3D printing is here to stay.

           Nonetheless, concrete 3D printers are typically the type which are used currently in 3D printed houses, so it is still a niche within the industry that is not necessarily accessible or affordable for the average person yet. With that taken into account, they are typically reasonably priced, rarely crossing the $20,000 threshold. However, even the everyday firm architect experiences significant value adds from incorporating the 3D printing process into their workflow.

            For starters, 3D printing can help clients better visualize and scale a potential project. Mini-cities and structures could be easily developed to show urban planners how another building would influence the landscape, and let clients get a sneak peak of their dream home through scaled down models. It also allows for simple remote collaboration, as architects could edit the digital files anywhere around the world, and then print them remotely themselves.

Additionally, by moving this manual process to a digital format, architects will inherently save time and money throughout the design process. Yet the most important aspect could be what is the equivalent of the open source code community. By lowering the cost and time effects of creating digital models, architects will be more encouraged to start repositories of their 3D designs, allowing the greater community to leverage and build off them. I can’t wait to see the GitHub equivalent in the architecture or design industries!

            On the higher level, we see 3D printing continuously used more to 3D print houses directly. ICON is currently leading the field, with their printer being able to create communities with houses up to 2,000 square feet! The previously mentioned partnership with New Story subsidizes these types of houses for the developing world, specifically targeting families who live on less than $200 per month. It is reassuring to see industry trailblazers continuing to conduct business with a social impact; that is our responsibility as early adopters of disruptive technology.

            Even though I can’t wait to own my mini-empire of personal 3D printed homes all across the globe, 3D printing is making an impact in architecture far beyond replacing traditional home construction (as if that wasn’t enough already). Just this month, a team of Boston University researches unveiled a shape which blocks 94% of sound. The ring-like figure is “mathematically designed, [and made from a] 3D-printed acoustic metamaterial [that] is shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from” (Fast Company). 3D printing is literally spearheading an architectural and design movement which will serve as our infrastructure backbone for at least the coming decades.

           The influence of 3D printing in architecture has arguably even been felt. We’re finally closing in on an era of affordable housing in which entire communities can appear out of nowhere in a matter of days. Architects will delve into an age of newfound collaboration and digital innovation which will stimulate real estate development at a lower cost. And maybe scientists will even 3D print more ridiculous innovations which alter the sensory output of our environments. 3D printing will disrupt architecture in a way few expect, but in a way which will never leave our world looking the same.

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Pre Make-a-thon

For once, this week’s class did not involve waking up for 9am class! The lecture was moved to Tuesday night as we gathered with 3 different classes and officially announced the kickoff of the Make-a-Thon event. The room was buzzing with excitement from the other students, but definitely filled with some overwhelm and stress from peers in 357. We’re finally going to have to make a final prototype within 2 weeks from today.

At this point, we have more or less settled on a concrete strategy. We will use inspiration from current joystick cover solutions to create a lower cost product. Most of the market is saturated with products which end up costing well over $60 when accounting for tax. The disabled community is already one of the lowest earning demographics, and it makes no sense to monetize of a disability, so we are keen to undercut the market and steal market share from overpriced competitors.

We will need materials help during the make-a-thon. Thankfully we have a designer and a coder so simple software solutions will be able to be easily implemented. However, the most pressing question is which filament is malleable enough to make a joystick cover? It needs to be able to resist water, fold and wrap around the arm of the chair.

Make-a-thon is bound to leave us with some marvelous experiences and I’m excited to finally bring our concept to life.

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Culmination at the FabLab

A bittersweet moment occurred this week when we realized we will not be in the FabLab space again. These 3 weeks were filled with exploration, innovation and assimilation into a working space that mimics an adult playground. The hours flew by in the FabLab as we finally wrapped up our projects and finalized our watches, utilizing laser cutters, Arduinos and more in the meantime. It was an extremely insightful experience which reminded all of us business majors at how technically incompetent we truly are.

 Later, we broke up into our teams and began storyboarding our user experience. We walked through each necessary step that our target user would have to go through in order to utilize our product correctly. A user manual will most likely need to be provided since any mechanism which protects the power chair joystick will need set up and an attachment.

We’re on spring break right now and are at the stage of conducting market research to find a product-market fit and exploit it once we get back. April is going to be extremely busy as we have a make-a-thon in the 2nd week which is supposed to expedite this product development cycle.

I’d be lying if I said overwhelm wasn’t starting to creep in. As a second semester senior I am slated with 3 group projects, and a venture which I am taking through COZAD so it is especially difficult to dedicate the necessary time to excel. All 4 projects require damn near full-time attention which makes it unfeasible and very difficult to cater to each of the requirements. Something I’ve already realized is that the business curriculum needs to push more of these group projects to freshman and sophomores before the older class begins to start developing a stronger sense of autonomy.

