Tag Archives: Products

🛠️ Maker Spotlight: Lukas – Designing, Prototyping, and Bringing Products to Life

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🛠️ Maker Spotlight: Lukas – Designing, Prototyping, and Bringing Products to Life

This fall, Lukas joined Monumental Impact as an intern on our Product Development & Delivery (PDD) Team, diving deep into the process of taking a design from concept to creation.

A senior in high school, Lukas is using this internship to explore his next steps — discovering how his interests in technology, design, and creativity might shape his future path.

He first connected with Monumental Impact through a Fusion 360 design class we offered in collaboration with the Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) at their Library 21C makerspace. His curiosity, creative mindset, and growing passion for digital design stood out immediately — and he’s continued to build on that momentum ever since.

As part of his internship, Lukas is developing and refining product prototypes that will be featured in Monumental Impact’s new Etsy store this holiday season. His work includes designing with various CAD tools such as Fusion 360, TinkerCAD, and Blender, testing prototypes with mentors and community members, and preparing final samples for production using tools like 3D printers, CNC machines, and laser engravers.

This Saturday, October 25th, Lukas had the opportunity to gather community feedback on his product design during a Product Feedback Session held at Silver Key’s Thrift Store located in Palmer Lake. Thank you to their patrons for taking the time to share thoughtful insights and ideas with Lukas — helping him refine his design before moving forward with final production.

He’s also contributing to the marketing and fulfillment side, learning how to turn creative designs into real-world products that reach customers. Through this process, Lukas is gaining valuable experience in design thinking, iterative development, and entrepreneurship.

Lukas brings a strong “no job too small” attitude and a thoughtful approach to problem-solving. He’s learning not just how to make — but how to deliver: how to take an idea, design it, produce it, and connect it with people.

We’re proud to see Lukas growing his skills and contributing to our community of makers, mentors, and innovators. His work represents the creative energy that fuels Monumental Impact’s mission: connecting students, entrepreneurs, and professionals through hands-on experience and real-world projects.

Interested in Interning with Monumental Impact?

We’re always looking for high school and college students who want to explore digital design to fabrication, product development, or delivering services and products to real customers.

With the making and gift giving season in full swing, now’s a great time to get involved — whether you’re interested in design, marketing, engineering, or entrepreneurship.

👉 Learn more or apply to join our internship program.

About Monumental Impact

Monumental Impact is a registered 501(c)(3) Colorado nonprofit serving high school students through adults as a community makerspace.  Monumental Impact is also referred to as MITEE, (Monumental Impact for Technology, Engineering and Entrepreneurship) connecting youth and community members with career pathways in technology, engineering, and entrepreneurship. We provide programs, equipment, mentorship, workspace, and real-world opportunities that empower people to explore, create, and compete.

Anyone interested in learning more about becoming a part of and engaging in Monumental Impact’s community can visit a recent article, Engaging in the Monumental Impact Community.

Product Feedback Session

🧰 See what’s being Made @ Monumental Impact!

Join us for a special Product Feedback Session where our student interns will showcase their latest product prototypes and invite your feedback. You’ll also see creative works from other members made using the equipment in our community makerspace — from laser-cut and 3D-printed designs to handcrafted products.

Your insights help shape the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and makers. Come connect, share ideas, and be part of the creative process!

About Monumental Impact
Monumental Impact is a registered 501(c)(3) Colorado nonprofit serving high school students through adults as a community makerspace.  Monumental Impact is also referred to as MITEE, (Monumental Impact for Technology, Engineering and Entrepreneurship) connecting youth and community members with career pathways in technology, engineering, and entrepreneurship. We provide programs, equipment, mentorship, workspace, and real-world opportunities that empower people to explore, create, and compete.

Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive updates and information on happenings in our community.

Veterans Small Business Conference (VetCon)

Join Monumental Impact at the 2025 Veterans Small Business Conference, Colorado’s premier event supporting veteran entrepreneurs and small business owners. We’ll have a booth alongside veteran business owner and MITEE community member Dan Spohn of UBI Business Consulting.

