May 14, 2024 • 36 mins
In this episode of The Bom: Engineering A Path Forward, we take a look at the way that collaboration spaces can be redesigned to better foster innovation with artists, designers, and engineers. We’re going to hear from the Co-founder of MotionLab.Berlin Chris Iwasjuta about the origin story of MotionLab, why he felt this calling to build a collaboration space for designers and engineers, and how a double-decker bus became a brand feature of MotionLab.
MotionLab.Berlin
MotionLab.Berlin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine you have a bigger space that has a common
community area, but there's the art district, there's a metalworking district,
there's electronic district. So you have people in smaller groups
that have to have a common focus area. But if
you want to do something completely different, you just walked
towards the kitchen and then you're in a completely different
space that are totally into woodworking or I don't know,
electronics or AI or whatever. And I think this keeps
(00:22):
the magic of having small groups that are really connected,
deeply connected with the topic they're working on, but also
have the big ecosystem in one space.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome back to the bomb Engineering a Path Forward. I'm
your host, Magenta Strongheart, And if you're anything like me,
having the space to build, experiment, and explore the possibilities
of design and engineering is crucial. But unless you're really lucky,
chances are you're often siloed inside university campus labs or
your garage and really pushing the limits of your tools
and what they're capable of. Today, we're exploring what make
(00:53):
your culture and design spaces might look like if engineers
and artists weren't so limited by space. Joining us on
the bar Chris Ivasuta, co founder of the Motion Lab
Berlin collaborative space. Motion Lab is in essence a playground
for designers and engineers and a space that grows with
them if they're interested in scaling their projects. We're going
to learn about how Chris first formulated the idea to
(01:15):
create the space, why having a dedicated and flexible space
for artists to work with engineers is so important, and
how he used double decker bus to help create a bus.
This is my conversation with Chris Ivasuta, and this is
the bomb. We live in a time where design and
(01:36):
technology touch every aspect of our lives. But where did
it all come from? Who designed it? How is it
built and brought to market? What will look like in
a year, two years, one hundred years. From the phones
and smartwatches that help us in our day to day
to the cutting edge spaceships and three D printers that
are leading us into the future. Modern design is constantly
shaping the way we work, communicate, problem solve and play,
(01:57):
and every new design, bigger, small, starts with an idea
and a bill of materials. I'm agenta strongheart and this
is the bomb where we talk to leading innovators in
the tech world and celebrate the transformational power of design.
Welcome to the Bomb, Chris. I'm so excited to have
(02:18):
you on our podcast. I feel like we've been working
with motion Lab for a couple of years now, but
I really don't know a ton of background about the
space or how you and your co founder free Joff
got started building this space up. And it's an incredible
resource for the community. So I'm really excited to get
into the conversation today.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thanks for having me, and yeah, I'm also very thrilled
to tell you what you want to know.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Let's go with the first question, and you were actually
one of the I think few people from the team
when we first approached motion Lab about having the Hackaday
Berlin conference here last year in twenty twenty three who
was familiar with Hackaday, right. I remember on one of
our initial calls, you were like, we love Hakaday, We're
excited to be a part of this, and I think
Freejoff is kind of like, yeah, yeah, cool, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So I'm a long term Hackaday event. Actually I read
it daily for I think eight ten years. Maybe that's
so awesome, not from the very beginning, but from the
early days, and I really enjoy it because it's totally
my topics. I love the blog, love how the artics
are written, and I love the combination of like having
a nice story and having enough technical details to kind
of get excited about the thing.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, well, we appreciate that. It's always great to meet
another person who's familiar. It's funny because obviously, like it's
a little convoluted the way supply Frame Design Lab Hackaday
is all kind of connected, so we meet people who
maybe know one one part of the family and not
the other. And so it's great that it worked out
this way because we were working with you on a
hacka Day event. And what did you guys think about
(03:46):
Hacke Day Berlin last year when it got started or
did you feel like this is what you expected or
how do you feel like the event went and compared
to what you were expecting after our early conversations.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, so after the early conversations, I got very nervous.
