Foundry Fellowship, Fall 2021

The Fellowship Teams

Fall 2021

Each semester the Foundry sponsors several student led teams in the creation of something interesting. We provide a grant ($1000 worth of materials this Autumn) to each team and then they get to work building and creating. This semester we are supporting six teams, each with a grand new idea. We’ve asked each team to briefly summarize what they are working on, which you can find below. Keep an eye on our website to find out how the teams progress throughout the semester and be sure to join us for our final showcase in December!

FAHRVERGNÜGEN

An Electric Skateboard

We are a group of Olin and Babson students working to produce a high-quality electric skateboard with low-cost production methods and low material usage. The ultimate goal is to build a skateboard that has a range of 15 miles. The idea was born out of the need for inexpensive and reliable transportation. Needham’s suburban setting is relatively isolated for those without access to a car. E-skateboards are significantly less unwieldy and can be taken on public transportation without being a nuisance. Furthermore, skateboards minimize the ecological impact of travel in a manner that standard cars cannot. Participating in the fellowship, our goal is to build a functional prototype that lets us further discover the potential of our idea and the demand of the student population 

Project Diskos

Building a Modern Energy Storage System

Renewable energy solutions have great potential to combat climate change but they still struggle with varying weather conditions and environmental factors. Solar panels have decreased in cost by nearly 99% since inception but cannot be used as 100% baseline energy generation. Alternative renewable energies are not nearly as cheap, so we must either continue with non-renewables or find new ways of storing energy at the scale of the power grid.

Instead of exploring new forms of energy generation, our team of Olin and Wellesley students is excited to reinvigorate an old idea with new technology. Flywheels - simple spinning masses - can hold a theoretically unlimited amount of energy. With old technology, flywheels had a maximum energy potential, limited by material strengths and bearing efficiencies. 

For the Foundry Project, we are interested in using the grant, space, and tools to better understand flywheels as an energy storage system and to showcase to the world the unexplored potential of kinetic batteries. We plan to build a very-small scale demonstration flywheel that demonstrates the ability to charge, store, and discharge energy. This project blends our passion for engineering with our desire to rapidly address the effects of climate change.

AlgoTech Capital

Enhancing Financial Literacy

Currently, most of the large banks and hedge funds only target investors worth over several million dollars because of the exclusive nature of Wall Street. Unfortunately, this keeps power in the hands of the wealthy and puts a massive barrier between regular people and generational wealth, especially people of color. We plan on breaking this barrier by developing a no-code algorithmic trading and investing platform that provides investment grade technology in an easily understandable format. 

We are a group of Babson students and we want to build a platform that is suitable for anyone, with our offerings ranging from basic financial literacy, trading, and investing to a space for developing multidimensional machine learning models. In short, in the long run we hope to make enterprise level investing/trading technology available to anyone and promote literacy to low income families. Participating in the fellowship, our goal is to build the first iteration beta with functional backtesting and a machine learning trading model. We also hope to develop our platform front end and take advantage of the Foundry to seek feedback 

The Cloud Light Project

Building a Better Light

Hi, my name is Arnav and I’m an Olin student. I developed Cloud Light when I was inspired by the creativity of DIY communities on TikTok 10 months ago. I believe I can incorporate color psychology into Cloud Light to give individuals the agency to shape their environment. I have since then made numerous prototypes through iteration and variation, developing them to be dust and allergy-free, clean, and aesthetic. I later brought on more people into the team. Our team now also includes Dhara, who also designs and creates Cloud Light and helps a little with software, and Alex, who joined in August and is in charge of the programming and circuitry. We are working together to make a cohesive, beautiful art piece that can fit in someone else's room, desk, or home. 

Babson Rocket X

Building a Rocket

We are a group of Babson students who are passionate about STEM and we wish to launch Babson's very first rocket! We believe that Babson is a school that embraces entrepreneurs of all kinds, and we wish through launching Babson's first ever rocket, we can inspire and encourage more Babson students to be more interested in startups in STEM, specifically in the AeroAstro field. You can learn more about our team here https://sites.google.com/view/babsonrocketx/home. Participating in the fellowship, our goal is to take advantage of the space and resources of The Foundry and successfully build the very first iteration of the rocket.

The Engine Team

Improving the Rocket Engine

We are a group of Olin students who are excited to make our own model rocket motors! The scope of this project will include the production of two rocket engines and testing them on a student made test stand in Parcel B.