Discover resources, connect with local organizations, and explore opportunities for growth, mentorship, and collaboration.

🎟 Use code IMPACT50 for 50% off your ticket when registering on the Veterans Small Business Conference website.

About Monumental Impact
Monumental Impact is a registered 501(c)(3) Colorado nonprofit serving high school students through adults as a community makerspace.  Monumental Impact is also referred to as MITEE, (Monumental Impact for Technology, Engineering and Entrepreneurship) connecting youth and community members with career pathways in technology, engineering, and entrepreneurship. We provide programs, equipment, mentorship, workspace, and real-world opportunities that empower people to explore, create, and compete.

Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive updates and information on happenings in our community.

Building Our Social Enterprise

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We are ready to build our foundation as a social enterprise. Are there high school students out there in the Tri-Lakes area interested in joining us on the journey? Do you want to help us with engineering and / or technology products, services or event content? There are no definitive books or surefire nonprofit business models for what we envision as our offerings, but we are okay with this.  Since every student is different and the fields of technology and engineering are broad and diverse, we expect over the years our offerings will be different, broad and diverse. Our internships will provide industry experiences as we define, refine, make and deliver offerings. We look forward to helping spark interests and increase awareness of career opportunities in these fields.

Our intent as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit is to be a social enterprise[1].  We would prefer to diversify our funding options and provide opportunities for students to gain industry experience of bringing products, services and events to market as engineers and technologists. As a nonprofit, we can be entrepreneurial.  We can sell products and services, but our income must go back into our mission.  Our mission is to enable student interests and skills in engineering and technology.  Thus we should focus our products or services to be engineering and / or technology-centered to align with our mission.

As with any business we should also set income goals that align with this social enterprise intent. This year we have set non-zero goals for any products, services or event income that we are able to achieve together.

This summer we will be building a foundation in both our development lifecycle and our offerings. The process will span a year across multiple internships for one product to complete one cycle.  After working the product through the process, students will gain a deep understanding of the roles, process and types of businesses that are involved in bringing an engineering and technology-focused product to market. Exciting times for those coming on board this summer for the journey!

We are starting this summer in Stage 1 of our development lifecycle. In our first two weeks we will brainstorm and collaborate together on what products, services or event content we have an interest in designing and prototyping.  What types of products will we design, prototype, sell? How do we plan to deliver? Who is our target audience of these products? Which way will we choose to manufacture them later in the year?  We will also explore whether we could provide services? What can we offer with our skills?  

We don’t plan to work in isolation and will look at opportunities to broaden our experience. For instance, to get a lay of the industry in Stage 1 we intend to visit with inventors and businesses that deliver products or provide services, large and small.  

On November 20th, 2021, Monumental Impact intends to host a MITEE[2] Exhibition. This event will provide an opportunity for students to showcase projects they have been working on and for supported programs to share their latest creations.  During our brainstorm some students may come up with a project that will focus on entertaining community members at the exhibition.  To add to the fun, we may choose to host activities in which both adults and students can participate such as a DonkeyCar Rally and Colorado Combat Robotics.  The Exhibition will provide an opportunity for some fun, market offerings and inspire others to love engineering and technology as we do!

If you are a high school student in the area interested in engineering and technology, we’d love to have you on our team. Monumental Impact is looking forward to seeing what we come up with together!

More information on applying to our internships can be found here.

Summer Internship Schedule

We know summer schedules can be hectic. Some may have jobs that are helping them with funds while others have family vacation obligations. We have proposed the following 2-7-2 schedule for our summer internships. The work schedule will include a 2-week focused time of 3-4 hours a day as a team at the beginning and end of the internship while we have a 7-week flex period in-between where team members are working remotely. A key to this schedule will be the first work week of June 1st where we work together to define our projects and business expectations.

[1] More about social enterprises can be found in our previous article, How is Monumental Impact a Social Enterprise?.

[2] MITEE stands for Monumental Impact for Technology, Engineering and Entrepreneurship.