#chooseblocks

"When you fall flat on your face, you’re still moving forward"

We fell, on many occasions! But we got back up every time, and continued moving forward, meeting new challenges…and climbing some awesome peaks :)

THE ROLLERCOASTER BOOST

Imperial Create Lab in London were the first to challenge us! They organised a competition where startup companies could pitch to a panel of judges for a £10,000 prize.

It was thanks to this competition that we were really pushed to prove our concept, the concept the media had shared worldwide, the very concept that some believed to be impossible….

ONE WEEKEND! WE DID IT ONE WEEKEND! A very long weekend at that. All 4 of us, along with a new recruit, Karl Taylor, had stayed up most of the night (only Karl and myself managed to make it through the night; Ali, Serge, Omer, we’re still disappointed…) working tirelessly to build the world’s first, apparently impossible, modular smartwatch system.

Omer was a blur, running to and from the 3D printer.

Serge was lost in interfacing our first ever BLOCKS.

Alireza was on fire, busy soldering the electronics for the BLOCKS of hardware.

Karl was losing his mind, working on the device drivers.

And me? Hacking together some overly complex code…

The moment when that screen finally flickered to life…never will it be forgotten…

Of course, there was still a way to go! But we had managed to get a display block, motion block and an environment block to connect to the main core processor block, which was able to detect the hardware upon connection, and to pull/push data from/to them!

We had proven a modular device was indeed possible.

THE FIRST INVITE TO FAME

We made it into the finals of the competition for the £10,000! But before the final pitch, we were also invited to the first ever Wearable Expo in Europe!

As Omer stated, "we saw the future of wearable technology all in one place".

What was even better was how all these big companies, our potential future competitors, loved the idea of BLOCKS!

However, we needed to get a move on, get some funding, and bring it to life…

THE FIRST LOSS TO SUCCESS

Yep, we experienced our first fall. Unfortunately we had just missed out on the £10,000 prize, coming in second place. But remember, even though we had fallen, we were still moving forward…

Soon after, we were invited to pitch to Prince Andrew and the Mayor of London. We exhibited at the British Fashion Council, the Bluetooth Future Is Smart event. We took part in the European Innovation Academy, and currently taking part in the Intel Make It Wearable Challenge!

Most memorable event so far? Well…other than getting overly excited at watching BLOCKS go crazy in the tech world, it has to be when Prince Andrew decided to take a selfie with the audience! Was quite surprising to say the least…

But what a crazy journey it has already been! We have made a LOT of progress, with our most recent success becoming a finalist of the Intel development track. We’ve been provided with funding as well access to the latest cutting-edge technology from one of the biggest companies in the world.

We are currently working with Intel as finalists in their competition. We made it into the top 10 of wearable startup companies, out of 400+! Development is well underway for the amazingly small and powerful Intel chip, and as you can see with the test display above, we’ve already got our next prototype functioning!

So, what are the next steps? Build a slick UI with a library of apps, and of course, make it look beautiful…

The design of BLOCKS is getting better, more practical, and way more fashionable by the day! (awesome work Omer!) We’ve recently updated our website with our latest designs, so be sure to check it out.

However, best of all, we’ve finally found the answer to open-design as well as cross-activity comfort!

But let’s end it there for now…we’ll dive into the awesome block-evolution next time…oh, BTW, I’m currently working on a new promo vid for BLOCKS, so keep an eye out for it ;)

Yours truly,
Hakeem