First came Walnut St. Labs—a clubhouse for the nerdy and artistic. Then we started doing events to highlight innovators. Then we started doing videos of the events. Then more people came to the events. And so we did more videos. Then we started getting questions: do...
When inventor Robert Morris showed his multimedia program to an investor and told him that everyone was going to have multimedia on their desktop in 5 years, “He told me I was crazy. But that was the same person who turned down Steve Jobs so I don’t feel so bad.”
For over 30 years, Ben Franklin Technology PArtners has been the leading seed stage capital provider for the region’s technology sectors, investing over $175 million in more than 1,750 regional technology companies, many of which have gone on to become industry leaders.
The 3D Printer bootcamp started with a box of parts from PrintrBot and a goodie bag from Printed Solid. The PrintrBot Play was chosen for its quality parts and semi-ease to assemble. While it has a small build area, it is a solid 3D printer that should be able to support a budding 3D printer.
Fabrication technologies, maker expertise and advances in electronics, combined with social media, design and a user focus, is the new face of innovation. It’s the type of innovation that positively impacts and changes people’s lives — and the power is in people’s hands to do it for themselves. Walnut St Labs will work hard to be the best hub, the best place to connect businesses, entrepreneurs, academics and makers, for mutual support and inspiration and advancement.
Alan Rihm on his early days as an entrepreneur: “We went from selling 2-3 accounts a day to 20-30 because we went on the Howard Stern Show and gave away Netscape disks for free.” Alan needed help. Fast. “I recruited my mom to answer the phones. She said, ‘But I don’t know what to say!’ I told her just to pick up the phone and put them on hold.”
Walnut St. Labs initial run of the 3D Printer Boot Camp was a complete success. We’ve been updating with our progress along the way, and everyone’s hard work paid off. 5 local innovators walked in last Friday 6/26 and all of them walked out with a 3D printer they each built themselves with the help and support of one another and the resident Maker Technicians at WSL.
Frank Coates of Wheelhouse Analytics believes, “It’s all about finding small pockets of need in these big financial organizations that other IT companies find underworthy of their investment. A small company like ours can do that.”
We asked Chris Bennett from Skyless Game Studios to hang out at Night Owls to play LifeLeap with our community. Skyless Game Studios leverages the power of video games to support and empower social, educational, and philanthropic causes. What was the problem your game...
I was looking for a phone number to call Printrbot today. No luck, but I did find specs for the Z Axis Rod Ends. Ok, not exciting to you, but it was bitter-sweet to me. You see, fitting the rod into this end required a few well-placed taps by a hammer, followed by several full-body swings of Mjölnir (aka Thor’s hammer).
Wilhem, Andrew and I cracked open the box looking for a fun couple of hours of build time with the Printrbot “Play Kit” 3D printer. We had our tools in hand, a nice wide desk and a GoPro ready to document our afternoon conquest in preparation for the Walnut St 3D Printer Bootcamp.
Henry Blue was restless.
“The cyclical nature of education started to worry me,” confesses the former teacher. “How do you reconcile that need to impact major change during your day-to-day work?”
SEER Interactive founder Will Reynolds loves sharing. “Being open about my ideas makes me go back into the lab and learn some new shit when no one else is looking.”
So, we did it! We planned, promoted and executed the first 5-week prototyping competition of its kind. Unlike traditional hackathons, #ProtoComp2015 was geared toward providing access to creative technical projects. We didn't just build a design event for UI and UX...
We like to thank Andrew Ervin for sharing passages of his new book, BURNING DOWN GEORGE ORWELL’S HOUSE with us, and once more for putting up with our choice to simultaneously host a prototyping competition! You can pick up Andrew’s debut book at either a hip indie...
“Decide what you want and ask for it,” says iPipeline’s Bill Atlee. “Go for the close. Remember that if no one wants to pay for your idea, it’s not a good idea.”
"Since working at Walnut Street Labs, I’ve learned how to use WordPress, become more versed in CSS and HTML and seen how PHP runs on the backend. I’ve also gained much more experience...
Wow. We are kinda speechless right now. We have to gather our thoughts and take a deep breath. Right now we want to share some photos though 🙂 [gallery link="none" size="full" columns="2"...
“Coupons are not the most sexy thing to work on in the tech business,” says Ted Mann, founder of mobile couponing app SnipSnap. “But the truth is that they are huge part of the retail economy. Eight-five percent of Americans use them every month.”
Walnut St. Labs has been added to AWS Activate's Program. AWS Activate works with incubators, accelerators and seed funds around the world, including: 1776, DreamIt Ventures, First Round Capital, Techstars, Tigerlabs and many many others. AWS Activate's Portfolio...
This whole #ProtoComp2015 experience with Unisys has been such an enlightening journey, on so many different levels. It's opened many doors in our community and we're grateful to serve as a change agent not only for Unisys and the contestant, but also for local...
And the Winner is... We've had an amazing time during the course of launching and coordinating #ProtoComp2015 in partnership with Unisys. Week 3's Crash Courses and prototyping work sessions are set to begin tomorrow evening, and we wanted to take a moment to announce...
“One of the reasons BioBots is exciting is because our $5,000 device offers an alternative to the large, half million dollar bioprinters currently on the market.”
Chadwick Wingrave Presents Creativity to Product Crash Course Throughout the process of the Unisys/Walnut St. Labs' Prototyping Competition (#ProtoComp2015), the Walnut St. Labs team regularly congregates to plan the coordination of its upcoming installments. Each...
WEST CHESTER, PA – Walnut St. Labs, an Innovation Lab in West Chester, PA, is partnering with i2n (Ideas x Innovation Network) and NextFab to launch a “Mini-Makerspace”. Walnut St. Labs, i2n and NextFab have teamed up to provide access and create educational...
In 2006, Paul Keogan founded BackOffice Thinking, which works with midsize nonprofits throughout the U.S. They help nonprofit clients with everything from customer/constituent relationship management (CRM) support to social media strategy and business intelligence.
The Chester County Economic Development Council's iTAG Innovative Technology Action Group) initiative hosted #TECH360 on Friday, an all-day educational event at Penn State Great Valley's Campus Conference Center featuring the area’s top companies, IT professionals,...
The Launch Party last week was a total blast, but the real ‘meat and potatoes’ of this project, the creative core, has only just begun. We were floored to see the extent of community interest at #ProtoComp2015 launch, and were futhermore encouraged to see that almost everyone who partied with us last week, not only signed up, but showed up for Week One to compete.
We live in a very beautiful time in which the appeal of creative endeavors is beginning to outweigh the comfort and allure of barely equitable wages. More than ever, people are considering working for themselves, answering to their own ambitions and ultimately, serving their own passions.
We’ve partnered with NextFab to create a “MiniMaker Space” here at Walnut St. Labs. We sent Wilhem, our lead developer, to NextFab to learn about 3D Printing. He jumped at the chance to sign on as our 3D printing technician. He’s always been interested in 3D printing and now gets the chance to run two bukitos. Here’s what he had to say about the experience: