Archive for Robotics

Debbie Sterling & “GoldieBlox”

Debbie Sterling (now 40) started her business “GoldieBlox,” at age 29 in 2012. GoldieBlox creates toys that introduce children (especially girls) to STEM at a young age. Their website includes categories of toys targeted at various ages ranging from 0-10 years.

As an engineering student at Stanford, Sterling couldn’t help but notice that she was one of the only girls in the department. Even worse, when it came to the hands-on part of her engineering classes, she struggled a lot more than the men did. Sterling realized the problem: boys grow up playing with hands-on, STEM-like toys (such as construction toys), but girls don’t. So, Sterling wanted to find a way to introduce young girls to STEM.

To solve this problem, Sterling created the first-ever girl engineering character: GoldieBlox. The “GoldieBlox” toy included a girl-targeted construction kit paired with a book that told a story about Goldie while guiding in the use of the toy.

Early on, Sterling faced rejection of her “GoldieBlox” toy at the International Toy Fair in NYC. Many people told her that girls “only want to play with princesses;” a STEM-related toy wouldn’t sell. However, Sterling truly believed in her idea, so she posted it on Kickstarter–and it was met with huge support. GoldieBlox received large amounts of funding and media coverage.

As GoldieBlox gained more sales and popularity, it received astounding recognition. GoldieBlox had a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, won a free Super Bowl commercial, and was honored by the President.

Debbie Sterling is an incredible example of a young entrepreneur. She encountered a true problem and realized that it doesn’t just affect her, but also all little girls everywhere. Then, she applied a unique solution that no one else had discovered. Even after facing initial rejection, Sterling didn’t give up; she stayed true to herself and persevered, as all young entrepreneurs often have to.

Keiana Cavé: Chemical and Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurship

Keiana Cavé, a STEM-minded, 24-year-old, is truly brilliant. At the age of only fifteen, she began studying oil spills, specifically the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This research sparked two of her major inventions: a method that would detect oil spills in a body of water and later, a molecule that would help better disperse said oil and fight carcinogens created when the sun hits it. These two inventions have won her $1.2 million of research money from Chevron and have led her to begin a research startup, called Mare, which aims to counteract toxins and carcinogens in personal/home products. 

Cavé attended the University of Michigan as a chemical engineering student but soon dropped out to continue growing her businesses. She has worked for Microsoft, Francensca’s, and Lululemon as a brand representative and website designer, not to mention Mare and her newest company, Sublima Pharmaceuticals. Cavé is the CEO and founder of Sublima Pharmaceuticals which is currently in the process of creating the first FDA-approved, non-hormonal birth control pill, a pretty groundbreaking concept. 

I am not STEM-minded at all but nevertheless, Cavé’s story really inspired me. Especially after reading about how she never saw herself being where she is now. It really reminded me that life can go completely off track in the best of ways and that you can’t sell yourself short, because great things may be waiting. 

 

Sources:

https://www.michigandaily.com/statement/student-of-the-year-keiana-cave/

https://thestrive.co/successful-young-entrepreneurs-stories/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiana_Cav%C3%A9

https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/articles/meet-some-of-the-brightest-young-entrepreneurs/

Let’s Talk Trash: Trashbots

After teaching at orphanages in India, two brothers, Rohit and Sidharth Srinivasan, noticed that the lack of educational resources available prevented children from learning the latest skills in technology.

Their solution? Trashbots, a company that takes an innovative approach to providing low-cost, effective tools to teach 21st-century computer science, robotics, math, and science to underprivileged children.

The Srinivasans designed Trashbots to work with open-source platforms, thus making the kits accessible to kids in rural and remote areas. Another advantage of the Trashbots platform is the scalability for children of all ages; kindergarteners can learn the basics of building without electronics, or older children can begin coding with “block programming” (synced with the Trashbots app) to program the robot to do anything (like dancing to music!)

A typical kit includes gears, pucks, axels, and starting “trash” (often rubber bands and popsicle sticks) as well as the Trashbots engine and USB cable. From there, Trashbots encourages young inventors to use anything from their local environment to add to the robot.

