Brandcenter Alumni Kickstarter Projects

Brandcenter Alumni Kickstarter Projects Many of our VCU Brandcenter alumni are inventing new products and starting their own businesses, in addition to their advertising day jobs. Below are some of the innovative projects they’ve recently launched on Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. These four examples demonstrate their passion for humancentered design, strong entrepreneurial spirit, and wicked sense of humor (for the last two).

Hackaball

On crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, in partnership with Made by Many and Map, Hackaball was launched. Hackaball is a smart and expressive ball for 6-10 year olds. Children can program the ball using a companion iPad app on which they can invent their own games and upload them wirelessly to the ball and play. Hackaball is, in essence, a computer you can throw around.

$241,122 raised as of May 2015. Initial goal: $100,000.

Rachel Mercer (XD, 2012)

“For me, the reward has been twofold. First, this was very much a team process - and I learned so much by working with people that operate outside my industry and that I would rarely get a chance to interact with; from sound designers (creating an audio personality for Hackaball), to industrial designers (making sure the computer guts wouldn't break) to factory managers in Shenzen who specialise in toy production. Second, it's been enlightening not to just design something that educates kids, but also have them designing the product alongside us - we've been able to take a brand new idea, and then have kids build on top of it - and if anyone's imaginations haven't been contained yet, it is kids’. They have higher expectations for technology and push the realms of possibility faster and with more confidence than I ever will.”

Wetsox

WETSOX create a frictionless barrier between your skin and your equipment so you can be in and out of your wetsuit and boots in seconds.

$16,248 raised as of May 2015. Initial goal: $15,000.

Patrick Lorentz (ST, 2008) Bryan Marville (ST, 2008)

“For us- the innovation process has been a ton of trial and error. You know what the product ‘needs’ to do–so you invent a way for the product to do it. But that’s only the beginning. Then you start asking “OK so the product does what it’s supposed to–how can we make it better? How do we make it stronger? How do we make it a more seamless experience for the user?’”That’s when you really start pushing your thinking and your product to a good place. We’re on prototype 15. After we get the feedback from our Kickstarter pilot, I’m sure they’ll be a few more.”

These two projects were 2 of 3 projects named “The 3 Most Awesomely Absurd Campaigns on Kickstarter Right Now” by Entrepreneur.com.

The Cool Baby

An expressive, customizable, hands-free beverage insulator that looks like a baby. Drinking in public is now adorable.

$19,526 raised. Initial goal: $70,000. Funding unsuccessful.

Simon Philion (CW, 2011)

What was your inspiration for your invention? Front-mounted baby harness systems wonderfully toe the line between convenience and absurdity. That was the inspiration. Dumb, fascinating stuff. I increased the convenience, and the absurdity tagged along.

What has been the best part of the innovation process? It’s been a fun crash-course in peripheral industries. Prototyping, manufacturing, patent law, etc. Then Anderson Cooper called me ‘creepy’ and Nick Lachey called me ‘bro.’ Hard to judge what the coolest part of this thing has been.

The Shrimp Cloud

The Shrimp Cloud is a terabyte of shrimp that you can access anywhere, anytime and on any device. This is the future of shrimp.

After one day, this project blew past its goal of raising $100.

As for wildly exceeding his funding goals, Eric says he will use the extra money to secure additional years of Shrimp Cloud hosting. “It would be great for our future generations to have access to shrimp.”

$1,711 raised as of May 2015. Initial goal: $100.

Eric Dennis (AD, 2011)