Author: chrisdmccoy

Back on January 25th, the students at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, CA were challenged to execute a Rapid Innovation Cycle (RIC) – a process that helps people quickly generate new product or service experiments that allow them to test the “unforgiving market place” and gather insights on the potential success of the concept being tested. The TV Video Production class led by teacher Ms. Katie McQuone invited Chris McCoy–the co-creator of the Rapid Innovation Cycle–the opportunity to share the RIC process with her students in order to spawn “student-driven” projects.  K-12 educators have a responsibility to deliver curriculums that implement “linked learning” to bolster student engagement.   Researchers at UC Berkeley and others have experimentally proven that students are much more “engaged” and have much better “knowledge retention” when they own and generate the projects by which they apply skills and concepts learned in the classroom.   This leads to higher student success both in school and post graduation.  The Connected California website is a good resource for more information on similar

read more Sunnyside High School uses the Rapid Innovation Cycle to generate new product ideas

So the RaverRing Kickstarter Project has been alive and breathing for just over 1 week now.  I have to say, the Kickstarter experience has been very fun, exciting and interesting. First, before we begin to ramble about the odds and ends of running a Kickstarter like a boss, we’d like to give a HUGE THANKS TO ALL OF OUR BACKERS THUS FAR!  YOU GUYS AND GALS ARE AWESOME, VISIONARY, BADASS and WE LOVE YOU FOR IT!  We understand it takes a leap of faith to place a bet on people who run Kickstarter campaigns, but rest assured, we’re going to make this experience well worth your investment.  Not only in delivery of your rewards, but we have some other tricks up our sleeves that we’re going to provide to you as exclusive, first-week backers!  Some things we’re thinking about: Sending you in advance your RaverRings (you’ll be helping us beta test our forms to ensure we’re asking all of the

read more Kickstarter First Week Update #2

What is up people!!  We launched a Kickstarter project!!  It’s the first one that we’re aware of spawning directly from a You3Dit.com project but hopefully not the last. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/957705753/raver-rings-light-me-up Within the first 24 hours, we had 6 backers which was exciting to say the least!  Four more the following day and one more today.  There are still EARLY-BIRD prices on some of our rewards so buy them now before they run out!! We received a couple of early messages from people in the Kickstarter community but mainly just to help us get more promotion and help boosting our campaign.  While it’s awesome to have people want to help, we believe that the #RaverRings should be able to stand on their own coolness.  Obviously Timur and Chris will continue to push the campaign through as many clever social media and gorilla marketing tactics possible. HUGE THANKS goes out to Cubicity.com!  They’ve graciously sponsored our initial set of RaverRing filament in a

read more Kickstarter Launch Week Update #1

UPDATED (February 10, 2015): New questions answered below! On Tuesday, Chris had the privilege of hosting an special group from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and introducing them to the world of 3D printing but with a twist…3D Printing the context of food and health.  Additionally, the talk expanded beyond 3D printing into the world of digital design and fabrication and how those technologies as well can and are being used in some cases in food innovations. Concepts such as 3D printing paste made from mashed cricket guts, laser cutting chocolate for caloric intake metering and laser etching ingredients right onto (and into) the foods we consume.  The goal for the group was to get their minds thinking differently about how the food industry might look in the future as these technologies go mainstream.  The USDA plays a large part today in keeping Americans safe from food and food-technologies that lack full insight to their impact on health.

read more USDA Visits the TechShop in San Francisco and Learns About 3D Printing in the Context of Food and Health

On Saturday, January 24, 2015, Chris had the privilege to present on behalf of You3Dit Inc to the Ventura County Office of Education and their newly credentialed K12 teaching staff.  Competing with about 7 other seminars at the same time, we packed Salon B with about 60x educators who were eager to learn more about digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing, laser cutting and desktop CNC. In addition, Chris also presented on the Rapid Innovation Cycle (as developed by Hands-on Rapid Innovation) as a method for driving linked- and project-based learning activities for students.  This process enables students to quickly develop market tests where prototypes are preferred over ideas and data generated from real market feedback helps drive the business decisions in both entrepreneurial and educational environments. A HUGE THANKS goes out to Mr. Mark Urwick, Robert Hochberg and Jacquelyn Lozano for all their help and facilitation throughout the day. VCOE Technology Integration Session Details Presented by Dr. Chris D.

read more Educating Educators on the Power of Digital Design and Fabrication