- [Male Announcer] Make48 is funded by: - [Female Announcer] Stanley Black and Decker provides tools and services around the globe to help turn great ideas into reality, and to help us shape the world we live in.

We proudly support programming that inspires invention, innovation, and hard work.

Together with Make48, we're providing men and women the tools and resources to build a better world.

Stanley Black and Decker, for those who make the world.

(bright music) - [Stan] What keeps bringing me back?

I just love it.

(Stan laughing) - Make48 is really special because it really does a great job of creating community.

- I think the secret sauce and the best part of Make48 is the support system that comes in the form of tool techs, and other experts that are supporting these teams with their ideas, and with their innovation.

- I enjoy helping people get their ideas from out of their head and into a physical world.

- It's an excitement to engage people at this level.

- So we wanted to grow Make48 and get more people involved.

We looked at different cities, colleges, and really pinpointed makerspaces.

They're in every city around the country, and our idea was that, let's do more than just one event per year, and put on some pretty large events, large scale events, and pick the two top teams from every city to compete in a national competition.

- So the first Make48 to feed into the Nationals was in Wichita.

- Water conservation was the category of choice.

So the teams had to do more with less, sustainability, how to reuse water within the home and garden.

- My name is Rafael Leto.

- I am Philippe Lima Oliveira.

- And our team is Veni Vidi Vici.

The name means in Latin, I came, I saw, I conquer.

We liked the name and we came here to see and conquer, so made sense.

- The challenge was for save water in the household, and our product was a really simple one, which was basically just a drain that would save water on the bathroom sink.

It would have two different drains in one piece, and the middle hole of the drain would be straight down from the faucet, and that would be considered as a gray water.

And then whenever using the water, it would go around, and go to a different drawing, and that's how we end up here at Nationals.

- For me, the answer of why we are coming back to this competition is, we had a lot of fun in the previous one.

We enjoy it, that's why we have participated in other competitions together because we have fun.

We love to push our limits and find solutions for problems.

As engineers, that is our passion and Make48 is exactly about that.

Finding a solution for a problem that is given in the beginning of the 48 hours, and you have 48 hours.

And it's not only find the solution, but thinking about manufacturing, thinking about sales side of it, business, so it's a great challenge.

Push us to find the answers for all those questions.

And we that, yeah.

- [Philippe] It's basically a hobby for us.

- [Rafael] Yeah.

(both laughing) - I think the most important thing about Make48 is organization.

Lot of tool techs, lot of mentors, everything just connects to each other, and then that's one more thing that we're like, "Okay, we definitely keep going with this," because that's something really important when it comes to a competition is the organization and how the staff can help us with that.

(soft instrumental music) - [Jagger] I'm Jagger Dubois.

- [Quinton] I'm Quinton Cox.

- [Travis] Travis Tolson.

- [Bill] And I am Bill Cox and we are SuperVader.

So we're brother-in-laws, this is my son, and our friend, and actually them two are band mates.

- We created a product called Gutter Mouth, which was a water reclamation system that would actually allow you to collect water as it runs down the gutter on the side of the road, or out of your driveway.

It was built for residential use, but could be upscaled to an industrial use very easy.

- [Jagger] Threw a lot of ideas around, then Bill said something about Quinton his son, washing his car in the driveway, and the city guy came by and was like, "You can't have all that water going down the drain!

You have to do something else."

And we kind of ran with it, and came up with Gutter Mouth.

- [Bill] To do Make48 and try to build something, cover the concept, come up with cell sheet, video, and try to sell a product in 48 hours sounded like a really good challenge to do.

My son he's in WSU Tech, taking engineering.

I thought it'd be a good stepping stone to learn.

- I want to see how well we would do because Bill and myself, we do a lot of projects together around our houses and things like that, and we get pretty inventive, and it was kind of cool to put that into competition against others and see how we fare.

It wasn't that bad.

It was actually kind of neat to do that and see where you'll you'll land, because we did pretty good.

- I have graphic design and commercial marketing as a background.

So when they put this team together, it seemed like a natural fit that they would need somebody to take that other side of it, how to sell the product to the consumer.

