Thursday, April 03, 2025
Meeting Time: 7:00 pm
Online event (via Zoom): Please register on meetup.com to obtain the Zoom link.
Lecture
Bringing a hardware product from an idea in your head to a fully manufactured and market-ready product is a complex and often overwhelming process. In this two-hour talk, we’ll break down the full product development cycle, covering everything from early-stage brainstorming to mass production and beyond.
Using VizLapse, a portable electromechanical time-lapse rail system, as a case study, we’ll explore each stage of development—including mechanical, electrical, firmware, and app design considerations—while drawing insights from real-world experience launching consumer products.
The talk will cover the six key phases of product development:
- Idea – Identifying a problem worth solving and validating demand
- Concept Generation – Brainstorming and refining initial product concepts
- Proof of Concept – Creating early prototypes to test feasibility
- Design Iteration – Engineering, refining, and optimizing the product for usability and manufacturability
- Validation Testing – Ensuring reliability and performance before scaling
- Mass Production & Continuous Improvement – Scaling manufacturing, launching, and refining the product based on user feedback
Whether you’re a first-time founder, an engineer looking to bring a side project to market, or an entrepreneur navigating the hardware landscape, this session will provide practical, actionable insights to help you turn an idea into a physical product ready for sale.
Speaker Bio:
Paul Vizzio is a hardware engineer, entrepreneur, and product leader with a track record of bringing products from concept to mass production.
As Director of Hardware Engineering at Proteus Motion, he led the Proteus V2 redesign, cutting costs and assembly time while scaling to 400+ locations.
He co-organizes the NY Hardware Meetup, founded Vizeng, a hardware consultancy, and launched RemieDog, a pet product company. A PE license holder with four patents, Paul earned his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University and was named one of ASME’s 25 Early Career Engineers to Watch.
Notes
There is no cost to attend this meeting, however, if you are a NYS Professional Engineer and would like to receive Professional Development Hours (PDHs) of continuing education credit, then payment of a $15 fee is required. 2 PDHs anticipated, but amount based upon actual program length. You will also have to properly fill out an Evaluation Form to prove that you attended this lecture. Click here to open the form. Simply fill it out and click on the “Submit” button.
We accept electronic payment via Zelle. Zelle is a bank-to-bank transfer mechanism supported by most banks, without a fee, as part of their normal online banking capabilities. There is also a Zelle app available for your smartphone.
When you use Zelle with your bank, it will ask for the following information: 1) the amount to send (enter $15.00), 2) what account you want to pull the money from (select whatever account you want to use), and 3) the phone number or email of the recipient (enter ieeelicn@gmail.com. Don’t worry if you see the name of our Treasurer, David Rost, pop up). If it asks for a memo field, we suggest entering "yymmdd LICN CEU” where yymmdd are the year, month and date of the lecture.
While we prefer that your payment and evaluation form are received by the day of the lecture, they must be received by the first Monday after the lecture.
If paying by Zelle is a problem for you, then please contact Ed Gellender at edgellender@gmail.com for an alternate payment method.