What further differentiates Trashbots’ kits is their ability to meet the needs of school districts, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, Trashbots began working with school districts to ship the kits directly to students’ homes.

The Srinivasans are revolutionizing the world of STEM, making coding and engineering available to children of all ages, regardless of background. With each kit, Trashbots takes one man’s trash and makes it another child’s treasure.

 

Easton LaChappelle: Unlimited Tomorrow

TrueLimb - Next-Generation Prosthetic Arm

Easton LaChappelle had an interest in robotics in high school, but he found a mission when he met a young girl at a science fair who had an expensive and limited prosthetic device.  He set to work developing innovative prosthetic limbs with a focus on the impact they would have on his customers.  Unlimited Tomorrow tries to optimize the customer experience by providing an inexpensive, custom prosthetic, and the customer never has to leave their house.  They do this by shipping a 3D scanner to the customer that creates a model of the customer’s full arm which is then used to make a model for the prosthetic.  Unlimited Tomorrow uses 3D printing to easily make custom prosthetics.  After modeling the part, Unlimited Tomorrow sends several sockets to the customer to ensure the best possible fit for the prosthetic.  The prosthetic uses sensors to collect muscle data, and it then uses this to control the movement of the prosthetic.  The prosthetic costs about $8000 which is an eighth of the cost of traditional prosthetics, and if the customer outgrows their prosthetic, Unlimited Tomorrow will sell them a new one at half price.  Unlimited Tomorrow’s prosthetics are some of the most realistic available since they are modeled off of the customer’s full arm, provide natural movement, and even customize the color to match the customer’s skin tone.  The prosthetics are also intuitive to learn how to operate and lightweight to improve their functionality.  Unlimited Tomorrow uses crowdfunding and partnerships to be able to keep their costs low and stay true to their mission of putting their customers first through the development of innovative technology.

 

Hotel Bacteria? No problem.

Many people who travel become sick either during or after. Hotels are one of the most dirtiest and most bacteria filled places on the earth. One never knows when the last time the hotel correctly washed the room, changed the sheets or even dusted. People worry where the sheets have been, who has slept on them, and what has been on the sheets. Well there is now a solution to this long lived problem. Introducing Cleansbot, a portable device that people can bring everywhere on the go.  This hand held robot kills bacteria on any service but most importantly hotel sheets. CleanseBot is a smart robot with artificial intelligence and 18 sensors built in. It uses FOUR UV-C lamps to blast away 99.99% of germs and bacteria.  All one has to do is set the CleanseBot down on the bed, turn it on for either 30 or 60 minutes and it sanitizes and disinfects the hotel’s bed sheets and blankets. Not only does CleanseBot kill germs, bacteria, and dust mites, but UV-C light has been proven in many studies to actually help prevent the spread of airborne viruses, too.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cleansebot/worlds-first-bacteria-killing-robot?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI56GL0fKb3wIVBUSGCh1_pQcREAAYASAAEgI1mfD_BwE&ref=4k18os&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=bb234-green-1a

Piper: The new way to code!

I remember when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I found an interest in coding. That is writing code on a computer for software development. However, I ran into a major issue. There weren’t many options for me to learn how to do anything spectacular. I constantly became upset because the YouTube videos I was watching did nothing for me. That is why Mark Pavlyukovskyy age 27 created Piper. “Piper is a kit that helps kids learn about coding and electronics by coding their own computer.” Forbes

This kit is able to be bought on Amazon for a fair price. It helps students to learn how to code with a hands on activity kit. This way the students stay engaged with what they are learning and they are able to put what they learn to use. The company has generated over $3 million on Amazon alone, and growing fast!

Built by kids from the inside-out

Helping to Bring Sight to the Blind

Shubham Banerjee was just 12 when he founded Braigo Labs. This is a company developing Braille printers with the ability to take online text, convert it to braille, and print it out.  More than that, Shubham redeveloped this process for 3D. This cuts the price of the printer by more than 1,000 dollars, which keeps the price in the low hundreds. This allows the impact to reach people in every economic class. Image result for shubham banerjee

Shubham writes about his inspirations for this company on their website. He states that 285 million people are visually impared and 90% live in the developing world. What he likes about his printers is that they are D-I-Y. This allows for an easy adoption process by customers. Image result for shubham banerjee

Truthfully Shubham tells the story and mission way better himself. He is quite young, but extremely entrepreneurial in his thinking. At just twelve he started having extreme impact on the world. It will be neat to see how this technology develops and how people will utilize it.

Tech for First-Responders

Young entrepreneurs are always impressive, but Mihir Garimella is one that really strikes me. He made in on an 18 under 18 list for inspiring entrepreneurs and businesses owns. Mihir is currently a sophomore at Stanford has a passion for working with robotics. His mission is to create real impact. He has definitely accomplished this through his invention of the Firefly.

At the age of 17 Mihir designed The Firefly, a modified drone which is specifically designed for  first-responders. It allows them to explore situations and disasters that could be dangerous and helps to find trapped survivors.

The Firefly is only one of Mihir’s creations. He has started work on projects that included self driving cars, adding scent to the movie theater experience, image processing that will help doctors with diagnosing patients, an app called Series which helps solve complex calculus problems using handwriting recognition and Citelt, a tool for writing correct bibliographies.

Image result for firefly drone mihir

Mihir is a strong example of the left and right brain working cohesively and productively to create new and amazing things. I am excited to see the impact that will come from his hard work and passion.

Teal Drones: World’s Fastest Commercial Drone

George Matus was only 12 years old when he created his own flying quadcopter. As he got older he became frustrated with the drone options that were on the market. They were restrictive for they were either only racing or only for taking pictures and video. So, he created his own “wish list” of things that he wanted in a drone and went to work making prototypes. After dozens of versions of drones and hours of test flying and crashing he was able to create his dream drone at the age of 16. The drone is capable of flying faster than 70 mph and can withstand wind of up to 40 mph. The product is yet to be released but Matus has plans to release the drone next year with a starting price of $1,300. To date, Teal Drones has raised over $3 million in fundraising and has an extremely bright future ahead.

CNBC: George Matus, founder and CEO of Teal

 

Article Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/12/meet-the-18-year-old-entrepreneur-who-built-the-worlds-fastest-drone.html

 

Braigo Labs

Meet Shubham Banerjee, a 17 year old boy who decided to solve a problem that has hindered a community for years. The Blind community has struggled with having access to braille, “the tactile writing system used by the visually impaired”, thus creating everyday life a challenge difficult to overcome. Banerjee decided that it was time for a change and took matters into his own hands.

Braigo Labs CEO Shubham Banerjee

Before starting Braigo Labs, Banerjee had no idea what braille even was. He came across it one day and talked to his parents about it. After doing some research and realizing that Braille printers can cost upwards of $2,000 he decided to do something about it. He told business insider, “When I found out the cost of a Braille printer, I was shocked, I just wanted to help the visually impaired. I had a Lego Robotics kit, so I asked, ‘Why not just try that?'” (Business Insider).  The small step of creating a printer with his legos grew into a full blown company able to help the 285 million visually impaired people in the world.

After a few prototypes he became recognized in outlets such as The Tech Awards 2014 and The White House Maker Faire. The reason his product is so influential is because a Braigo Labs printer will cost under $500 thus making it more affordable for the visually impaired around the world. He wants the visually impaired even in developing countries to have access to Braille.

Braigo Labs

The First Braigo Labs Prototype.

Entrepreneurs can learn from Shubham Banerjee because he came across a niche community that had a huge gap and decided to fill it in a new and cost-effective way. One thing I found super interesting about Banerjee’s story is that he did not know anything about braille or the blind community before wanting to make a change. You do not have to be an expert on a topic or have worked with an organization for 20 years to make a change, all you need is a compassionate heart and a lego kit.

 

Kim, Eugene. “This 13-Year-Old Is So Impressive, Intel Is Investing Hundreds Of Thousands In His Startup.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 9 Nov. 2014, www.businessinsider.com/shubham-banerjee-braigo-labs-2014-11.