Posts · · Jerry Miao · History
First place at Startup Weekend EDU
In July 2016 Jerry and two teammates took first place at Startup Weekend Madison EDU with FlashLapse, a 3D-printed time-lapse imaging chamber for classrooms. It was the earliest version of what became COSE.
The first COSE instrument was built in a weekend. Startup Weekend Madison EDU, held 22–24 July 2016, gave teams 54 hours to turn an education idea into something they could demonstrate. Jerry and two teammates he met that weekend built FlashLapse, a time-lapse imaging chamber, and took first place on Sunday.
FlashLapse put a Raspberry Pi and camera on top of a 3D-printed chamber so a class could photograph seedlings at a fixed interval under even lighting and produce a usable time-lapse without specialist equipment. The instrument in the photo is the version built that weekend.
The idea behind it was simple: make research-grade instruments that a classroom or small lab could afford and operate, with the imaging built in. COSE was founded around that idea. A year later the same approach went into the first clinostat, and FlashLapse is still made today.