It's a big event, and of course because I was
excited about having Hackaday here, I was very nervous before
they event started. But after the first the first attendees
came in and it started rolling and we got into
the floor, I really enjoyed it. And what I really
(04:18):
liked is I've seen many familiar faces I've met all
over the world earlier in my maker life, and I
was so happy to welcome them here in Berlin with
hacka Day because if for me, it felt a bit
like a family meeting, and it was also very special
for me because I could could for the first time
my life meet the editors in person or the people
that that kind of are behind hacka Day, and that
(04:39):
made it even more exciting for me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think we were, like you
guys didn't quite realize how the intense the arrival of
everyone was going to be. I know, we were like, Okay,
here we go.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's happening.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
But it's also great once the program gets started, like
people are just so stoked to be there. They loved
the space, and I do feel like I've even heard
at ten you say the same thing, you know, like
it's just kind of a family readunion each year. So
and folks were super stoked to have an event back
in Europe because we had taken a few years off
with the pandemic, and I think previously I don't know
(05:12):
if it was twenty seventeen or even earlier that we
had had maybe one event in Munich, one in London,
and one in Dublin, I think, but they were much
smaller meetups. So people love hacke Day Berlin slash Hackaday Europe,
and we're definitely going to try to continue keeping it
going because we just had the second one this past
weekend and it was another big hit, big success, so
(05:34):
and your team always nails it for us, so we
really appreciate it. But I think that's a great segue
into your kind of personal background. So I'd love to
learn more about the early years of Chris as much
as you're willing to share how you got into design, fabrication, electronics,
building stuff, making stuff, and then all the way up
to founding Motion Lab, which I know is the story
(05:57):
in and of itself, but as much you know want
to summarize kind of the foundational years of how you
got there.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I guess the short version of this story is like
I had a former career in IT management and I
quit the job because it's I didn't didn't want to
do it anymore. And in the last month I helped
one of my coworkers move flats and when we cleared
out his his his house, there was a small scene
c machine in his in his basement. He was like, oh, Chris,
this is what you should have. And I was like
(06:24):
a scene sea machine, are you sure? And he's like, yeah,
I think it's for you. And then I had a
scene seamal in my kitchen for for a couple of months.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
How there was like yeah, you could kind of work
on a sheet of paper.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's the working area it has had.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Was it another mill, No, it was like.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
A really really old German design and it took me
like a week or something to get it running. But
the problem is like, of course it's very noisy, and
you shouldn't have a scene seamal in the kitchen if
you have neighbors. And because they kind of rang the
doorbell a couple of times when he has a bit
late for being noisy in your kitchen. I walked into
the first maker space in Hamburg to attractor and I
(07:08):
got in there for the for the open night on
a Thursday at six and I left on Friday morning
at I think six am, so it was there for
twelve hours. Because I first time in my life I
felt like well, here's people that understand me. And that's
how I kind of got in touch with this maker
culture and with the other people and maker spaces in particular.
And afterwards I had a gap year and I went
(07:30):
traveling New Zealand, Australia, the States and whenever I had
the chance of visiting local maker spaces and it was
such a great experience to experience the different cultures, but
always this welcoming atmosphere and this supporting community that was
around these spaces. And by accident that today I have a.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Noise bridge yes we love noise brid yes, and.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Which was here like on this weekend. And this is
so great because I came into a noisebridge, for example,
and the guy who opened the door was like, oh,
you look like you've never been here before. Let me
give you a tour. And this atmosphere was so inspiring
for me that when I came back to Germany and
I was looking for something to do, I came to
Berlin and I walked into the biggest fab lab they
(08:15):
had at that time, and I was like, well, we
can't afford your membership, but I know stuff about what
you do here, and then the hired me as a
mentor and then I became managing director there and this
was kind of the predecessor to Motion Up because fablops
are a big thing and they're super important for the
makeup community for my belief, But what at that time
(08:41):
didn't work in Berlin was the support for startups. So
if you developed your prototype there was a fab lab
that was great, but the moment you were looking for financing,
or for professional support or for more space, the fablot
couldn't satisfy the needs of these young startups. And that's
why we decided to start motion app to create a
(09:02):
space where startups can really have a place to grow.
And yeah, this is where we were sitting today.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And it's such an epic space. Honestly, I feel like
the space really speaks for itself. But I think that's
an interesting direction to go as far as the financial
support and that sort of thing that you guys provide,
and that this space really brings a lot of different
types of people through your programs. So it's not like
you have to have a startup to be able to
access the space, but you also don't necessarily need to
(09:30):
be a member. You also have you know, public events
and different workshops and things like that, which is kind
of similar in some ways to what we do at
Design Lab, but this is at a much grander scale.
So yeah, I would love to learn more about how
you started it first. I'd be interested to hear if
the model evolved much from your initial concept, like before
you guys started your plan that you had for how
(09:52):
it was all going to kind of weave together and
where the different funding streams were coming from versus now.
And you mentioned earlier, I think it's five or six
years old, the space. You can tell us six years yeah, okay, cool,
And so yeah, just tell us a little bit about
what the initial plan was versus kind of how it's
grown to now, because it's always interesting. You said, you
(10:13):
guys are a startup yourself, right, so you're figuring things
out as you go, and I'm sure there's been some changes.
And I think it's also interesting just with the history
of major spaces and fab labs all over what's been
sustainable so that spaces can really last and survive. And
there are a lot of different models we've seen within
the community versus you know, what kind of leads to
(10:33):
unfortunately doors having to close or you know, not long
term success.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So yeah, So initially we were very naive about how
this would develop because none of us has started a
company before, and we believe that if we have a
like a big factory hole like this one is a
fifteen hundred square meters and fill it with machines and
community areas, we would be very successful within their first
(11:01):
six months. What happened is we were nearly bankrupt after
six months, and we got an initial investment that enabled
us to kind of pay the deposit for the space
and also pay for the first machines. But we were
too naive to kind of do a proper financial planning,
so we got lucky. We got saved by the same investor.
