#MIN90 Recap

Autodesk BUILD Space

Last night's Mass Innovation Night (#MIN90) was a great opportunity to see Autodesk's amazing new BUILD Space in the Seaport District in addition to checking out a whole lot of exciting new products. I talked to quite a few people who came to MIN90 specifically because they wanted to see the Autodesk BUILD Space. Autodesk was once again a great host, providing pizza and other refreshments and a congenial setting for networking. Fittingly for a space devoted to the building industry, a number of the products were building themed.

The absolute hit of the night (and winner of the grand prize) was Building Conversation with their augmented reality architectural visualization.  Imagine being able to walk into your plan right on site. That's right, you can walk through your project, look around, and see what it's going to look like with far more location-specificity than those artist's renderings we're always looking at during planning board hearings. It's like a hologram of your planned building right in the location. (Must remember to mention this to planning board sibling.)

Demoing Building Conversation

One product that caught my attention was Smartick, a new method for developing kids' math skills in a concentrated and adaptable way. Yeah,  math has to do with building -- math has to do with everything.  As someone whose favorite subject was math back in ancient times, I am pleased to see Smartick taking on the challenge of building up the math skills of kids from ages 4 thru 14. We need more creativity and flexibility in math education. 

Smartick

Another product that was both interesting to me and popular with the crowd was Concrete Sensors. Did you know that moisture is the leading cause of failure in concrete flooring? How do you know when concrete is dry and ready for the next phase of a construction project? Concrete Sensors' wireless sensors monitor and report the curing and drying of concrete in real time and the app that goes with them lets you know what's going on so you can make better decisions, save time, save money, and improve quality control. (Must remember to mention this to construction sibling.)

Concrete Sensors

Speaking of concrete, I was really impressed with VariMold,  one of the two student start-ups from Wentworth Accelerate. VariMold offers a system for molding complex curved shapes in concrete. Urban architecture could use more curves.

VariMold

The StorkIt mobile app enables on-demand shopping and delivery of various merchandise between friends (and/or neighbors). Craving a pumpkin spice latte? Enter that in the app and have one of your friends pick it up when he or she goes to Starbucks. It sounds to me like an app to organize the kind of stuff friends and neighbors used to do for each other back in the late Jurassic when I was young -- like, hey Solomon, can you pick up Billy's skates from the skate sharpening shop on your way home from school?

Presenting StorkIt

Knead  partners with your company's HR folks enhance the corporate wellness program by bringing short duration massage right to the office.

Knead

TiroGage  monitors tire pressure for medium and heavy duty trucks and buses. Imagine properly inflated tires on those big trucks barreling down I-495 -- man, would that ever reduce blowouts caused by under-inflated tires. And yes, they've heard all the Tom Brady football jokes already.

TiroGage

Jade Robot is a teaching tool designed based on teaching experience. The robots and their accompanying classroom materials get kids interested in programming and bring out their math and science potential. The built in user interface lets kids try things --  programming and configuring the Jade Robot without the use of a computer.  For more advanced projects, students can program the Jade Robot in Scratch and C with a Bluetooth wireless interface. Best of all, it appeals to both boys and girls -- no need for special girly robots to get girls interested.

Jade Robot

Cognate  is a trademark registry that makes it simple and convenient to document, monitor, and protect your common law trademark rights. I enjoyed joking with Bennett about trademarking my name so the other 46 Janet Egans in Essex County couldn't use it :-)

Bennett from Cognate

I didn't get a chance to talk much with LeafCanoe  about how its platform enables travel "experts" to share and monetize their knowledge by publishing smart guides.  I remembered Daijie Huang from an EforAll (then known as Merrimack Valley Sandbox) pitch contest back a couple of years ago and wanted to catch up a little more on how her strategy has changed/grown, but I just simply ran out of time.

LeafCanoe

Finally, as is traditional, I'll end this with an Expert Looking Expert. This month's Expert is Bob from Heartland offering his expertise in payments and payroll management.

Expert Looking Expert