The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project resides in its novel approach to transferring and capturing knowledge and organizing it for application. The art of learning is the keystone to society's arch of success. From the most complex chemical reaction to running a government every aspect of humanity has been based on the sharing and passing of knowledge - always refining it along the way. The proposed mobile software product, a multidimensional method acquirer and perfector, seeks to standardize all regions and echelons of understanding, bridging the gaps between the professional, academic, public, and even private sectors, connections which will blaze new pathways in scientific novelty and commercial collaboration.
This I-Corps project focuses on addressing the pains and gains of learning in stressful and demanding research environments. The Method Catcher is a smartphone software designed to intake any set of instructions and standardize it into a dynamic and customized .inscript file type. The software adapts a series of user recorded media into editable, scannable, publishable, and pedagogical stepwise navigations of time, environment, material, and reason to accomplish any task: be it sandwich-making or neurosurgery. Research methodology is usually transferred via written methods sections between studies, and hierarchical pedagogy within studies. The proposed technology includes method walkthroughs: seamlessly instantiating adaptable stepwise protocol capture by transforming photographic sequences of - say - surgical demos into sharable, completely replicable protocols - exportable to bar code stickers.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
