Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income
The following areas need to be worked out in these final couple of weeks running up to the final presentation
Develop a plan for dissemination of your final project
The project has layers of intents and meta-intents.
Firstly, as the story telling tree, and lamp
- put it up on my Fab pages (also a requirement)
- put it up on my personal website
For the above, as well as to showcase my new skillsets, since I was sponsored by my institute
- all of the above, plus
- social media (Instagram/Twitter)
- a display at the institute, possibly multiple copies located at several places
To demonstrate the integration of digital fabrication, interactive electronics, and concept art to my students of Product Design
- all of the above, plus
- in-class demonstration and discussions
Beyond this, I don't think the "productization" of this is that much of a necessity, but I would still consider it. If it had to be a product, manufactured in some quantity, I would do the following
- Make improvements from all the learnings so far and tweak all necessary aspects
- Redesign the PCBs to combine the XIAO footprint and the Step response into one dedicated board
- Outsource all the PCB production and stuffing since that is the most time consuming part
- The 3D printed parts could continue to be printed in-house, multiple pieces per bed, since there's not much post processing except support removal
- Depending on the quantity, some or all of the 3D printed parts could also be turned into injection-molded parts using inexpensive short-run injection-molding services (they are usually CNC milled or 3D printed molds, not investing in very expensive steel tooling)
- Casting the plastic parts using resin or other liquid-plastics would also be an option if quantity was required but outsourcing to inexpensive injection-moulding was not an option
IP and Licensing
As Neil explained during session, anything created in a FabLab is essentially re-creatable across the world by anyone with a similar skillset. Hence, I do not plan on patenting it.
Secondly, some aspects of the project are built using or inferring from preexisting work available under it's own variations of free/accessible licensing and I would have to adhere to the conditions of those licenses.
This is true and applicable notably to the Step Response. While physically completely designed and built from scratch, it uses code that has been built up over multiple "generations".
All in all, I would prefer to simply go with the minimalist license formulated by Neil and his team. I think it is concise and succinct, short and easy to understand.
"This work may be reproduced, modified, distributed, performed, and displayed for any purpose, but must acknowledge this project. Copyright is retained and must be preserved. The work is provided as is; no warranty is provided, and users accept all liability."
Prepare drafts
- of your summary slide (presentation.png, 1920x1080), and
- video clip (presentation.mp4, 1080p HTML5, < ~minute, < ~10 MB), and
- put them in your root directory.
Done, and eventually over-written by the final slide and video.
Since I am using mkdocs and not raw HTML, my root directory is the docs directory and not the actual root of the repo.
