In the introduction, I argued that prototypes are crucial for innovation, and that leaders need to understand their role quite deeply. But what exactly is the purpose of a prototype? Why exactly are prototypes so valuable? To my mind, there are two main reasons. First, they are tools for communication. Greg Holderfield has already talked about this in module two in the context of sketches. Sketches are the simplest form of prototype. And like all forms, they serve to get ideas out of your head and into a place where others can see them. More generally, prototypes may take lots of forms. For instance, they may be 3D objects, electronics, screen mockups, or even play acting. Whatever the case, a prototype should help others understand your concept. The second reason that prototypes are so important is that they are tools for learning. You should be able to test prototypes in various ways. Some testing may be purely technical, while other testing may have to do with understanding the way that people interact with the prototype or the benefits that the concept delivers. To help me illustrate these ideas I've asked two remarkable young innovators to share a few of their own stories. Hannah Chung and Aaron Horowitz are the founders of Sproutel, a company that works with young children who have been diagnosed with type I diabetes. But they take a unique approach, as you'll soon see. Hannah and Erin are graduates of Northwestern University, and in their time as students here, they also helped one my colleagues, Liz Gerber, found Design For America, or DFA. DFA is an incredibly vibrant student organization that's now in nearly 30 campuses across the country. After leaving school, Hannah and Aaron moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to set up Sproutel and their work has garnered considerable attention. Hannah was named one of Inc. Magazine's 15 Women to Watch in Tech. And the pair recently presented at the White House's first ever Demo Day. Yet as well known as Hannah and Aaron have become in the entrepreneurial world, it's a third member of their team, Jerry, who seems to get most of the attention. >> Hi, I'm Aaron. I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Sproutel. My background is in mechatronics and user interaction design, which is basically how people play with robots. And at Sproutel, my real passion is finding ways to kind of merge anthropological research with robotics. And figure out how people can build emotional connections with what would otherwise be considered inanimate objects. >> Interesting. >> Hi, my name is Hannah Chung. I'm the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Sproutel. I started mechanical engineering at college but my day to day job is more around learning how people perceive information, and how storytelling can really help them process [INAUDIBLE] information. So I get to do a lot of illustrations, animations, build curriculums, get to work with kids. So that really gets me excited, to work at Sproutel and with Jerry. >> Thank you, thank you for that introduction. So to help me understand a little bit more about Sproutel, I see a picture right behind you guys of a young lady holding a bear. Now you've got one Aaron. So who is this? Who is this? >> So Jerry is a learning tool to help kids understand their health. We actually initially created Jerry for kids with type 1 diabetes after observing this really interesting fact is that kids with type 1 diabetes were taking care of their stuffed animals already as if they had type 1 diabetes. So they were using free play and role playing to act out all of the things that they could not yet understand or really do to themselves. So we created Jerry to bring that to life. And very recently have expanded beyond type 1 diabetes to a bear for general health and wellness education as well as for kids with youth allergies. >> Okay, well thank you for that introduction. So we're here today to talk about prototyping. And I gather that Jerry here has been through a few rounds of prototyping in his existence. Can you tell me a little about the story of that. >> Yeah, so before we got to this Jerry the bear, Jerry went through 29 different iterations of prototypes that we tested with about 350 kids. The first Jerry, if you can kind of sneak a peek over here. That is our first prototype we worked on for ten weeks during our junior year. Aaron can give you more of a detailed description of what this [INAUDIBLE] model phone bear is about. >> Yeah, so this was kind of Jerry v1, and as Hannah mentioned he is rock solid on the inside. He doesn't actually do all that much. He's got blinking eyes from a Furby, a little switch in him mouth so you can feed him, some injection sites on his arms and legs, and this little blood glucometer that sits right in his hands. >> And then the second prototype had evolved since this prototype, it's actually cuter. >> Oh yes, much cuter. >> [INAUDIBLE] prototype, and then it went through this prototype. And from here it's more closer towards the first Jerry you saw, that Aaron showed earlier. But yes, Jerry went through a lot of different transformations, learned a ton along the way. And yeah, the different kids that we work with, they always share things that could be better and better. And we kept prototyping to make that happen. >> Yep, okay. Well, I want to talk a little bit about some more detailed aspects of prototyping. So one of them is, Hannah, you describe yourself as a doodler, and I just love that word. Tell me a little bit about doodling and sort of when you choose to doodle, and when you think it's time to build. >> Yeah, sure. Doodling is, I would say, is my method that I prefer to share my idea to visibility. That being said, I don't think everyone has to doodle to share their ideas to show a visualization of it. For example, Aaron. Aaron builds sculptural objects to share his ideas in a visual form. Doodling is great and also this sculptural object is great because before you make the prototype, it's always important to have the aspirational model and just talk about what you're thinking. Kind of have a convergence on what you want the prototype to be. With that being said, when you want to test the idea with a user, you only can do so much because it's not tangible. It's visual, but people can't feel or touch it. So that's when prototyping is very needed to really complete the idea. So sometimes when Aaron and I work together, Aaron will I'll bring his sculptural objects. I will also bring my drawings together and we will kind of share ideas and further make different doodles to convey the ideas that was inspired from