Is it time for your girlfriend to bleed like a river again? As a maker, how can you save your love?
Editor's note: There are many interesting products in the eighth HAX team. The team members answered my questions with great patience and enthusiasm, and the stories behind the products also exude a vivid charm.
This is one of the product reports of HAX-8 products - smart tampons.
April 30th is the day Amanda calls her "herstory" (corresponding to history), when she became the first user of my.Flow. "The experience is great and the effect is very good," Amanda praised the product.
my.Flow is the first startup product of Amanda Karen Brief and CTO Jacob McEntire. However, Jacob will never get to try out the product he designed himself - because it is a smart tampon.
（Official website: http://www.trackmyflow.com）
The story begins with a group assignment she did last year. In a maker class at the University of California, Berkeley, the teacher assigned everyone an assignment: to make a wearable device. At that time, she and her friends decided to make a demo of a smart tampon.
When asked about the reason, Amanda said it was related to her impression of menstruation.
"In many known cultures, menstruation has always been regarded as a 'curse' and something ominous. Almost every girl has such memories in her mind: whispering in the bathroom; going to the bathroom with a tampon hidden in her sleeve; always with a shy look when asking friends for help.
As a girl, one of the nightmares in middle school is having your pants stained with blood. Even worse is TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome) caused by not changing your tampon for a long time, which can even be fatal in extreme cases.
This was originally just a homework, but after the prototype was completed, Amanda did not stop there. Considering that 70% of women in the United States use tampons during menstruation and often forget to change them, Amanda felt it necessary to make this tampon that can monitor flow into a product and popularize it to more women. After that, she found Jacob, who was in charge of technology, and successfully applied for HAX incubation, and the two went to Shenzhen together. Although there were only two of them, Amanda said that they received a lot of help from other teams at HAX.
This product consists of three main parts: a tampon with a moisture detector, a device tied around the waist, and an app for the phone. After placing the tampon in the body, the user needs to connect the other end of the lead to the device. When the menstrual flow reaches 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, the app can provide real-time reminders.