After heading to China last year as part of the Hardworx Innovation tour, it was a delight to be able to return to Shenzhen leading my first tour. The trip had a few goals: Find factories for Elkei Education’s first product, meet like-minded edu-tech companies and visit the electronics markets. All while taking a tour group of 7 participants along for the experience. Without attending the Hardworx tour last year, I wouldn’t have the confidence to return in the same way as I do now, and it’s great to be able to pass this confidence on to a new group of hardware enthusiasts.
After a run of Startup weekend competition wins, I began Spark Girlz with Andrea, my co-founder. We recently went through a name change, and Elkei Education was born.
I know that teaching confidence is just as important as teaching STEM skills. More often than not, through my work in makerspaces and hackerspaces, I come across people who aren’t excited about learning and new technology. Often they think it might just be too hard.
The product we are building aims to teach electronics through crafting. All activities are unplugged, no coding involved, back to basics. We want to add more modern skills to the pink aisle classics. Each kit will also come with a collectable circuit board, featuring women in STEM from around Australia. Research shows role models are crucial for young girls, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’. When the whole set of ladies are collected, the circuit is complete and they light up together in a beautiful display frame. The product is girl focused, but of course any learners 8+ are welcome to do the activity.
We’ll be using circuit board art as a key part of our product aesthetic. Check out our circuit board business cards we created to take with us on the trip:
To make this product come to life, we needed to travel to Shenzhen and find manufacturers to work with. We visited 6 factories, met with awesome startups and companies like Robotics Masters, Seeed Studio, MakeBlock and M5 Stack. We also toured the amazing TroubleMaker space and attended the huge Circuit Sourcing Expo.
For me, the highlight of the trip was meeting Joris, the head of Kickstarter in Asia. He gave us some great feedback and advice. From his experience, the concept of our product had good potential. He also spoke on:
- The power of telling a personal story. Kickstarter backers want to be taken on your product development journey, and want to be part of it coming to life.
- Before starting a campaign, you don’t need to have a fully fleshed out product, just a minimum viable product.
- If your campaign isn’t gaining traction within the first three days, it’s best to cancel and re-launch rather than wait it out.
If you want to be part of our Kickstarter journey, sign up for updates at www.elkei.com.au/Kickstarter.
Another one of my favourite parts was revisiting the electronics markets. Here’s a father and son bonding over some beautiful LED strip.
I bought a reflow oven and lots of surface mount goodies. Good thing I brought that extra suitcase!
Another huge highlight was the Shenzhen city lights show, where over 40 builds synchronise their lights in a 10 minute show. Wow!
My favourite factory was definitely the PCB House. Those shiny racks are used in the electroplating process to put the metals on the circuit boards. Very cool to see in person!
On the final day, we visited the Circuit Sourcing Expo. This really refreshed my inspiration for what’s possible in the world of PCB manufacturing. I’m particularly excited for the potential of rigid-flex PCBs and being creative with the production process with soldermask colours.
I’m looking forward to heading back again next year, and would love to bring more hardware enthusiasts along with me. It’s just as important to build confidence in our peers as well as the next generation. I want to help create a community of awesome, capable hardware hackers who are building our future tech. Join me!!
For now, stay tuned by signing up to our mailing list. www.elkei.com.au/Kickstarter