Ian Charnas, a director and co-founder of the Sears think[box] maker space and “innovation center” at Case Western Reserve University, is an artist and engineer who says his goal is “to inspire creativity and the belief that you can do anything.” And he’s always coming up with new things that are fun and playful and easily accessible to people who don’t know squat about technology.
He was part of the team that created the Tesla Orchestra, which makes music with giant Tesla coils; you may have seen/heard them at the Ingenuity Festival. And he designed a computerized waterfall swing that makes you feel as if you’re inside a waterfall but you never get wet. On the even more frivolous side, he created a cat butt emoji.
Now he’s created a fun project and he’s helping a good cause. He built a talking backpack, which he put on a park bench to chat remotely with passersby. (You can watch the results here).
The backpack is based on a character from the Netflix comedy show, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which finds humor in the unfunny situation of a young woman kidnapped and held hostage by a cult for 15 years. To tie in with the show’s theme, Charnas is raffling off the backpack with the proceeds going to benefit Guardian Group, which works to prevent and disrupt sex trafficking in the U.S. Go here to enter.