The Students Designing Your Future

The BSU New Product Development Lab’s Cubic Photon 3-D printer is capable of printing highly-intricate designs. PHOTO BY KAREN DAY.

BY ARIANNA CRETEAU

Nestled amongst the environmental research and engineering buildings on Boise State University’s campus is a hidden lab run by some of the school’s brightest minds. Located in the Micron Engineering Center, the New Product Development Lab has its sights set on changing how businesses navigate manufacturing, both locally and globally. Currently, there are 16 students with different backgrounds in engineering, business, marketing, and gaming interactive mobile media—a marked change since the lab’s inception in 2000, when it involved mostly engineering students. Now, lab manager Grey Beaudry works to make the lab available to students with diverse degrees.

Jessica Lambert, a student design engineer and fourth-year mechanical engineering student with a minor in computer science, has been interested in pursuing engineering projects since high school. In her role as an advocate and mentor for newer colleagues, she helps to elevate students’ experiences at the lab while gaining hands-on exposure to design and development. “For entrepreneurs, we’re here to guide them through the very scary world of prototyping, iteration, and research and development,” said Lambert. “For students, we’re here to guide them through what a real career looks like, what working with industry partners [looks like], and getting to know the skills of the job—both soft skills and hard skills.” Students average between two to four clients at a time.

Grey Beaudry, Lab Director, looks forward to developing innovative prototypes for individual inventors and companies.

PHOTO BY KAREN DAY

“We obviously want to impact manufacturing in Idaho. But our second most important goal that goes hand-in-hand with that is the development of the talent coming out of the program,” said Beaudry.

As an alum of the lab and previous lab manager, Blake Young, Director of Engineering at Primary Weapon Systems, said that the New Product Development Lab helped him focus on his future career early on, instilling a love of research and development, which he described as really fun. “As an engineer, it’s probably the funnest part of engineering. The hard part of doing any sort of new product development is actually at the end when you have to actually specify everything that needs to be done for that part to be manufactured,” said Young. “Clients and customers are always revolving and they’re always different.”

Young noted that it can be difficult to break into the industry without experience, but lab alumni have an advantage.

Ryna Hall, a computer engineering student, works on coding a new video game called ROBOT REVOLUTION for the SPACE BAR. The game will premiere at HACKFORT in March, 2023.

PHOTO BY KAREN DAY

In the foreseeable future, Beaudry hopes to start projects in textile manufacturing, which includes smart fabrics, with sensors embedded inside fabrics. “We obviously want to try to make things in the U.S., but sometimes that can be impossible if you want to be competitive,” he said.

In December, Beaudry traveled to Taiwan and Singapore, representing the New Product Development Lab as part of Governor Little’s trade mission. Governor Little explained in a statement that this mission “helped strengthen Idaho’s decades-old partnership and friendship with Taiwan and opened doors for new trade and investment opportunities in both markets to continue to enhance Idaho’s economic prosperity.”

Beaudry, who didn’t realize the depth of trade involvement between the U.S.–particularly Idaho–and Taiwan and Singapore, made the trip to establish relationships with manufacturers and possibly integrate programs from abroad into the lab. Taiwan is Idaho’s second largest export destination and Singapore is Idaho’s fourth-largest export market overall.

Southfork Products MAGDADDY, is a magnetic plate patented-design prototype created by the lab to securely hold an array of fishing flies.

PHOTO BY KAREN DAY

While the lab gets both federal and state funding, all funding has to be matched by the lab one to one. Money generated from the lab comes from client fees and projects. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or MEP, is a network across the United States providing resources to manufacturers. In Idaho, Tech Help is part of the MEP. Tech Help also oversees the New Product Development Lab.

Each state has different manufacturing needs and focuses, and Idaho emphasizes agriculture, while Washington is more aerospace and software focused. Labs that are a part of the MEP are not typically associated with universities, making Boise State’s special—one of four in the entire country. Because of this, the lab is in a unique position to accept clients from other states like Florida or Alaska.

Iron Pine US Patented Idaho axe heads were designed in the lab as a functional piece of art that is now available on the commercial market.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LONE PINE

Maria Lopez, owner of Iron Pine, worked with the New Product Development Lab on the creation of the Iron Pine U.S. Patented Idaho Axe, a long handled axe that features an axe head shaped like the state of Idaho, which took many prototypes. The lab also worked to create packaging design, fly fishing equipment, expedition gear, updated manufacturing methods, graphic design, laser prototypes, and more for a variety of companies.

Beaudry is excited to offer a learning opportunity to people of all backgrounds, and hopes that the lab can help circumvent the types of mistakes that often happen. “We’re connected with a lot of people in the industry, the university, and other partners. It’s a learning opportunity for students and manufacturers,” he said. “We’re hoping that we can get our name out there and so we can help more people.”