“Mommy, I can’t hear Grandpa!” That was the first difficulty Alex Kukoff's hearing loss presented. She struggled to hear her grandfather -- he was dying of complications of Parkinson’s Disease -- through the cell phone pressed against her ear in the noisy atmosphere of her mother’s bathroom.
Alex's CC Glasses
Alex wants to make a difference for others who suffer from hearing loss or impairment. She came to GrabCAD with the idea for closed captioned glasses that would allow anyone who has difficulty hearing join in on the movie or presentation they would like to hear. We will ask our Community to ignite a spark for Alex and do their first pro-bono Challenge!
What makes this product different from Google Glass or other products being developed? Current solutions are expensive or inaccessible, only available through movie theaters or to a limited audience. This is all about creating an inexpensive and easy to manufacture pair of glasses focused on closed captioning for all situations including museums, boardroom presentations, or school plays. Every person, business, or non-profit should have access to these glasses.
The GrabCAD Process
Over the next four weeks we will help build concept models and create renderings to bring this product to life! We have a great group of judges from Upverter and CADjunkie.com along with some of our newly minted Community Advisors to coordinate and drive the effort. Once a winning design is announced, we will use GrabCAD's collaboration tool, which is currently in private beta, to document the process of bringing the concept model to detailed prototype.
Please Share This with Your Friends
This is our first time doing this so we hope you will stay tuned to see how it goes! The main mission is to use Open Engineering methods, like our Challenges platform, to develop amazing products that help people. If you have ideas for future pro-bono Challenges, send them to sara@grabcad.com with the subject "Open ENG gets the job done."
