Celebrating independent invention, Popular Science recently named the top 10 innovations for 2015 with the Popular Science Invention Awards. Among this years' extraordinary gadgets is the V-One custom circuit board printer created by mechatronics and nanotechnology engineering alumni at Voltera Inc.
For the past nine years, Popular Science has used the Invention Awards to recognize the rising stars of design and engineering for attempting to solve real world problems through innovation. The tech developed by Voltera will help hardware professionals and hobbyists create custom circuit board prototypes quickly and easily.
Other inventions named to the top 10 included a patch that delivers needle free vaccinations, a wearable personal pollution monitor and a self-balancing two wheeled car. Helping with the review and selection process this year was Bre Pettis, co-founder of 3D-print company MakerBot.
The Voltera team from left to right: Katarina Ilic, Jesús Zozaya, Alroy Almeida, and James Pickard
Back in 2013, the Voltera team comprised of Alroy Almeida, Katarina Ilic, James Pickard, and Jesús Zozaya, created the V-One prototype as a Capstone Design project during their undergraduate studies. Upon graduation, the hardware startup moved into the Velocity Foundry and set aggressive fundraising goals to enable manufacturing of the V-One. After its big win of $50,000 during the TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield competition, Voltera launched a Kickstarter campaign that managed to crowdfund more than 300 per cent of its goal in under 24 hours.
Popular Science article: "A printer for circuit boards - one of ten brilliant innovations from our 2015 Invention Awards"