Update: November 6, 2025

DC Mini Ecosystem v2.mp4

The project is being documented both via video and textually on **https://dcmini-stream.vercel.app/**, a public stream of consciousness documenting the rollercoaster of emotions involved with building something from the ground up, in a foreign place, by myself.

Since July 3, 2025, I’ve:

• Left my life in NYC and moved to Taipei for a month and entered their makerspace ecosystem, prototyped with foam, clay, paper, illustration, cheap cameras, ESP32’s, relearned hardware, soldering. I used the Meta Raybans daily for a month to vlog my life. I met engineers, industrial designers, and project managers in Taipei who advised me, guided me, made introductions.
• Following Taipei, I moved to Shenzhen for 2.5 months, learned CAD, 3D printing, retrofit an entire design around an existing camera, modified an existing camera by flashing its firmware. Built up my social network in Shenzhen, got connected to Formlabs, Seeed studio, met engineers who are enthusiastic about helping me with this project. Joined the Chaihuo makerspace, bought a 3D printer, parked it there.
• Finalized the v0.1.0 camera design, manufactured and assembled 15 by hand. Contracted soldering work to someone I found at the Shenzhen HuaQiangBei market. Designed the logo and corresponding branding. Made a custom flash screen for each of the 15 camera testers.
• Built up a social media presence on Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitter. From a simple carousel post asking for camera testers, 300+ people have DM’d me asking to test it, 125 have filled out a user research form confirming my hypothesis around the camera and whether or not it deserves to exist.
• Shipped myself to NYC to hand out my 10 cameras to save on time, shipping costs, difficulties shipping electronics with batteries embedded. Observed people using the camera, received footage back, helped troubleshoot.
• Started conversations with hardware founders, VCs, angel investors, influencers, artists. Built up a fanbase, a bit of a cult following.
• This entire process has been documented both via text and via increasingly higher fidelity camera prototypes. Content from this process is being slowly released on social media. Editing is a huge blocker but one that I aim to help solve with this camera’s app pairing.
• … among other achievements, all documented on my public telegram bot blog

Custom Flash Screens

Instructions Manual