And so I came in and kind of spearheaded that side.

- [Quinton] And yeah, like my dad said, I mean, I'm just going to school really for engineering design.

So I kind of just...

I'm always just designing things at school and learning, so it'd be a good stepping stone to actually put it forth into the real world.

(gentle instrumental music) - The second event was Madison.

- Madison event was pretty unique in that the makerspace that we had had a lot more equipment than what I was typically used to dealing with.

- We're in the middle of summer, it was hot.

So outdoor play was a category.

Getting people back together.

So from the pandemic, how do we get people to engage with each other in a fun way, outside of technology and electronics.

This one was special, 'cause we did have a kid's choice award, which gave it another level of entertainment.

- [Nikki] I'm Nikki Hagerman.

- [Zach] I'm Zach Huber.

- [Ben] And I'm Ben Fisher.

- [Zach] We're the Free Wheelers.

- We all work together on separate teams, but all within a track bicycle company.

This opportunity was presented by somebody that we work with, and we just kind of randomly came together and decided that we were gonna join forces.

- In Madison, the product category was outdoor play, was the theme, and then when we got there, we were told that we were gonna be creating a yard game.

Something you could play with a group of friends, and that's easily portable, and that you can kind of socialize while you're playing.

- [Nikki] We were inspired by the game Skee-Ball, but we wanted to be able to play that outside.

So we kind of combined that with bocce ball and came up with what we trademarked as Bocce Roll.

- Yeah, the experience definitely brings you outside of your comfort zone, challenges you to really use the tools that you have and work well together.

- I had never done anything like it.

We all kind of come from product development backgrounds, but it's more longer duration.

So like two year development times versus 48 hours.

So we kind of went into it thinking we had a lot of the skills that were needed to do it, but when we put it to practice, it ended up being a completely different challenge than we were expecting, so.

We had a lot of fun thinking about bringing a product from an idea to reality in just a matter of two days.

Something that we never get to do in our professional setting.

You kind of have to take a step back, and instead of being super analytical about it, just kind of go with what you're feeling and what feels right, and then try to make sense of it in a very short period of time.

- I think one of the reasons that I wanted to come back and do it again was, it was a ton of fun to do something totally unexpected.

We didn't know what we were getting into, and just kind of to see where we got in 48 hours was really cool, and something like Nikki said, we haven't done before.

And so I think that was a lot of fun and a chance to do that again.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Johnny] My name is Johnny Ann.

- I'm Keegan Moldenhauer.

- I'm Mitchell Boyle.

- I'm Eric Voisin, we're the Stainless Steel Badgers from Madison.

- [Johnny] So we all went to UW Madison, and we all graduated with degree in mechanical engineering.

So that's how we first knew each other, and then beyond that, we all worked at Sub-Zero Wolf, the luxury appliance company.

So that's where the stainless steel part comes from, and then badgers is CW Madison.

So the theme for the Madison competition was outdoor play.

So the invention that we came up with was called Peel It In.

It is a banana based grappling game, where essentially you have these banana peel shaped grapples that are tied at the end of a rope, and then you throw them, you try to pick up these banana shaped- - Felt target bananas.

- Felt bananas.

There's Velcro in the bottom of the banana peels, and it's sort of like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, where you're trying to get as many as you can in the quickest amount of time.

- Our innovation process started a lot more technical focused, and I had a banana peel sitting on our table, and that started our pun based brainstorming until we got to Peel It In and then build from there.

- I thought it was pretty fun.

I've never done anything like this before.

Never been in a big competition, especially with design.

We're all mechanical engineers.

We've done classes at Madison with woodworking, and metalworking, and here we made a product out of textiles, which was something we never done before.

We're hoping to be able to kind of build on that experience to do well at this competition.

- [Keegan] Yeah.

Make48 was my first hackathon, and other than studying for a test for 24 hours, staying up, that was my first time really having that time crunch to work on something.

(gentle instrumental music) - Our host location in Indianapolis was the Machyne makerspace within 16 Tech.

Health at home was the category.

They had to do a better pill box or a better medical stand.

Two things that had been around forever, that the technology just hasn't changed too much.

