I was just hired on at the Wonder Institute as Director of Operations. I’m really excited about this job because I’m going to get to touch a lot of projects and work in a lot of different areas. Changing the education model has been one of my life goals since my sophomore year of high school and I can finally get to work on it.
Aerosteer Strategies
I recently starting helping out someone starting a company call Aerosteer Strategies. The first product is going to be an app that solves a lot of issues in the cow transportation and logistics field. The founder really knows her stuff about this area so I just help with the design, branding and app development.
Y-Combinator Startup School
I’m taking Ping through Y-Combinator’s Startup School. It’s an online platform where lectures from the people at Y-Combinator are posted to watch. Every week you have to do updates for your startups to keep you KPI’s on track and then you get paired up with 3 or 4 other startups across the nation to have a group video call. It’s super cool to be able to meet all these people I normally wouldn't and be able to help them with their startups.
Army Base in California August 5th - 8th
With the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle (JTARV) initiate I was working for the Army through FirePoint, we invited the companies we were working with out to demo to the Department of Defense at a “JIFX” event. The main company we brought out was Elroy Air. We got to meet a lot of government officials and tech companies with really cool drone technology. The Elroy drone we got to see fly is a class 2 drone which means it’s really big. The wingspan was 30ft on this model.
Innovation.wtf
Innovation.wtf is a really cool domain I have owned for forever. It was always directed towards the Institute of Innovation website but I always thought it should have more potential. So I (with the help of Spencer’s great designs) launched a new website and newsletter. The newsletter is a weekly roundup of things happening in the tech and startup worlds along with cool, informative stuff I read that week. I want to grow the brand and website to more of a commercial focused side of the Institute of Innovation.
URL: Innovation.wtf
Ping
I’ve started a project called Ping. Ping’s mission is to bring sports science to esports players. We are establishing the fundamental assessment tools to determine talent in esports players. We are doing this through neuromotor tests like reaction time and multi-object tracking.
Website: https://pinggaming.org
Sentio
The prototype for Sentio is working. Sentio is augmented reality glasses that use live speech to text translation for hearing impaired people so they can follow along in a conversation, movie or class by reading it on the glasses. We are fixing some bugs but then will get it in front of users for feedback.
The website is sentio.vision
Android Programming
I’ve completed an online android programming course so I can program prototype apps myself now. I’m far from a master but I feel confident enough to dive into a project and get it figured out.
C3 Challenge
The C3 Challenge is a competition launched by FirePoint and the US Army where students design next generation small UAV’s using advanced manufacturing. The goal is to help students more new drone technology out of the lab and into a prototype. My role has been organizing the competition, finding sponsors and designing the website and material.
Chicago Furniture Design and Innovation Conference - NeoCon: Jun 9th - 11th
With the MID people, we went to Chicago to go to NeoCon. NeoCon is the world’s leading conference on furniture design. We were there to meet with Steelcase and talk with them about their innovation process. We got to see first hand the current trends going on in the industry and how they translate to other industries.
Got to hang out with an astronaut: May 21st
We had Mark Stucky, the pilot from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two come and meet the people at NIAR and FirePoint.
FirePoint Aerial Resupply: May 20th
For the Army, we are tasked with helping them source an automated flying vehicle that can resupply troops in the field. This is called JTARV, the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle. When sourcing businesses we made a “Virtual Industry Day” page so they can give information about their drones. For this I recently developed the website.
Machine Learning Course: January - May
I have been taking an online course on machine learning in Python through Udacity.com. It’s been extremely challenging because of my lack of expertise in programming, especial python but I’ve been powering through. I got my first pre-trained network to work and now I’ll be working on making a network from scratch.
Women in Tech Event: May 2nd
The event I’ve been helping organize for the past few weeks finally happened. We had five speakers and all of them were amazing. They told their stories and offered insight into moving forward. The turn out we got was awesome to see. It was a great night and event and I’m looking forward to doing more of these events in the future.
AUVSI XPONENTIAL: April 29th - May 2nd
I got the opportunity to go to the AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) Xponential Conference in Chicago this last week. I was there with FirePoint, representing the Army and finding new technologies that the Army would be interested in. I met some really cool people and saw some amazing technology.
While in Chicago, I also went to MHUb for a tour. It was just a weird coincidence that when we were supposed to going on the tour, they were having a fireside chat with Joseph DeSimone, the CEO of Carbon. I got to meet and chat with him which was very cool.
Sway Medical Clinical Study: April 1st - 11th
The last two weeks I have been working in the Human Performance Lab at Wichita State running a study on the Sway Medical and Impact apps. The point of this study was to generate data showing Sway is as accurate as Impact since Impact is FDA approved and Sway is only partly FDA approved. Both apps use a series of tests to determine the cognitive and motor function state of the individual to test if a concussion has occurred.
This wasn't for a class or anything, but I learned a lot about research design and conducting a study with 100+ people.
Trip to Iowa: April 19th
This morning I flew to Iowa for a few hours in one of my business partners planes. We went there to examine some land because the last few months we have been establishing a business plan for building a large scale hydroponics farm. This project around the future of healthy food and how to feed everyone as the population continues to grow is extremely interesting to me and I’m excited to build this farm.
Also, I’m convinced I need to get my pilots license and a plane.
Insurance App - March 20th
Recently I got the chance to work with Assurity Insurance with along with the Innovation Design cohort. Their need was to reach new customers in new and innovative ways using digital domains. After talking to college kids on their thoughts and needs of insurance was, we identified the main problem points was transparency in how the insurance actually works and how much it would cost. I designed them an app that rounds up transactions in your bank account in order to pay for your monthly premium while being able to immediately adjust your insurance amounts in the app. That way it is automated and user driven.
Link: https://xd.adobe.com/view/05200f99-d34b-4e40-7211-7ddface40c66-7311/?hints=off
Brackeys Game Jam: February 18th - 22nd
This last week I was on a team of about five who developed a game for the Brackeys Game Jam. The game jam is an annual international competition where team create a game over the course of a week and then submit it to be judged. This years theme was “love is blind”. Our game is a light futuristic cyberpunk setting where robots have suddenly turned evil and you have to complete a course while shooting them. You have a robotic guide and helper named Avon (named after Shakespeare’s home). Spoiler: at the end she turns on you and betrays your trust, hence the theme “love is blind”. Full disclosure: I’m not taking credit for making this whole game, I was on a team of awesome and talented people who did the majority of the work. I just helped out and did the parts I was good at. I’m proud of it nonetheless.
See the game page to play and download
Invent for the Planet: February 15th - 17th
This weekend I helped mentor at Invent for the Planet. Invent for the Planet is where students come in and get to choose problems statements from all over the world. Some this year was like solving for “rural health” and “using VR to connect people”. They spend all weekend working on their projects and then present them to judges. The student groups came up with some cool ideas and, I with other people from the Masters of Innovation Design program, were there all weekend helping the teams refine their ideas and craft their pitches.