Aaron's sculpture. Aaron will make different sculpture objects based on my drawings. So it's kind of cool to see those different ways to work together, to kind of form a better model that you want to strive for before you go out there prototyping. >> So these sculptures of yours Aaron, what are you talking about? Are you chipping them out of marble? What are these things? >> On the weekends yes, but mainly a lot of wire prototyping using actual metal wires to make what we would typically make in CAD. And a lot of really easy stuff like thermoplastics you can melt in boiling water and quickly sculpt something up that might be much faster than doing it in CAD. >> Fascinating. Okay, all right. That sounds like a very good idea, its a very rapid little sculpture. So that's cool. So another idea that I think you guys have mentioned to me in the past is this notion of a purpose built prototype. So you know, you've shown me these prototypes of Jerry, kind of the full system. I gather a purpose built prototype is often a little bit smaller in scope. Can you tell me a little bit about what those are, and how you use them? >> Absolutely, so we have kind of these two revisions, as you said. Our bear revisions which incorporate a lot of different features all at once. And, you know, we might be moving from a two digit screen to a 64 by 64 bit screen. But then along the way we test out small things. Like what sensor to put in Jerry's mouth, or how to attach the belly on the new bear that we built. And to do things like that, we create a whole range of little purpose built prototypes. Here's an example of a rig that we made to test out the attachment mechanism for this bear. >> Okay. >> So that's everything from something like a twist and lock to a pivot joint, to a slider, all the way to a clip. >> Okay. >> You know, something like this, this is an example of these little thermoplastic mock ups. >> Right. >> You can really quickly in an afternoon and come to a consensus on how we want to attach this to Jerry's belly. Considering things like of ease of use of taking it on and off and how that will kind of meld with the experience as well. >> Right, right. Terrific, are there any other examples of these purpose built that you can share? >> We do. So sometimes when we build the plush side of the bear, we start with a small mock up, but we work with different designers to like give that cheek face shape different [INAUDIBLE]. Sometimes it's to quickly convey what we're thinking, we'll make this paper attachment to the arms. We kind of [INAUDIBLE] similar bear here, we'll use the existing teddy bear. That is for a mock up. [INAUDIBLE] the idea of this [INAUDIBLE]. We'll make different paper mock ups too to show what we're thinking. Longer arms, longer legs, bigger head. We take a photo of this and also share with a doodle that is more apt than we described. We give two models to the plush designer and we can work that going back and forth. If we know that plush designer might do both. So that's kind of our quicker way to quickly mock up with paper and tape to show how different body dimensions Jerry should have in the future. >> Yeah, okay. That's really cool. So actually the example of the paper prototypes or your wire sculptures. They resonate with me because I often talk a lot about this idea of earning per unit time. So the notion that you should learn as much as you can, as fast as you can, from a prototype. Seems like a simple idea, but I so often see engineers make these sort of very over-built prototypes, right? When maybe something cheaper, and faster, and simpler would do. So I'm wondering if you could help me sort of elaborate on that idea as well. Assuming that it resonates with you. >> Absolutely, so if I can pass this off, that first prototype that we showed to you, this bear here. This took us ten weeks to build, and ten weeks of learning from scratch. And I think it went more to show that we could communicate with a hall sensor and we knew how to interface a switch into an Arduino than it did prove the concept that a teddy bear could be an educational tool for kids with type 1 diabetes. So when Hannah and I chat about looking back, what are things we could have done differently? Well one really easy thing would have been to literally take a walkie talkie and stick it inside of a stuffed animal. And hiding behind a wall and saying, hi I'm Jerry, how are you today? >> Wizard of Oz. >> Yeah, Wizard of Oz it. That would have really gotten to the heart of, very quickly and easily, not testing our technical abilities, but testing whether the idea was actually something that could [INAUDIBLE]. >> [LAUGH] That's a wonderful example. In fact, I understand that Wizard of Oz is a technical term in the prototyping world, right? So you're literally hiding behind the wall and speaking on behalf of the wizard or Jerry. But those are great, great stories. I want to thank you for joining me here today. I just find the work that you're doing at Sproutel with Jerry is so inspiring, so exciting, and I know you're going to go far. I really look forward to following that in years ahead. But, we're not finished with you. There are five videos in this module and I'm going to be bringing you back for the last one. I want to talk to you a bit more about the idea of making decisions based on the things that we've learned in prototypes and using that to lead teams. So I'm looking forward to that and we'll talk to you again soon. >> Sounds great. >> Sounds good. Bye bye. >> As you just heard, Hannah Chung and Aaron Horowitz are accomplished innovators with the inspiring vision of using play as a catalyst to help people, especially children, understand and manage their own health. Through the stories they shared with us, we were able to see the absolutely essential role that prototyping has had in the development of their flagship product, Jerry the Bear. Of course, prototyping helped them address technical challenges. But perhaps more importantly, it helped them understand the core value, the benefits that they're able to deliver to the customer. I find it particularly instructive that the first prototype they developed as students was a massive undertaking. Four people for ten weeks. While many of the more recent prototypes are taped together out of paper or bent out of wire. Yet Jerry as you saw is becoming quite a sophisticated product. The lesson that I glean from this is that as Hannah and Aaron have gained experience, they've lost their fear of failure, they've gained an appreciation for rapid iteration, and they've come to see the value of maximizing learning per unit time. [MUSIC]