I wasn't particularly fond of this challenge when I thought through it.

But by the time the team started to innovate, there was a lot of innovation needed.

- I'm Greg Nowlan.

- I'm Drew.

- Amanda.

- [Andy] Andy Mundel, we're The Mallorys.

- [Amanda] We all work together in a high school.

- We are a group of educators and the school nurse.

We teach students how to be creative, how to design.

- [Greg] We work for a STEAM school that's built by Purdue University in Indianapolis, and so Andy teaches physics and robotics, and Amanda's the school nurse, I'm essentially the shop teacher, and Drew's our lead coach.

- One of our community manager at school heard about it and connected us to it.

And the challenge was healthcare, so we formed our team and did the Indianapolis competition.

Our products sought to reduce the stigma associated with home healthcare.

So we invented Spring, which is a discreet IV stand that is concealed within a plant.

So it uses a telescoping arm to collapse and rise up from a plant base.

- It was a great experience.

I mean, one of the cool things is, as educators in this particular school that we're in, this is what we teach our kids to do every day.

We have these six week cycles where we do these industry projects, and we teach them how to come up with an idea, how to iterate, how to prototype, how to pitch it, how to come up with a final product.

And for us, it was really this opportunity to see if what we've been teaching students transferred to the real world.

And in this competition, I mean, it worked.

We won.

(Greg cheers) (gentle instrumental music) - [Samuel] Samuel Hodges.

- [Anya] Anya Hicks.

- [Miles] Miles Davis.

- And I am Ivan Douglas Hicks, and we are team Grindery.

That's not it.

(record scratching) Let's start over again.

(Miles laughs) I don't even have the right name.

All right, in two start.

- Samuel Hodges.

- Anya Hicks.

- Miles Davis.

- Ivan Douglas Hicks, and we are team The Grindery.org.

We have an organization called The Grindery that you can find at thegrindery.org, and we have an opportunity to work with entrepreneurs.

We were established in 2012, and so thegrindery.org is an organization that helps entrepreneurs get their businesses up and going.

Samuel Hodges is a entrepreneur and he's a contractor, and so it came to us through The Grindery, and we worked with him in several capacities.

Anya Madison Hicks is my last born, my daughter, and her friend Miles Davis, they go to the Orchard School, they're classmates.

- The Indianapolis project was our first encounter with Make48.

We thought we was gonna win because we've got these two brilliant kids behind us.

- Our issue is health at home.

And we are given the opportunity to make a medical stand for health at home.

But many people who'd be using these medical stands are senior citizens, and a lot of them, a disproportionately large amount of actually need canes.

So we built a medical cane that can tell you your heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, all the important medical statistics that you need, to your doctor, while encompassing an iPad holder, so you can Zoom with your doctor, and a stand to get your IV medications.

So it incorporated all of these other technologies with also important health technologies and a cane.

So it was a functioning product.

- I'd say, as a team, we kind of worked together to make that product.

And we saw how each of our different capabilities work together.

And the strength of our final product kind of gave us a confidence coming into this competition, that we could do it.

Because we had everything we needed.

(gentle instrumental music) - So Hartford, Connecticut has the MakerspaceCT, downtown, very historic building.

- That space is incredible.

I was like, "When can I move in?"

And so the theme for the Hartford event was outdoor lifestyle.

Very broad, but I think that the teams did a great job of narrowing down and creating something really innovative.

- [Alex] Alex Lee.

- Connie Witty.

- Victoria Witty.

- Phoebe Law, and we're Magic Make.

- This is my mom, and these two work together, and they put us the two sets of twos together to make four for the competition, so.

We are getting to know each other- - [Phoebe] As we work, yeah.

So we are two teams basically combined at the Hartford challenge.

- I run a makerspace, I love anything maker, so I definitely had like a makerspace crush on MakerspaceCT, and as soon as I heard about it, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this."

When at first it was outside my comfort zone, now I feel like it's totally in my comfort zone, to go push myself in that way.

- I'm a member with MakerspaceCT, and so once they put the challenge out, I thought about it for a bit.

I've done design challenges several times with other groups like Engineers Without Borders before, and so it's something that I've always enjoyed.

