Exercise 18:Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income

As a teacher my goal in making the goggles is not to commercialize them. However, if I were to commercialize my echolocation goggles, I would use the model adopted by Back Yard Brains click here . They sell education neuroscience kits and you can buy them premade or in kits. What I like the most is that they also provide all the files and plans to build it yourself if you have the equipment. For example Back Yard brains sells a cellphone microscope. I bought one first and then 3D printed one using the STL file provided by Back Yard Brains. The pictures below shows the 3d printed microscope I purchased from Backyard Brains and the one I made using the STL file provided by Backyard Brains. The point is I still bought one even though I also made one.

Below is a video of chicken embryo with its beating heart tube. I took with my 3D Printed scope and I am including for no other reason than its cool!

This makes a lot of sense to me as a business model. First of all most people would not have the equipment to make it themselves so "giving away" the plans is not a big loss and in any case even if someone is going to make one themselves very often they buy one of your products first so that they have model to build their own. Second, as has happened with Backyard brains, when people build your products it often becomes free product development. Again having said that, I have no plans to commercialize my product but I think this is a good model for people to follow.

How I will disseminate my product

As a teacher I plan to use this product with my students in my neuroscience class. Sensory perception is one of the most important concepts we cover and this will be an invaluable tool for my class

I plan to demonstrate my experience with Fablab and presenty my goggles in particular at both the North Carolina Association of Independent schools (NCAIS) and hopefully at a national NAIS conference. What I have particularly liked about FAB Lab is that over the years I have been involved in many student projects and looking back my FAB lab training, it would have been invaluable to making the projects. As such I think independent schools would be very interested in the FABLab concept.