ETC Spin Off company, digital dream labs made their presentation May 14, at Alpha Lab Demo Days, to Pittsburgh’s entrepreneurial community. Matt Stewart('12), CEO and Co-Founder, wowed the audience with his energetic illustration of dreamWare™ their “toy to tablet” learning platform. Also at Demo Day were Co-Founders Justin Sabo('12) and Peter Kinney('13), artist, Aaron Clark and intern, Corrine Charlton. 
digital dream labs was the final presentation of the day and as soon as Matt walked off the stage, the group was circled by investors wanting to learn more. Over 100 venture capital firms from across the country – and at least four from as far away as Abu Dhabi – were present for the event. It was very exciting to see the interest generated by digital dream labs.
dreamWare™ is a platform that bridges the gap between worlds: nostalgic, hands-on learning meets engaging, digital technology. Children solve simple sequence puzzles in real life that are transmitted wirelessly to a tablet or other electronic device for continued interaction. The product has been play tested with over 100 children ages 4-12; and the company has already secured 14 paying customers (and counting) for the Pilot Program, who will receive their hardware and software in August 2013. The premise of the game is the player must help an island full of dinosaurs before the island’s resident volcano explodes. To do this, the kids must send commands to the dinosaurs on screen using puzzle pieces that plug into the tray. Then they can watch the commands acted on screen. It looks like a high-tech ice cube tray and it hooks up to a Mac or PC or tablet and helps kids learn logic and sequence — basics for computer science. While the children are having loads of fun, they’re being exposed to STEM education and computer science in particular, through play.
dreamWare™ is the company’s second product release. The dreamTableTop, their flagship museum exhibit, is an interactive tabletop experience combining puzzle blocks with virtual environments. The experience teaches children abstract computer science principles by allowing them to explore different combinations of physical puzzle blocks.
Innovation Works AlphaLab program is an intensive, 20-week program for launching the next generation of software, entertainment technology and Internet-related companies. AlphaLab provides funding, free office space, and expertise to help companies rapidly develop their technology, gain early user feedback, develop go-to-market strategies, and move toward commercialization.
ETC project team Amalgamedia, together with the band Anti-Flag, spent the spring semester creating a one of a kind transmedia experience. The team created a web based interactive music video for Anti-Flag using Facebook, HTML5 and film. The experience will take a user on a journey to see how their information posted on Facebook is really used.
The project is now live on monetizinginc.com so go ahead and check it out!
Nice work to the Amalgamedia team: Patrick Shore, Alex Loughran, Chen Yang, Simeng Yang, Frank Hamilton and Himanshu Vartak!
The latest ETC spinoff company digital dream labs:, and its founders Justin Sabo ('12), Matt Stewart ('12) and Peter Kinney ('13) announced earlier they will be offering a pilot program for their toy to table learning platform.
If you are interested in becoming part of the dreamWare™ pilot program, visit the digital dream labs website.
Nice work, Justin, Matt and Peter!
We love hearing from the ETC alumni about the different projects and games they are involved with. Last week we received email from alumnus Lilian Chan ('11) asking us to try a new game. Below is her email.
Hey guys,
Psychic Bunny just released an audio adventure game called "FREEQ" Available on Google Play and iOS.
FREEQ is an audio adventure game about eavesdropping and meddling with the future.
The game turns your handheld device into an antenna that can pick up and hijack radio signals from the distant future.
You can spy on the last society on Earth, interfere with people's lives, and try to solve the mystery of what ended the world.
The game is interesting and fun. I recommend it to everybody.
If you like it, please don't hesitate to leave us a comment.
Thanks,
lilian
Congratulations to our friend at Psychic Bunny!
ETC student project, Team Osiris and the Plaid Parliment of Pwning are happy to announce the launch of PicoCTF, an online computer security competition for 6th - 12th grade school students.
With the game - Toaster Wars, the first of ten of days of competition saw more than 900 teams of students enjoying the new perspective of computer science education.
Toaster Wars has four levels with distinguished problem difficulty. Starting with advanced math, pattern recognition, and logic to ending with complex hacking scenario problems crafted by the CMU Hacking team or, Plaid Parliament of Pwning.
As the competition started at 10 am EST April 26, 2012, many middle and high students are already learning lots about computer science and security. Visit the picocft web site to see out how well they are doing on the scoreboard.
