At-Risk Youth Benefit from Protolabs’ 2021 Cool Idea Award
Cool Idea Award winner John Weiss is founder of The Boom, a nonprofit empowering youth to develop engineering and entrepreneurial skills with hands-on experience in economically challenged community.
Youth in The Boom program utilized this HP Multi Jet Fusion printer for their project.
Digital manufacturing provider Protolabs selected The Boom as its most recent winner of the Cool Idea Award, which is a manufacturing grant used to help accelerate development of innovative products.
The Boom is an organization that empowers kids to develop skills and hands-on experience to build a righter future. Piloting in the close-knit Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco, youths learn how to build a product — a unique, handmade boombox — and bring it to market. Apprentices are introduced to engineering and entrepreneurship thinking, so they can later develop their own product ideas.
Protolabs teamed up with The Boom to manufacture a part that securely holds battery cells together to create a pack that powers the device. The mounting system holds multiple batteries securely to act as a single battery pack. Boom’s founder and design lead, John Weiss, designed the component after being frustrated by the lack of an off-the-shelf solution.
“It is exciting to have an opportunity to use our expertise to help a not-for-profit that’s doing such important work in its community,” says Robert Bodor, Protolabs president and CEO. “The Boom’s efforts provide the kinds of experiences kids need to learn about business, technology and manufacturing in order to grow both creatively and practically.”
Protolabs provided a manufacturing grant that enabled The Boom to develop, design and test what makes the part unique is that it makes battery packs expandable. The design uses an intelligent dovetail joint which couples with low-cost, off-the-shelf battery spacers. The spacer nut is made of a durable nylon material using HP’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing process.
“Protolabs’ Cool Idea Award has been a major factor in enabling our entire educational program to move forward,” says Boom Director John Weiss.
The battery packs are used in The Boom’s flagship device, a cool, retro boombox. Each is uniquely painted by one of 30 local artists — people who specialize in street art, tattooing, video game art or comic books.
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