I signed up, I enlisted a friend.

- [Alex] The challenge was outdoor design.

- [Phoebe] So we came up with an outdoor patio light.

- I actually arrived at the Hartford challenge after you all had decided on lighting, outdoor lighting.

And it happened that in the days preceding the Hartford challenge, I was challenged by lighting with several of my students.

I work with special needs children.

Many of them have lighting issues.

So when you all told me it was about lighting, I thought, "Oh, that's very important in the educational setting, as well as in urban settings," where you might have light on and your neighbors behind you, or your neighbors in front of you are experiencing your light.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Jeff] I'm Jeff Sheeter.

- I'm Tim Sheeter.

- I'm Dan Sheeter.

- I'm Ron Sheeter, and we're My Three Sons.

- [Producer] Silly question, but how do you guys know each other?

- [Ron] Well, the team is made up of me and these are my three sons.

- I was watching PBS one Sunday morning and they had a really neat 3D printer.

He's got his own 3D printer.

So we ended up...

I called him and said, 'Hey, you gotta see this 3D printer."

He looked up the show.

Then he started watching all the shows and that's kind of how we got to this point.

- [Dan] The product category in Hartford was a backyard entertainment, backyard lighting, and sound.

And the product we came up with was a collapsible fire pit.

- [Tim] So basically one day I was sitting around kicking my fire pit around and thought, "This is stupid.

I should just be able to put this in my shed."

So when we're on our way up to Hartford, I was talking to him with the idea, and then we talked to these guys, and we kind of rolled with it.

- I just thought it was fun.

It was great because you came up with the idea and you had all these tool techs to help you really make the product.

It was a lot of fun.

I think these guys gotta agree that it was fun.

- [Tim] Yeah, it was definitely neat seeing the whole process right?

From thought, to actually prototype, to pitch, in 48 hours.

(gentle instrumental music) - So doing Make48 and city events, it really opened up a lot of opportunity for those cities.

We know from our experience that when people do a Make48 as a contestant, a tool technician, or a volunteer, and spend three days there as a group, very powerful things can happen.

So we find ourselves at the Nationals.

It's the best of the best.

The four city events come together, the two top teams.

One thing is that they've all experienced Make48 already.

So those nervous jitters and that unknown is completely out the door, so it's a whole different feel.

We went back to GoCreate.

We thought that was the best makerspace we'd experienced for that year.

It has the equipment, the size, the experts, and it's in the Midwest.

So let's bring people to Kansas for that big finale.

It's a brand new challenge.

The teams do not know anything other than a clue based around toys.

So this is a whole different level.

We never had the chance to do this before, and I think it's gonna be a game changer.

- Welcome Make48 finalists.

(participants cheering) Wichita, Madison, Indy, and Hartford, welcome, you finally made it.

This weekend is gonna be filled with a lot of innovation, a lot of hard work, not a lot of sleep, but a lot, a lot of fun.

- The teams have a very challenging 48 hour period.

Not only coming up with the idea that's unique and hasn't been done before, but they also have to make sure that it hasn't already been thought of and have a patent involved.

- You're gonna build a looks-like, feels-like prototype.

- Then they have to create the sales sheet.

They have to record some video.

They have to edit that video together.

- And you're gonna do all of this in just 48 hours.

After the 48 hours, you'll be given 10 minutes to present your idea to a panel of expert judges.

One winning team will be selected to win $10,000, (participants clapping) and $5,000 in prototype design for macro design and invent.

But you're not gonna do this alone.

I'd like to introduce your mentors for the competition, from Design Edge, we have toy designer, package designer, inventor, consultant, and president, Matt Nuccio.

(participants clapping) - Mentors play a really big role within Make48.

I've known Matt Nuccio for a long time.

He's been to Make48 events in the past.

The guy is really connected and experienced with toys.

So when we decided a toy challenge, he was the first call we made.

- And then from Spin Master, we have the vice president of innovation and inventor relations, Dougal Grimes.

- I said, "Matt, who else do you think would be a good mentor?"

Who's inventor friendly.

Who knows the industry, who knows the trends, and he recommended Dougal.

