By DON DODSON
News-Gazette Staff Writer
URBANA – Designing a product and need some inspiration? A couple of Urbana inventors have a cabinet full of ideas for you.
Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, who sold their first company, Lever Works, earlier this year, have come up with a new company called Inventables.
Their first product, which goes by the name DesignAid, is a six-drawer cart stocked with gadgets and materials that help product designers look at problems in a whole new way.
A lot of the gadgets fall under the category of “neat stuff.”
There’s a razor that pops up out of what appears to be a lipstick tube. There’s a sheet of thermochromatic material that displays the same characteristics as heat-sensitive “mood rings.” There’s a calculator that mechanically lifts itself off the table. A variation on Velcro that doesn’t stick to sweaters. And so on.
None of the gadgets was invented by Kaplan and Schacht. But they’ve assembled the collection and added a database that lets users know more about each gadget, who made it, how it works and what some possible applications are.
The DesignAid cart and database “can be used for open-ended brainstorming sessions,” said Kaplan, who received a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Illinois in 2001.
The product is still in the pilot stage, and the Inventables duo hopes to launch it into the market in coming months.
They’re also marketing supplemental kits, called “MoreThan” packs, that are custom-made for the user.
The limited systems cost as little as $500 to $1,500, but Kaplan and Schacht estimate the complete DesignAid system – marketed to companies with large product design teams and to consulting firms specializing in that area – will be priced between $30,000 and $50,000.
The co-inventors recently showed DesignAid at the national convention of the Industrial Designers Society of America in Monterey, Calif.
Kaplan and Schacht got the help of five UI students in getting DesignAid ready for the market. The students received class credit by participating in the “Inventables Institute,” which began May 20 and ends this week.
Bruce Litchfield, assistant dean in the UI College of Engineering, said Kaplan and Schacht came up with the idea, and he liked it.
“They came to me, told me something about the company and said they’d like to do a course with students that focuses on invention and the process of creativity,” said Litchfield, who taught a course in creativity and innovation during the spring semester.
“I was impressed by their initiative. They’re free-thinking, free-wheeling sorts of guys, the kind of people I love to be around and be associated with,” he said.
The five students work at the Inventables office on Willow View Road in Urbana.
“They go there every day, combine ideas and work on different aspects of the creative process,” Litchfield said.
About 70 students applied for the institute, 35 were interviewed, 10 were selected for a group exercise and, on the basis of that, five were chosen for the institute.
One of the students, Sarah Buckius of Champaign, whose field is industrial design, developed marketing tools and business cards for the company.
Kaplan and Schacht won’t be in Urbana for long. They said they plan to move their company to the Chicago area in two weeks, where they’ll be closer to their attorney, accountant and, most importantly, their market base.
For more details on DesignAid, check the Inventables Web site.
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