App Start Wristband – With this wristband and our free app you can start and stop recording on your iPhone without touching the screen.

Who we are: 

We met in LA while working as engineers designing aircraft and satellites. We started this product about a year ago coming back from a trip to the lake after realizing that we all cautiously stowed our iPhones in ziploc bags. We wanted to use our iPhones to record outdoor video, but found that nothing existed to address our need. We siezed the opportunity to design something our friends would be excited to use.

Paul: Paul is a surfer, skier and mountain biker who spent college winters in Tahoe and now builds telescopes. Paul is responsible for the optics and web development.

Tim: Tim is a snowboarder and volleyball player who has been controlling vibration on aircraft and spacecraft for the last 6 years. Tim is responsible for app development.

Zoltan: Zoltan is a mountain biker and snowboarder who was making flight control systems for 6 years before going to USC to get his MBA. In his spare time, he volunteers with FIRST (high school robotics) team 1197. Zoltan is responsible for mechanical design.

Alex: Alex is a surfer, snowboarder and volleyball player who worked as a materials engineer in semiconductor manufacturing before going back to school at UCLA. He is one of the founders and now serves as an advisor to the team. 

Where we are now and how we will close with the Kickstarter pre-sales:

We’ve designed, prototyped, and then redesigned the case and mount over and over. We’ve performed a lot of analysis to ensure it works well and can stand up to abuse. We’ve been using the product and improved on all the things you only discover after testing something in the real world.

We met with our manufacturing partners and inspected their factories. We collaborated with them on the design to ensure that it is producible and affordable. We developed the app, designed and manufactured samples of our custom lenses, and completed our 3D printed mounts. The time has come to build injection molding tooling for manufacturing the production run of the case.

This is where you come in: The Kickstarter funds are dedicated entirely to tooling and material for the production run. We specified the highest grade of tooling for the best surface finish and part consistency. We’ve taken the project this far, now it is up to you to help us bring this project from prototype to production.

So if you are ready to start getting great video from some creative angles, lock in your pre-order now. You know Kickstarter is all or nothing so tell your friends about iconic.am and share it on Facebook, every contribution level helps.

Manufacturing Plan 

• schedule starts after funds are processed (typically 2 weeks)
• Week 1: place orders for injection molding tooling, place order for die casting tooling, place lens order, place die cut material order
• Week 2-3: set up assembly tooling with rapid prototyped parts, die cut components (screens, acoustic pass-throughs, sticky pads) arrive
• Week 4-5: injection molding tooling finished, proved out, prove-out units assembled, prove-out units tested for IP rating (waterproofness)
• Week 6: production units begin assembly
• Week 7: production units begin shipping

http://entrepreneur.marshall.usc.edu/

http://www.1013media.com/

http://orangeavenuemusic.com/

http://cruzontour.com/

RISKS AND CHALLENGES

LEARN ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY ON KICKSTARTER

-Optics Accuracy: We have a preferred vendor that we chose based on their technical capabilities rather than price. We bought and tested lenses to our final specification from them.

-Injection Molding Tooling Producibility: Our vendor has provided quotes based on final CAD models, but there will almost certainly be details that need to be worked out. We plan to mitigate risk by being co-located with our vendor during the detail design phase of the tooling and initial production.

-Case Waterproofness: We performed all of our testing with rapid prototyped parts. They are not as waterproof (because they’re porous) as the final injection molded parts will be. We dunked our iPhones with these prototypes plenty of times, but our waterproofness rating tests need to be performed on production parts. This presents a schedule risk that we will mitigate by testing design elements in mock-ups. For example: a tube machined to look like the optics portion of the housing assembled with real optics, o-ring, and retainer to test that seal. We are working with a vendor that produces IP rated sealed electronics and incorporated their recommendations into the design of the iconic.am case.

Our Risk Mitigation Qualifications: 
In our day jobs, we design components and systems and manage suppliers to deliver them. Our “portfolio” includes work on the Airbus A350XWB airliner, the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, James Webb Space Telescope and others.