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Arduinos

This week’s session in the FabLab was especially exciting for me, since I had missed the inaugural week. We delved right in by working with Arduinos, breadboards, and LEDs. You could say it lit up the room. Personally, I had a cool reconnection with a colleague who I had not seen in 11 months who just happened to be an employee at our local FabLab.

Nonetheless, our updated design challenge is oriented around electrical engineering as we are looking to create a sealant for power wheelchairs to prevent the wiring of the steering handle from getting soaked in the rain. This causes malfunctions and deteriorates the wheelchair significantly faster. I do not expect us to do any wiring, however it is beneficial to discover which electrical components are currently most at risk.

Milestone Labs also gave us a plethora of great insight. They recommended looking at wetsuits, boating, fishing, and general aqua activities for inspiration. We were also directed to look at motorcyclists and how they remain protected when riding in the rain. Other general sealants will also be important for us to look at.

Since our main purpose is now to prevent electrical damage from water leakage, the filament of our 3D print is also a vital factor. We need to ensure that the filament would not let water penetrate the electrical circuit.

I believe the biggest challenge will come with customization. If the steering handles are different based on model, then we will most likely need to create 3D printed molds for each model. However, if there is a limited amount of variation then scalability will prove to be a negligible issue.

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FabLab

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this week’s class and I missed our first day in the FabLab! They have a plethora of tools there available such as the laser engraver, loads of 3D printers, electronic cutters, milling machines, and more. Through the pre-class activities, I familiarized myself with some of the tools through the FabLab’s tutorial page. I can’t wait to get back next week and try them out.

The elementary Arduino tutorial was also extremely useful and was a great introduction into firmware and embedded systems. The FabLab is where we have access to more developed resources which we can use to create the best version of our product.

I also met with Yen, who is a member of the wheelchair track team as well. Our discussion led to some new realizations and I think we are going to need to pivot the scope of our project. We realized than standard, undifferentiated accessories are not really a value add in the user’s lives. Adjustable frames and headsets for children’s wheelchairs are the conclusions that quickly arose once Yen and I had a conversation about her childhood and the scope of our project.

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Fusion

Week 6 took a very exciting turn as we finally delved deeply into creating 3D models in Autodesk Fusion360. Our pre-class activity consisted on making a box-like crate, and we continued getting familiarized with Fusion through further making with Autodesk professionals.

By becoming acquainted with the software, we gained a significantly better understanding on how to approach design challenges with our end user mind. Simple things such as altering the material had an impact which must be accounted for. Lucky for us, color tends to not make as big of a difference – which be a vital factor when we approach our final prototype.

At the end of class, we delved deeper into exploring our project’s themes, insights and guiding questions. We came to the conclusion that we will really need to hone in on how wheelchairs would want to customize their chair. The ability to customize exists, but we need to find out which accessories will bring them the most joy.

Nonetheless, once the design challenge is worked through, we realized that creating awareness about the products will be a huge challenge. A useful or desired accessory is useless if the target users do not know about its existence. Our challenge, became very 2 sided, as merely creating it will not bring the results we desire to see. We will need to effectively market and inform the users about the accessory if we aspire to make a meaningful impact.

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Diverge, Converge, Repeat

Class today was quite speaker heavy. Amongst everyone who presented a PowerPoint of sorts, we had 4 different speakers… lots of information to take in, however a few ideas really stood out to me. Initially, I would love to start off with the idea of diverging and then converging. I like to think of this as ideation then analysis. Our readings labeled this process synthesis. We capture our learnings, discover the significance of them, and ultimately create actionable takeaways to move forward with.

One of our TAs presented this concept right before our group activity. It is crucial to let ideas out, having them free-flow and generate one after another. Nonetheless, it is then necessary to analyze these ideas and converge your choices to be able to make a focused decision. Overall, today’s session was an epitome of that. The 4 speakers presented countless ideas and insights, which we then had to prioritize and analyze within the scopes of our projects within the DRES community.  

Accordingly, the two ideas which I converged on by the end of class were customization and accessibility, which yes does seem like the recurring theme for me and my group. John Hornick initially mentioned customization as one of the pillars of 3D printing. Customization allows for individuality and personality to be expressed through utilitarian design, which is an extremely rare combination. Until now, wheelchairs have been viewed as a means to an end, with limited ability for the user to inject his or her own ideation into it.

3D printing encourages individuals to take matters into their own hands and solve problems with an initiative – their own initiative. This individual empowerment is what the final speaker, Jeff Ginger from FabLab honed in on. We were shown the plethora of the design spaces available, however merely 7 were available to the general student population. The rest required some sort of special access. He dubbed this rather useless and inefficient, and frankly I agree. What good are resources if they are not accessible?

Our team looked at this within the scope of wheelchair accessories and creating something which the target community that they will actually want. We want to make it accessible through not only price point, but also desire. This will require analyzing consumer product trends and created marketing campaigns to increase the product awareness once we launch. Design is insignificant if there is not a user desire.