PhD Candidate Khalid shares his #SharksDen Experience!

by Khalid Abdulla

This July, I took part in the first ever “Shark’s Den Challenge” as part of the Research Bazaar. I turned up not really knowing what to expect, except that we’d be designing a new product/service and at some point would be let loose on the 3D printers. 

On the first night we had a speed-introductions session to meet the other people taking part, and I got to meet the team I’d be working with. I decided to take on the role of CTO (Chief Technical Officer), because I’m an engineer and tinkerer at heart.

On subsequent weeks we received training on how to use the 3D printers, as well as some excellent advice on how to form/run a start-up and how to pitch a company/product. At various brainstorming sessions our team produced many weird and wonderful ideas, but by the end of the second week we had settled on the idea of producing a low-cost self-charging spoke-mounted bike light, which would offer improved visibility of cyclists from the side.

 

There are similar products available, but these tend to retail at over $100, and rely on batteries which need to be recharged after 5-10 hours of run-time. Three people on our team commute by bicycle, and liked the idea of a low-cost alternative which could be fit once, and then never need to be removed or recharged. Over the next couple of weeks we iterated various designs of the mounting brackets, and the electrical design of the coil/magnet arrangement which would allow the lights to be charged using the relative movement between the wheel and frame.


We managed to cobble together a (mostly) working prototype for the pitch night on the fourth week, and whilst we didn’t win, we did get some positive and constructive feedback. Being thrown together with a diverse team (in terms of backgrounds, training, interests, experience etc.) was great. As a PhD student, in my everyday work I tend to interact mostly with other PhD students, and primarily from the same department. Whilst I don’t think the idea/product we came up with was earth-shattering, I think such mixed teams are a great place for interesting ideas to start and grow.

I also liked the fact that the challenge was product-focused because of the emphasis on using the 3D-printers. Many startup challenges tend to be geared towards software or services because they have lower barriers to entry and are easier to scale. The time-frame of the challenge was very tight, at only 4 weeks. Most/all members of the team had a day-job as well as other commitments so this meant people only really had 8-10 hours to spend on the project including all brainstorming/designing/building/pitching/etc.

In some ways being tight on time was good, as it forced an intense/focused effort (and was a nice contrast to my PhD in which I do a lot of thinking/simulating/optimising rather than taking more of a ‘just do it’ attitude). However, it did reduce the scope of what we considered practical as part of the challenge; as we wanted to be sure of having at least a proof-of-concept prototype for the pitch night. A longer-format version of the challenge might encourage people to dream bigger, as well as offer more of a chance to think about practical commercialisation of their research.

I feel that I have learned a lot from taking part in the challenge. In particular the different roles which need to be filled in a small startup company, the different requirements which need to be satisfied for a product to be novel and successful, and finally the importance of, and some handy hints for pitching. As a researcher it’s important to remember that doing the research is only part of the job, it is also necessary to communicate/sell the research, and I think the “pitching” training was useful for developing those skills. 

Most importantly…it was fun.

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  1. resbaz posted this