PeerAGE

About

Value Proposition: Engineering instructors/administrators are under increasing pressure to maintain high levels of classroom engagement and student achievement in the face of dwindling resources. Increasing enrollment and focus on more “design and making” based classes have made it difficult for single instructors to actively engage with all the students. PeerAGE is a collaborative peer evaluation system that lowers instructor burden in grading and providing feedback to students on creative engineering assignments while increasing active learning by using students to participate in the assessment. Unlike other peer-evaluation systems, PeerAGE utilizes latest technologies to provide a work space that is at once familiar and easy to use for instructors in the field of engineering design and other project based classes.   Market Opportunity: The primary market for this innovation is the engineering classrooms, the current state of art is instructor driven grading – there is a lack of available tools to enhance their work. There are ~7200 engineering institutions in the world (Total Available Market – yielding $7.2M Annually). Roughly ~1074 school in the US is our Served Available Market (Yielding $3.2M annually). We are targeting ~100 institutions in the US in the next 3 years(Target Market, yielding $300,000 annually).   Competitive Landscape: Current state of the art products use a silicone or thermoplastic gel layer as a prosthetic liner. These materials are soft enough to be comfortable but do not allow any moisture to pass through. As a result active users, users in warm climates or anyone unhappy with their level or perspiration suffer from chronic moisture accumulation in their prosthetic limbs which can lead to sores pain and infections. Our product uses an advanced biomaterial membrane to act as a moisture permeable layer which allows water to pass through when acted upon by a pressure gradient.The vacuum suction is supplied by commercially available prosthetic vacuums which are currently prescribed to improve the fit of the prosthetic limb   Technology: PeerAGE is a web based peer evaluation tool, where students are recruited to provide feedback to their peers using a rubric devised by the instructors. Unlike other tools,PeerAGE allows for reviewing design and other project artifacts natively – allowing for easier classroom implementation in engineering classes.