Fall 2025 Monday Bootcamp 1.0 LYPD Lexington Youth Product Development

Project Owner: Gabriel Portugal

Email: gjpo224@uky.edu 

OVERVIEW

LYPD is a summer long program for highschool students in Lexington, KY. We exist to expose the next generation to the amazing world of product development.

BACKGROUND

My name is Gabriel Portugal, and I am studying Product Design in college. What does product design look like? Every semester we have a studio class where we are given a project brief and by the end of the semester we need to have a new product. To do this, we are taught skills like Computer Aided Design, sketching, and rapid prototyping. Our professors also plan factory tours for us and meetings to learn from professionals. At the end, we present our designs in a celebratory exhibit. In high school, I did not know that this is what product development looked like, and I did not know it was this fun! I want to provide a taste of this experience to high school students.

NEED

In fact, there is no program like this in Lexington. There are programs like pre-engineering and architecture programs, but none that focus on consumer products and take students on the whole product development process. As a booming hub for startups and businesses, Lexington needs a program like this that exposes and attracts students into product development.

SOLUTION

LYPD is a summer long program where ~40 students get to work on a project sponsored by a local business (ex: Toyota). Throughout the program, students will learn necessary skills to design and prototype the next generation of Toyota Cambrys. They will also take field trips to factories and talk to professionals to enrich their understanding of the problem and approach to solving it. The program would culminate with a celebratory presentation of students' work to the sponsoring business.

VALUE PROPOSITION

Through this program, students have the opportunity to (1) be part of a really cool project, (2) learn marketable skills, (3) gain work experience as this program can count as an internship, (4) network with companies that could lead to a future job.

BUSINESS MODEL

To be a part of this once in a lifetime experience, we need to charge a registration fee of $600 for the whole summer. $600 x 40 students = $24,000 Additionally, there will be a list of sponsors. The platinum sponsor will be the one on which the project is based, and they will be asked to contribute $5,000. We will also seek out Gold and Silver sponsors (ex: FCPS, KY Department of Education). We anticipate a contribution of ~$3,000 from gold and silver sponsors.

Why would businesses want to sponsor this program? They get their name out “Toyota investing in the next generation.” This money will be to cover necessary costs like software, prototyping material, tools, and transportation to field trips. Along with teacher salaries. Total revenue: $24,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 = $32,000

With total expenses totalling ~$16,000, we will have a profit of $16,000.

• Software = $ 2,000
• Materials = $ 3,000
• Field Trips = $ 3,000
• Teacher (s) = $ 6,000
• Extra = $2,000