This past weekend, Brian and I attended the first Startup Weekend Space Coast. It was sponsored by our good friends at Trep Hub and the Florida Institute of Technology. It’s a very interesting worldwide competition for those who wish to learn different trades, start a business, have an idea to pitch, meet new people, join a world-wide community, or wish to fry your brain with 54 hours of work in one weekend.
Being that Brian and I were there, we were telling many people about the Makerspace. We even met people who know about the Makerspace that we haven’t met before. One being Alex Rudloff of TED Talks. It was great knowing that people were spreading the word of Melbourne’s first Makerspace.
The weekend is as follows; attendees pitch an idea for a business they would like to start. Whether it be something new, or an improved version of an existing business plan. Ideas can be for phone, computer, or web applications, physical products, or any sort of business idea you would like to tell people about. The catch is that you only have 1 minute to sell your idea to the audience. After all the pitches are given, all the attendees vote on the final projects that will be worked on during the weekend; and you have 54 hours to work on it. You can sleep if you wish, but most teams didn’t do that much. I know I didn’t. there are checks to see how your idea has evolved throughout the weekend. The mentors and helpers were great. They provided so much support to all the teams. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. They’re in no specific order.
Brian and I joined a group that was creating a physical product. I didn’t have any interest in working on an application. Our project started out with the idea of using 3D printing technology to create personalized customized trophies and awards. Modern technology can be used to scan people and print out their figure to put atop a trophy to make it personal. It later changed to just creating custom figures of people. Think of your own personalized 3D printed mini-me. Utilizing existing applications such as 123d Catch to create a 3D model of one of our members. We also printed a 3D printed Cheech Marin using the 3D printer at the Makerspace to show off as a physical product. In the end, our group did not win but it was a great learning experience. Congratulations to Certificate Merge. They deserved it. They managed to show their product worked during their 5 minute pitch to the judges.
