The NYU Prototyping Fund is a collaborative program offered by the Design Lab @ NYU Tandon MakerSpace, the Technology Management and Innovation Department, and New York City Future Manufacturing Collective (NYC-FMC), that awards teams of students up to $500 in the first round of funding and up to $2,000 in the second to be used to build hardware or software prototypes, and connects them with the resources, tools, and mentors they need to bring their ideas to life and move to the next stage of product development, while encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration between students at NYU. This semester, 11 teams were selected to represent 4 NYU schools, totaling to almost $4,000 dollars! Schools included College of Arts and Science, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Tandon School of Engineering.
Throughout their workshops and sessions, they discussed various prototyping techniques as well as “why” and “how” to prototype. Participating teams worked on projects ranging from a boxing helmet with embedded pressure sensors to a wall climbing robot that can be used for inspecting building facades to an LED alarm rug. While some teams are working on physical prototypes and digital components – the principles of early testing, asking questions, and learning from users apply to all of the projects. We encouraged the teams to use prototypes as a method to fail safely (and cheaply) and ultimately, to begin testing as soon as possible.
On Thursday, December 8th, the cohort showcased their projects in the NYU MakerSpace’s EventSpace. The teams each had to work on their projects, make a poster, and a video explaining their process and designs. Some common themes that popped up were accessibility, safety, and robotics. Learn more about the cohort below. We are so proud of how hard the teams worked to build, creatively tested, and received user feedback while using design thinking techniques!
Congratulations to the Teams!
Alarm Rug: Weight sensitive alarm clock rug with Android app. Sima Ha (Tandon BS ‘24), Christina Woo (Tandon BS ‘25), Stacey Lee (Tandon BS ‘25), & Tingting Min (Tandon BS ‘25)
Modula: Modula is a smarter and more portable cooling solution for your personal
computer. Modula can fit perfectly into your standard size backpack and be
wirelessly controlled from your computer. Zack Nguyen (Tandon ‘25), Kai Wang (Tandon ‘25), & Lucas Li (Tandon ‘25)
Tactonnets: A Tactile Annotation Tool for blind and visually impaired students,
designed specifically for examining rhyme scheme, syllable patterns,
and metrical feet in highly structured poems such as Sonnets. Marilena Orfanos (Steinhardt Masters ‘23)
Aroid PerfectPole: A modular plant support system for vertically climbing
tropical plants. Cara Hsiao (Stern ’26)
BoxeFence: A sensing headgear that makes boxing safer and more enjoyable. Praneeth Challagonda (Tandon MS ‘22) & Riccardo Negri (Tandon MS ‘22)
AuDA (Automated Dibner Assistant): A self-driving robot, built using CNN, realsense, & a database with library architecture, that will be able to bring a student to their book given its encoded location. Daniel Zhang (Tandon BS ’25), Junho So (Tandon BS ’25), Ka Seung Soo (Tandon BS ’25), & Ryan You (Tandon BS ’25)
ViBrush: An electronic climbing brush for improved efficiency. Anthony Sukotjo (CAS CS ‘24) & Kieren Gill (CAS CS‘24)
MagMove: Platform to test proof-of-concept method for manipulating modular robots using distributed magnetic field. Yosef Nofal (Tandon MS‘24), Hanwen Zhao (Tandon PHD’24), & Bassant Mohamed (Tandon MS‘24)
EASEEbot: A robot that records moisture readings on building roofs and exports those readings in respect to its position. Our goal is to help building scientists identify anomalies. Bilal Sher (Tandon MS ‘22), Talha Javed (Tandon MS ‘23), Naveen Kumar (Tandon MS ‘23), Sruti Madhusudhan (Tandon MS ‘23), Siddharth Mahesh (Tandon MS ‘23), & Aravindan Vasudevan (Tandon MS ‘23)
Ro4Coin: An absolutely compact and portable coin organizer. Designed to make everyone comfortable with the confusing sizes of U.S. coins and troublesome sales tax and tips in cash. Noki Leung (Tandon Masters ‘22)
Dip Coater: A compact machine that can be used to obtain uniform and
consistent thin coatings on a substrate. Letian (Richard) Li (Tandon BS ‘25), Ana Vataj (Tandon BS/MS ‘24), Shlok Paul (Tandon PhD ‘24), & Ingrid Parades (Tandon Assistant Professor)
Learn more about the NYU MakerSpace’s funding opportunities.
