Category Project Management

Ascend Dayton

Ascend Innovations Launches in Dayton

It’s been a while since my last post, as the summer has been ramping up I have been spending every minute I can outside enjoying the weather. With that said I will try to start making more regular posts again.

So what brings me back today? The launch of Ascend Innovations.

Ascend is a collaborative innovation center with a purpose to improve life by forging commercially viable human health solutions. It is a new for-profit venture between the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association (GDAHA), and Kaleidoscope in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) with a focus on combining purpose driven design and state of the art technology to develop an ecosystem that produces commercially viable solutions in human health innovation.

Specifically, Ascend is a cross-functional product design and development team made up of clinicians, researchers, industrial designers, engineers and business analysts focused on constantly redefining what is humanly possible.

Check out the Ascend website here.

To help launch this new initiative we needed to develop a short explainer video to help people better understand what Ascend is and how it will help foster commercially viable medical innovations. Below is the result of our efforts. With a short deadline, and multiple stakeholders this video proved to be difficult, yet ultimately was finished on time and under budget. Upon launch of Ascend this video has driven a number of new conversations in both the industrial design and visualization services provided by Kaleidoscope.

 

 

Interactive Cooktop

Interactive Cooktop Concept

Take a step back with me as I look back at CES 2014, the biggest, most awe-inspiring-est tech show on the planet. If you are a tech nerd like I am then this is the place to be to see what the brightest minds in the biz can cook up. From the latest in wearables, smart appliances, the future of automobiles and everything in between.

While working for KALEIDOSCOPE I was afforded the opportunity to work with the team at Whirlpool to develop a presentation around their new cooking concept to be presented at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014. This new cook top is a highly innovative cooking concept that combines the culinary process with all the connectivity you have grown accustomed to while fusing them into one flexible user experience. This cooktop concept gives the user access to all their recipes, music, e-mail, social media feeds, and more all without having to step away from the fantastic dish you are working on! As this project is still just a concept, I had to work closely with Whirlpool and other vendors to develop an efficient solution for presenting this Interactive Cooktop as a production ready appliance on the show floor at CES 2014. The project was designed as an interactive simulation that allowed the presenter functional control of the presentation from a discrete wireless device. This gave the presenter an ability to stop their presentation to answer questions and interact organically with the audience. To enhance the concept, the simulation was projected onto the cooking surface, giving the user interface design a bright, fresh, and elegant feel. The end result was a functional asset that spanned the realm of modern functionality and futuristic technology.

 

Cooktop_Still Frame

My role in this project was quite diverse as I was not only the motion designer, but also the Project Manager. This project posed a unique challenge for me as we had an extremely tight deadline and the asset we were developing had to work in conjunction with the booth being built for CES. Working with multiple vendors, across multiple disciplines helped me to sharpen my skills managing team members. The scope of the project also gave me vital experience in Project Management ensuring multiple phases all came to conclusion to meet a tight deadline while staying on budget. This project turned out to be a huge success on the show floor and across the web, generating a number of articles and social media responses, validating for Whirlpool that smart appliances are the wave of the future.

 

Checkout the Interactive Cooktop that had CES 2014 buzzing!