Watch Jacob Segil, CEO of Afference and research professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, showcase a new piece of haptic technology in an episode of Freethink's Hard Reset docuseries that will "redraw the borders of reality."

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The was recently awarded a VentureWell Grant that will help make innovation and entrepreneurship a key feature of the program.

The program is a collaboration between the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and (Wŷ���ڱ���Ƶ), which allows students to earn a ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder degree while living and going to school in Gunnison, CO.

The funding will help create a formal pathway to innovation and entrepreneurship through curriculum and experiential learning, with plans to integrate into the broader innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem that is thriving in the Gunnison Valley, a collection of rural mountain communities in southern ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ.

For example, a new course called “New Venture Creation” will pair students with local companies and startups, who will provide guidance and mentorship. Together, they will collaborate to solve complex, open-ended design problems based in a real-world context and community development.

New Venture Creation will be cotaught by David Assad, director of the , an entrepreneurship hub based in Gunnison since 2016. ICELab runs three accelerator programs offering mentorship, capital and connections to investors and business partners.

Two of the accelerator programs work with emerging talent in Gunnison Valley, and the third, named , invites outdoor brands from around the country to spend five weeks in Gunnison growing their company.

“The IceLab is open to every student at Wŷ���ڱ���Ƶ,” said Cooper, “but we want the director to know the students in the Engineering Partnership Program on a first-name basis.”

Cooper also hopes that having experiential learning rooted in a real-world context will help increase the enrollment of underrepresented groups in engineering, including women.

Cooper said sometimes people need context to feel engaged. “Who are you designing this for? Who benefits? Who loses? Who’s not at the table when the decisions are made?” Cooper wants these questions to be at the forefront of every student’s mind as they engage in innovation and entrepreneurship.

One of the biggest changes brought to the program is a new required first-year course. Like the New Venture Creation course, “Introduction to Engineering Design” will design, build and test a product or system that solves a problem provided by a customer or company.

But the collaboration goes beyond Gunnison Valley. The Engineering Partnership Program has established a relationship with Diversa, a non-profit organization based in Bogota, Colombia, with the goal of incorporating environmental and community challenges in Colombia as part of the class focus. Through an extension of the course, called , students will be able to travel to Bogota to implement their projects.

“It’s important our students can engage with innovation and entrepreneurship through a lens of social and environmental justice,” Cooper said. “Again, we want to make sure the students know who, and how, their designs impact real people.”

Cooper hopes these new pathways and partnerships to innovation and entrepreneurship will be particularly transformative for students hoping to launch a startup or company upon graduation. Ultimately, the funding from the VentureWell Grant will be used to help students, as they say, “stay in the valley.”

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When Connor Winter (MechEngr’16) decided to pursue a Certificate in Engineering Management in conjunction with his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, it put him on a path that would lead to the founding of his own startup company, .

The concept of ShoeSense is to pair a wearable sensor with a smartphone app that provides advice on what type of running shoes to wear, insight into the user’s running gait and exercises that will help improve their form.

The genesis of the company was Winter’s knack for utilizing the resources at his disposal while an undergraduate at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder.

Winter, who ran track and cross country as a student-athlete, pursued an independent study at the Locomotion Lab on campus, where he conducted a statistically driven analysis on how the right, or wrong, pair of shoes can drastically affect the biomechanics of a runner and their overall performance.

Taking that data, Winter developed a sensor that leverages the computational powers of an accelerometer, which measures the rate of change of velocity of an object, and a gyroscope, which measures angular velocity and an object’s deviation from its desired orientation.

Measuring the step of a runner 400 times per second, the sensor uses three axes of motion – vertical impact, braking force, and the acceleration of your foot laterally – to develop metrics that an end-user can use to improve their running style or avoid injury.

For example, the vertical impact of a single step when you run can amount to six to 10 times your body weight. That can build up over time and cause injury. However, it often takes four weeks for an injury to manifest. If the sensor measures an incremental buildup of excessive loading on a runner’s legs, the app will tell you in advance that you are at risk of injury and suggest a day off. 

“The sensor can’t just give you numbers,” Winter said. “It has to give you a path to make better decisions as a runner.”

While at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, Winter worked with Venture Partners, an office that helps to commercialize research done on campus. Through their training program in Intellectual Property (IP) Management, Winter patented his shoe sensor.

But that was just the beginning of Winter’s journey to founding ShoeSense. “It’s one thing to come up with an idea or product,” Winter said. “But it’s another matter entirely to bring that idea to market.”

The Certificate in Engineering Management aims to provide tools to understand the business framework in an engineering and technology environment. Winter found the class Entrepreneurial Product Development the most useful for him. In the class, Winter pitched his shoe sensor idea, and it was one of the few selected for the class to develop a business plan around throughout the semester.

Upon graduation, Winter took his product and his business plan and ran with it.

launched their website in December. A customer pairs up with a running specialist from the company, who helps them first determine what type of shoe is ideal for their stride and body type, according to the metrics. They then develop a training regimen designed to improve their overall performance as a runner. The customers range from a 60-year-old jogger to a 20-year-old professional marathoner.

As the streams of data come in, Winter is always looking for ways to refine the metrics. And as often has been the case, ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder helped give him the resources to succeed.

While using the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering's summer internship-for-credit program, Winter took on an intern who has become the company’s principal data analyst. Since then, the customer base of ShoeSense has continued to grow.

“ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder has been such an integral part of the experience of creating this company,” Winter said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”

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