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This thesis project has been conducted in accordance with The Founder’s Lab initiative which is sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business. This program groups three students together and tasks them with creating a business idea, conducting the necessary research to bring the concept to life, and exploring different aspects of business, with the end goal of gaining traction. The product we were given to work through this process with was Hot Head, an engineering capstone project concept. The Hot Head product is a sustainable and innovative solution to the water waste issue we find is very prominent in the United States. In order to bring the Hot Head idea to life, we were tasked with doing research on topics ranging from the Hot Head life cycle to finding plausible personas who may have an interest in the Hot Head product. This paper outlines the journey to gaining traction via a marketing campaign and exposure of our brand on several platforms, with a specific interest in website traffic. Our research scope comes from mainly primary sources like gathering opinions of potential buyers by sending out surveys and hosting focus groups. The paper concludes with some possible future steps that could be taken if this project were to be continued.
As part of the Founders’ lab program, this thesis explores a social venture idea whose concept is to connect the philanthropic community with individuals and organizations in need of funding a project relating to (Sustainable Development Goals) SDG indicators through a peer to peer donation platform. Through this platform, the philanthropic community will have the possibility to easily access a wide range of projects to support as well as underserved individuals and communities seeking for help, track their impact, donate in a complete transparent donation process, and automate donations through bank card rounds-up. This social venture idea has been named PhilanthroGo.
The concept of entrainment broadly applies the locking of phases between 2 independent systems [17]. This physical phenomenon can be applied to modify neuromuscular movement in humans during bipedal locomotion. Gait entrainment to robotic devices have shown great success as alternatives to labor intensive methods of rehabilitation. By applying additional torque at the ankle joint, previous studies have exhibited consistent gait entrainment to both rigid and soft robotic devices. This entrainment is characterized by consistent phase locking of plantarflexion perturbations to the ‘push off’ event within the gait cycle. However, it is unclear whether such phase locking can be attributed to the plantarflexion assistance from the device or the sensory stimulus of movement at the ankle. To clarify the mechanism of entrainment, an experiment was designed to expose the user to a multitude of varying torques applied at the ankle to assist with plantar flexion. In this experiment, no significant difference in success of subject entrainment occurred when additional torque applied was greater than a detectable level. Force applied at the ankle varied from ~60N to ~130N. This resulted in successful entrainment ~88\% of the time at 98 N, with little to no increase in success as force increased thereafter. Alternatively, success of trials decreased significantly as force was reduced below this level, causing the perturbations to become undetectable by participants. Ultimately this suggests that higher levels of actuator pressure, and thus greater levels of torque applied to the foot, do not increase the likelihood of entrainment during walking. Rather, the results of this study suggest that proper detectable sensory stimulus is the true mechanism for entrainment.
Ctrl+P is an online store for 3D printed items, founded by four members with experience in computer-aided design (CAD) and financial management. They initially started with a broader scope but later focused on designing custom pool racks for the pool community. They conducted customer discovery with over 634 ASU students and landed an ongoing business deal with Mill’s Modern Social, a pool hall and bar in Tempe. The team has already made a profit and aims to be revenue-earning by the end of the project. The financial plan includes potential expenses for website development, printer filament, and 3D printers. Ctrl+P's brand mission is to print products desired by customers, that consult Ctrl+P. The long-term goal of the team is to continue to gain customers, and expand the business to a larger customer base.
Ctrl+P is an online store for 3D printed items, founded by four members with experience in computer-aided design (CAD) and financial management. They initially started with a broader scope but later focused on designing custom pool racks for the pool community. They conducted customer discovery with over 634 ASU students and landed an ongoing business deal with Mill’s Modern Social, a pool hall and bar in Tempe. The team has already made a profit and aims to be revenue-earning by the end of the project. The financial plan includes potential expenses for website development, printer filament, and 3D printers. Ctrl+P's brand mission is to print products desired by customers that consult Ctrl+P. The long-term goal of the team is to continue to gain customers and expand the business to a larger customer base.
For the honors thesis project, a group of five individuals collaborated to design and implement a sustainable business in the ASU community. Kandi Society is a rising jewelry brand whose top priorities include giving recycled plastic a new purpose, philanthropy, and making a welcoming, creative environment for our customers. We designed the Eco-Bead with 3D CAD modeling and produced it through a process called plastic injection molding which is explained in detail in the final paper. Kandi Society instilled a positive impact on ASU students by igniting a sustainability spark and increasing interest in repurposing materials in the future.