press coverage
Protolabs Cool Idea! Award
July 30, 2018
Specdrums began with the goal to make learning a musical instrument simpler and more fun for people of all ages and musical backgrounds. So founder, Steven Dourmashkin, set out to develop an interactive and easy-to-use product that transforms colors into sound—teaching the user musical patterns one step at a time.
Sphero snaps up Specdrums, a crowdfunded music tech startup
June 25, 2018
Sphero, the robotics company that pivoted back from Disney-licensed toys to its roots in education earlier this year amid some steep cuts to its workforce, is branching out yet again—buying Specdrums, a startup that raised over $175,000 on Kickstarter to fund its music-enabled rings, for an undisclosed sum. Look for more such acquisitions by Sphero, which raised another $12 million earlier this month (for a total of $119 million).
Sphero buys Boulder music tech startup
June 23, 2018
Boulder-based robotics and toy maker Sphere has purchased Specdrums, a music technology startup also headquartered in Boulder.
Specdrums, which raised nearly $200,000 in crowdsourced funding last year, makes app-controlled rings that users wear on their fingers. The rings are programmed to recognize colors and convert those colors into sounds when tapped by the user, helping teach musical concepts.
Sphero acquires a music education startup
June 22, 2018
The BB-8 maker announced this morning that it’s picked up Specdrums — the fellow Boulder, Co-based startup is a Kickstarter success story that lets users create music with an app connected ring.
Sphero is promising a relaunch of the company’s first music product the end of this year or the beginning of next. The initial Spedrums offering had been sold out after the closing of the company’s 2017 crowdfunding campaign.
Musical rings win $75K in startup contest; robotic muscles grab $25K
April 06, 2018
Comfortable and confident on stage with a panel of judges on one side and hundreds of eager faces in the audience, Steven Dourmashkin tapped the brightly colored plastic rings on his hand against spots of color on his T-Shirt. With each tap, a new tone rang out.
The crowd erupted in “ooohs,” cheers and claps as it became clear that this aerospace engineering graduate student and lifelong drummer had made the world and all its varied and colorful surfaces his own personal keyboard.
5 Startup Tips From a Musical Entrepreneur
December 14, 2017
Steven Dourmashkin has learned a thing or two about launching a successful startup. Specdrums, the musical app-based technology which Dourmashkin co-founded, raised over 12 times its initial Kickstarter goal and won Red Bull’s 2017 Launchpad competition. Here, the Specdrums CEO shares the five most important lessons he learned along the musical road to success.
Young entrepreneurs bring a new dimension to music creation, making the world your sound machine.
October 14, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO — Good news for those uncontrollable fidgeters out there: Your tapping quirk can be turned into your own style of music, thanks to collegiate entrepreneur Steven Dourmashkin and his Specdrums, a wearable app-connected ring that turns your surroundings into your instrument. The device — which won this year’s Red Bull Launchpad — is able to read colors and translate them into sound, turning clothes, desks and even skin into potential melodies.
Wearables Opportunity: Lessons For Entrepreneurs
October 02, 2017
According to IDC, the wearables market is expected to grow at an annual average rate of 18.2% through 2021, reaching about 240.1 million units. And as should be no surprise, the main players include biggies like Apple, Fitbit, Xiaomi, Samsung and Garmin.
Yet what about the startups? Well, of course, they will also have great opportunities.
Just look at Steven Dourmashkin, who is a grad student at the University of Colorado Boulder. The inspiration for his business idea came from his frustration that he could not bring his drums to his dorm! So why not create a virtual drum set?
Drumming up success: CU Boulder students create rings that turn color to sound
September 29, 2017
Usually, drumming your fingers on a table or desk is a sign of boredom, not an indicator of productivity or learning. But two University of Colorado students saw an opportunity to turn tedium into entertainment and education.
Specdrums is the result of their efforts. The startup's flagship product of the same name are rings that, when connected to the companion app, turn color into sound when tapped onto a surface.