- Your mentors are here around the theme.

Any questions you have around that process, they are experts in that space.

And then the secret sauce to this event, what makes taking the ideas that you have and bringing that prototype to life possible in 48 hours, is the incredible team of tool techs that we have.

(participants clapping) These are your experts.

These are some of the best in the world at what they do, and they do absolutely incredible things that are gonna help you bring your ideas to life.

- One of the most important parts at Make48 and we see it every time we do one, is that the tool technicians.

We know from our research, and we ask people all over the country, about 5% of the population can build something.

The rest of us, including me, have ideas, but do not know how to physically make it.

- Tool techs are the magic ingredient of getting us done.

We level the playing field.

So now we have all this skill and this talent, and experience wrapped up into a small army of creators so that the teams are not burdened with having to build it themselves.

- And now the moment you've all been waiting for.

The specific area in which you'll be innovating this weekend, is STEAM toys.

Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

- There's some really great STEAM toys that everyone knows about, Lego for example, things like kinetic sand, but what's cool about STEAM toys is how they've started incorporating in newer technologies and different play patterns, and the best thing about a toy is the play value that comes with it.

And we always talk about kind of like stealth learning through play.

So STEAM toys are a really good way of learning certain principles, but disguising them underneath something that's genuinely pretty fun.

- Yeah like teaching them circuit boards or coding, and things like that - Yeah.

- in a very fun, playful manner.

- The criteria in which you'll be judged on.

This is what the judges will specifically be looking for.

It should be a physical product, not an app, and only one product per team.

- They must build a physical prototype primarily.

Has to be built in 48 hours at the GoCreate facility.

However, they can include technology in the future, if deemed suitable.

- It can be a brand new invention, or it can be an innovation on a current product.

There are two target audiences potentially.

You get to choose one.

Your first target audience could be for children from ages 5 to 15.

The other category is for children who are sick in the hospital.

Your consumer price point is in the range of $29 to $79 in retail price.

So this is gonna be ideally sold on eCommerce in the USA.

So it's very specific in terms of how you're gonna market and design your product, for it to be sold on E-commerce.

Think about what kind of games you would like to play with.

Think about that one Christmas or that birthday, where you just freaked out when you opened that thing and you saw it, and you got to play with it for the first time.

Think about that toy that you created in your mind, or that you made with sticks or boxes when you were a child, and you wished was real life.

This is your opportunity to make something like that come to real life.

And then think about the theme.

Think about the education in STEAM.

What topics did you learn hands-on that really helped kind of click the light bulb for you.

And what kind of experiences helped you get there?

What kind of interactions, what kind of games, what kind of hands-on activities helped you learn those topics?

And then the most important research that you can do this weekend, is standing right up there in the corner, and those are a few of our children that are with us this weekend.

We've got four kids from the ages of 10 to 14 that are your experts on this.

And lastly, don't be afraid to ask for help.

There's so many experts in this room, get to know them, talk to them about their personal business, their passion projects, 'cause they have all kinds of unique skillsets.

Are you ready?

Five, four, three, two, one, Make48!

(air horn blares) (host cheering) (participants clapping) Let's go teams.

(participants clapping) You're on the clock teams, have some fun.

- [Male Announcer] On the next episode of Make48, the teams begin brainstorming STEAM toy ideas.

- Back to organizations.

Are we thinking like conveyor belts or something?

Or who- - Oh.

- [Male Announcer] Then they meet with the patent attorneys to see if their products are viable.

- So let me make sure I understand what's happening.

It's a table top or a table, with maybe this faucet type of light, so when water touches it, it lights up.

- [Male Announcer] Make48 is funded by: - [Female Announcer] Stanley Black and Decker provides tools and services around the globe to help turn great ideas into reality.

And to help us shape the world we live in.

We proudly support programming that inspires invention, innovation, and hard work.

Together with Make48, we're providing men and women the tools and resources to build a better world.

Stanley Black and Decker.

For those who make the world.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Male Announcer] To learn more about the invention process and to get to know the teams, visit make48.com (gentle instrumental music fades) (soft instrumental music) (soft instrumental music) (soft instrumental music)