2026-09-18T18:54:00Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/545112022-01-13T07:54:36Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131024
D. R. Wallace.
Leong, Ming
Tsai, Geoffrey T
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
2010-04-28T15:44:23Z
2010-04-28T15:44:23Z
2009
2009
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54511
558876224
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-35).
What do you get when you take one professor, two instructors, four mentors, seventeen mechanical engineers and $6,500? One coffee table! Well, at least in our case. During the fall of 2008, our team of senior mechanical engineers enrolled in MIT's capstone design course, 2.009 The Product Engineering Process, designed and prototyped a high-end, spiral-folding coffee table named Elika, a product borne out of months of idea generation, brainstorming, market research, machining, testing, troubleshooting, and re-machining. Perhaps our judgment was muddled by the high we got after the final presentation, or maybe we finally realized that we were in fact workaholics, but a group of us decided we couldn't stop working on the table and needed to start a company to bring it to market. This is the story of how we went from a bunch of students trying to fulfill a graduation requirement, to a team of founders of a design company. Along the way, we've learned about patents, business, and manufacturing options; we've explored engineering, industrial, and graphic design; we've anticipated our market niche and how to capture it. But through it all, and despite the set-backs, low points, and YouTube-ing, we've had a blast diving into the unknown to chase after an idea we developed together. We hope this document can be a guide and source of comfort to those who hope to do the same.
S.B.
49 p.
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.I.T. theses are protected by
copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Mechanical Engineering.
From classroom to showroom : developing a classroom alpha prototype into a marketable product by Ming Leong [and] Geoffrey T. Tsai.
Thesis
application/pdf
Publication
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>What do you get when you take one professor, two instructors, four mentors, seventeen mechanical engineers and $6,500? One coffee table! Well, at least in our case. During the fall of 2008, our team of senior mechanical engineers enrolled in MIT's capstone design course, 2.009 The Product Engineering Process, designed and prototyped a high-end, spiral-folding coffee table named Elika, a product borne out of months of idea generation, brainstorming, market research, machining, testing, troubleshooting, and re-machining. Perhaps our judgment was muddled by the high we got after the final presentation, or maybe we finally realized that we were in fact workaholics, but a group of us decided we couldn't stop working on the table and needed to start a company to bring it to market. This is the story of how we went from a bunch of students trying to fulfill a graduation requirement, to a team of founders of a design company. Along the way, we've learned about patents, business, and manufacturing options; we've explored engineering, industrial, and graphic design; we've anticipated our market niche and how to capture it. But through it all, and despite the set-backs, low points, and YouTube-ing, we've had a blast diving into the unknown to chase after an idea we developed together. We hope this document can be a guide and source of comfort to those who hope to do the same.</Abstract>
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