Turn Color Into Sound with Innovative Specdrums Rings, Created with the Help of 3D Printing
September 14, 2017
From 3D printed violins and guitars to a modular synthesizer and arpeggiator, 3D printing technology has often been used to help musicians play that funky (and classical) music. A creative group of engineering, design, and music students from the University of Colorado Boulderlaunched a Kickstarter campaign, currently in its final hours, for Specdrums, which is one of the most interesting musical products I’ve seen in a long time....
Red Bull Launchpad Announces Winner of National Collegiate Start-Up Contest: App-Connected Ring That Turns Color from Any Physical Object Into Sound
September 13, 2017
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Colorado Boulder grad student and Co-founder/CEO of Specdrums, Steven Dourmashkin, has been named winner of Red Bull Launchpad, a program introduced last spring to give wings to collegiate entrepreneurs and their ideas. The program, now in its second iteration, provides college students with a platform to cultivate innovative concepts into reality while providing access to people and events that will increase their exposure and help them grow...
Transform Colors into Melodies With Specdrums
September 04, 2017
How many times have you found yourself tapping away unconsciously on the desk or worktop, sometimes making a tune, sometimes not. Often we find ourselves doing this without really thinking about it, but other times it’s because we’ve heard a beat in our heads and want to replicate that sound out loud. And while sometimes, tapping your finger or pencil on the desk can sound alright, it’s never going to be as good as Specdrums – your very own sound machine.
Specdrums Rings Turn Color Into Sound With A Drum Kit At Your Fingertips
August 29, 2017
When Steven Dourmashkin first went away to college at Cornell University, there was one thing he couldn’t pack up and bring with him to his dorm room: his drum kit. After two years of design and product development, nine major iterations, and one issued patent, Dourmashkin, who is now a PhD candidate at CU Boulder in Aerospace Engineering, finally developed a solution.
Specdrums turns just about any surface into a musical instrument
August 28, 2017
For those of us who tend to tap away with their hands when boredom strikes now have a new gadget meant just for them. Specdrums is a series of app controlled rings that actually let you to add music and sounds to your tapping. Currently being funded on Kickstarter, this new device turns everyday objects into instruments to make music.
These smart rings let you make color-specific music on any surface
August 22, 2017
'Specdrums' are app-connected rings that lets you assign different sounds to different colors. This allows the user to "play" their surroundings.
Specdrum Rings Turn Color Into Sound
August 19, 2017
Picture this: you’re wearing a ring, you tap it on your red shirt and a melody sounds (woah!). Then you tap it on you denim jeans, and another melody, equally as brilliant, beams out. You keep tapping this magical musical ring against different colored objects and listening to the different beats. It’s a ring that reacts to color—it’s a Specdrum.
These connected rings let you tap out sounds on any surface
August 17, 2017
Do you find yourself mindlessly tapping away sometimes? How cool would it be if you could tap any physical object and produce different sounds? That’s the aim of a set of wearable rings named Specdrums (currently raising money on Kickstarter) which connect to your smartphone and let you make music by tapping the world around you.
Specdrums Connected Musical Rings
August 16, 2017
Transform the way you interact with the world with the Specdrums Connected Musical Rings. These ingenious wearables use an app to turn color into sound. No matter where you tap with the ring, the Specdrums enable you to create to your heart’s content.
Drum Anywhere You Want To With Specdrums
August 09, 2017
People have been using their hands and fingers to beat along with a song since the beginning of time. It could be providing the backbeat to a friends guitar playing or hip hop freestyle. It could be, beating along with the radio or Spotify, or it could be beating to the song in your head (for me it was that). Imagine if your hands actually made drumming sounds...
Pushing Boundaries: Specdrum rings let you turn any color, any surface into sound
May 15, 2017
As a drummer, Steven Dourmashkin was always tapping out drum beats with his fingers whenever and wherever he could find a flat surface. Harnessing that energy, he developed Specdrums, app-connected rings users wear on their fingers that turn colors into sounds...
Specdrums: From ideas to prototype
April 11, 2016
"As our prototypes evolved into a viable product, we began looking for a structured program that would help us learn the basics of starting a business. We identified eLab as a great resource to transition our focus from an engineering invention to a real-world venture.” — Specdrums founders discuss their journey from concept to prototype.