Hardware Accelerator 2018 Kicks Off: Week 1

Rev: Ithaca Startup Work’s 4th annual Hardware Accelerator just launched and the new cohort of startups is poised and ready to take their companies to the next level. For 11 weeks, 8 teams, each with their own business ideas, will engage in an intense summer program that guides them through the process for determining if their ideas are commercially desirable, technologically viable, and economically feasible.

During Week One of the Hardware Accelerator, there is a four day Skills Camp where teams have the opportunity to learn the basics, get acquainted with each other, and learn important tools and principles they will use for the next ten weeks. After getting the basics down, they jumped into the first of three program sprints.

On day one of Skills Camp, the teams practiced a goal setting exercise to learn about setting reachable goals, both long and short term, and identifying steps in order to accomplish these goals.

Architect In Shik Lee, Adjust Professor of Design at Tompkins Cortland Community College, shook things up by challenging the teams to think creatively, from different perspectives. Under her guidance, the teams practiced sketching and paper prototyping. Lee explained how important design is in the prototyping process.

Guest speaker Dan Banach from Autodesk also lead a session to train teams on Fusion 360, an advanced 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software that teams will use for designing and iterating their prototypes.

To wrap up Skills Camp, the teams did a prototyping exercise with micro:bit where they practiced low-resolution prototyping and customer testing.

Keep up with the latest Hardware Accelerator happenings on our blog and save the date for the big Hardware Demo Day at Rev on Thursday, August 9, 2018. RSVP to save your spot.