HWTrek sponsored 30 hardware creators and accelerators to visit Taiwan, Beijing, and Shenzhen on Asia Innovation Tour 2015 in August—and also in April 2014. We’re doing it again this spring. Register on the HWTrek platform and create a project to apply to join the next Asia Innovation Tour 2016 cohort destined to meet manufacturing industry experts, see assembly lines, and gain insights about China’s market in April 2016.
We reached out to Arlene Ducao (Chief at DuKode/DuKorp) to learn more about the development of MindRider. Arlene participated in Asia Innovation Tour this past August.
HWTrek: Tell us about your experience on Asia Innovation Tour
I had an incredible experience on the HWTrek Asia Tour! I think it is incredibly useful for any hardware startup facing manufacturing issues––and in the age of crowdfunding, there are multitudes of new startups, including mine, that could really use this kind of exposure. The tour is also a great firsthand introduction for any emerging product engineer or designer who wants to learn more about scaling their technology. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was particularly valuable to take the tour with an Asia-based startup that has the experience, local and regional connections, and credibility to make for a true insider’s-view.
HWTrek: Please introduce yourself and your project
[I] make technologies that examine the relationship between the natural landscape, our built environments, and ourselves. [I am] a chief at DuKode/DuKorp and inventor of MindRider, the mind-mapping helmet system profiled in WIRED, New York Times, Discovery Channel, MSNBC, Fast Company, Science Channel, and many more. [I] teach at NYU and MIT, and hold degrees from UMD, SVA, and MIT.
HWTrek: What’s the inspiration for your project? What problem does it solve or address?
MindRider was [my] initial project as a Research Assistant in the MIT Media Lab’s Information Ecology group. Safety is one of MindRider’s underlying concerns; even after years of daily bike commuting through heavy traffic and urban environments, many cyclists still feel vulnerable amidst cars, trucks, and buses. In the past months, our team come to realize that people really want to better understand how MindRider maps are useful, and how they can be combined with other kinds of maps. To support this, we prepared a new book-length study called MindRider Maps Manhattan. It includes the first map of a city’s mental snapshot, compared against standard traffic, vehicle, zoning, and municipal datasets. Read more and get your copy of the study at http://mindriderdata.com.
HWTrek: What solutions did you use for hardware design?
Solidworks, Maya, Eagle, Bits & Bits CNC mill, New York-area 3D printer facilities.
HWTrek: What solutions did you use for prototyping?
NeuroSky API, iOS SDK, Arduino, Maple (LeafLabs), hand-modeled clay and paper forms.
HWTrek: What are the takeaways and lessons learned from working on this project that you’d like to share with other hardware startups?
- Crowd is tricky, particularly converting crowd views to crowd desire, and then to crowd funding.
- Wearable is tricky. People are very particular about what they wear!
- Too many new things in one product is tricky.
- “Project” versus “Product” is tricky. The crowdfund marketplace is confusing. Some campaigns are indeed projects created by one or a few people with little funding, others are finished products created by a funded, professional team. There is an inherent tension in most crowdfund sites– while their founding values are based on grassroots “projects,” they make millions of dollars on slick “products.” So it doesn’t look like the confusion will go away any time soon.
Discovery Daily Planet’s Future Tech: MindRider from mindrider on Vimeo.
HWTrek: What trend do you see that is changing your sector/industry or what shift would you like to see happen?
We live in an era of the Quantified Self: bio-sensor technology is so widely, cheaply available and portable that we can track ourselves in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of settings, and learn all kinds of new things about ourselves and our environments.
HWTrek: What’s next for your project?
We’re working with a number of commercial and nonprofit organizations to make MindRider lighter and cheaper, and to develop MindRider maps of London, Honolulu, Manila, and Jakarta.
HWTrek: What are your ‘go-to’ sources for tech information and news? (Do you have any recommendations for a must-read/watch/listen article, book, blog, film, or podcast, etc.?)
I love live radio: National Public Radio, BBC, WNYC. I also follow diversity-oriented outlets like The Root and Hyphen. I don’t really get tech inspiration from tech news. Must read futuristic book: Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild and Other Stories.
