Entrepreneurial Institute

Meet the Spring 2021 Prototyping Fund Cohort!

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The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and the Design Lab @ NYU Tandon MakerSpace are pleased to announce the Spring 2021 Prototyping Fund cohort!

The Prototyping Fund provides students with the necessary support and resources to bring their ideas to life and advance to the next stage of product development. This semester, 6 teams were awarded grants from across the University; students from Tisch, Gallatin, Tandon, GSAS, Wagner, and Steinhardt will participate.

On Friday, March 5th the cohort met virtually to review prototyping best practices and kick off the program. Participating teams are working on projects ranging from sustainable beef jerky, to educational STEM tech kits, and virtual chess boards. While each project is quite different, many of the prototyping principles remain the same. The awardees will use their prototypes to ask questions, test with users, and learn quickly. We encouraged the teams to use prototypes as a method to fail safely (and cheaply) and ultimately, to begin testing as soon as possible. 

Prototyping Fund cohort meeting on March 5

Learn more about the cohort below. We are excited to see what these teams build and how they creatively test/get user feedback in the largely virtual environment. 

Cyobot: open-source tech kits to help young adults learn STEM through building multifunctional creative innovations. Roxy Ho, Steinhardt MA ‘21; Duy Nguyen; David Truong

Grow Together: a community platform and game that encourages interactivity and personal care through the maintenance of a variety of medicinal plants. Cameron Womack, Tandon MS ‘22; Kai Lin, Wagner MA ‘21; Tim O'keefe, Tandon Faculty

Fishel Aquaponics: is creating a simple-to-use and beautiful indoor aquaponics kit to help ecologically oriented fish-enthusiasts eliminate the boring and time-consuming chore of regularly changing tank water while improving the health of their fish. EW, GSAS '21 & EJ, GSAS ‘18

Quadruped Robot: A 4-legged robot capable of dynamic balance and transportation of small parcels built to be more affordable than current existing 4-legged robots. Xinyang (Thomas) Liu, Tandon BS ‘21; Austin Stenstedt, Tandon BS ’21; Yuewei Fu, Tandon BS ‘21; Eion Tyacke, Tandon BS ‘21; Anthony Paul, Tandon BS ‘21

Jackson's Beef Jerky: A delicious beef jerky made with grass fed beef, 100 percent organic ingredients, and without GMO's, nitrates, and preservatives. Jackson Baris, Gallatin BA ‘24 & Maya Peters, Tisch BA ‘24

Virtual Chessboard: A chessboard with an automated system that moves pieces for you, allowing users to play with friends and family virtually. Duhee Han, Tandon BS ‘21 & Gregory Pustorino, Tandon BS ‘21

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