(11:21):
We believed that in the first month. We believe that
our business model would be like kind of selling memberships
in renting out space like some pab labs do. But
the problem is what we believe because of the size
of motion app it's fifty hut square meters, we believe
that this model of membership of falancing spaces through memberships
only works with smaller spaces in Germany because it's super
(11:42):
expensive to maintainance space like this and the memberships alone
won't do so we started adding like renting out dedicated
spaces to startups. Imagine like a coworking office but with workbenches.
We called it makeer garages that enable startups to kind
of their own space and develop their physical products. So
there were companies that drove in cars and outfitted them
with sensors and stuff. They work quite well, but we
(12:06):
were still not paying us any salaries, so the business
model kind of kept us alive but not really thriving.
And then we discovered that having events dedicated to hardware building,
to kind of the makeup community would kind of add
a lot to the to the business model, and so
we started hosting events that are kind of focused on
(12:28):
the startup setup culture, innovation ecosystem here and Berlin, which
turned out quite well, but then Corona came and events
weren't possible anymore. We were lucky to kind of be
able to open and keep the doors open during Corona
because we're kind of a production facility, kind of a
small factory, but we had to adjust our business model
(12:50):
afterwards because events weren't running anymore and we were still there,
and so we decided to look into the needs the
startups we supported, and here in Germany. It's for setups.
It's very difficult to kind of find a proper space
to make hardware, but also to get the funding for it,
and we applied for government support, so some of our
(13:13):
accelerator incubator programs are government funded and this enables us
to kind of pay the mentors and also give the
setups some kind of like initial support to kind of
get their product to the product typing stage.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And do those programs there exclusively for hardware electronics startups
or can they be software only or can they be
just products that have nothing to do with technology. What's
the kind of boundaries of what kind of startups you
let in?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
First the first program we ran was about ability because
motion Lips started with the mobility focus. But when then
we saw what we created here is interesting for all
hardware startups. So the programs we currently have are kind
of tailored to hardware startups. But nowadays hardware a lot
of times and most of the times is already connected
with IoT embedded devices sensors to make it smart, to
(14:07):
get some data out of it. And that's why later
on we also edit electronics and now we have we
will have in future dedicated programs for electronic projects, but
currently it's everything that is tangible. I would say when
people apply with the software project, we would kind of
we would not refuse him, but we would tell them
(14:28):
that there's better places in the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, we feel similarly a design leve. We're like, you're
not really going to be able to take advantage of
what we have here and our network and our expertise
and the tools. Of course, I was curious, what were
the first three tools that you had when you guys
started the space.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, we were lucky. We had we had some old
three D printers, some old FDM machines like Prusia MK
three copies. I guess that's where we started with. We
got to see c machine because I'm total leap sncfan,
so I bet do it every day and that's why
it was so important for me to get a machine.
(15:06):
And we were lucky to have a company that supported
us with laser cutters. Okay, so we had Eppy Lop
laser cutters in the beginning for the first two years,
so we weren't completely empty, but there were also not
that many machines available in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, I can't imagine honestly, I can't imagine the space
without all the tools and machines you have now, So
it's funny to think about that. But yeah, no, that's
a good starting point. I feel like because three D printers,
laser cutters, there's a great kind of entryway obviously to
some of the larger machines and understanding how they operate
and how to get some three D design done and
(15:42):
then be able to transition into building bigger stuff. But also,
I'm sure there's not so many I would imagine huge projects, right,
Like generally, could you give us some examples of some
of the startups that have come through your doors.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, it's very diverse. So we had a serve that
built turbo pumps for rocket engines. We had a startup that,
or one of the current setups, they making devices to
kind of to analyze insect population in certain areas. So
they have a small box that kind of looks at
who's coming in and out and then the kind of
counting bees and and like flies and whatever is around.
(16:19):
We had a setup that made autonomous self driving cars.
We currently have a setup that makes my celium climbing holes.
So it's very diverse and there's no clear focus area
right now, which is really good because you have lots
of angers looking at problems and as a community is
very helpful here, like there's lots of inputs if you
(16:42):
have a problem that you can assolve by yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We have to take a quick break, but when we return,
we'll explore what a startup needs to be able to
join Motion Lab and how working on seemingly unrelated projects
can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Welcome back to the bomb
(17:08):
Engineering a path Forward. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. When
we left off, Chris gave us a rundown of the
types of projects Motion Lab invites into their space and
the type of engineering ecosystem he felt the call to build.
Do you guys kind of take care with each cohort
to think about curating you know, these different groups together.
(17:29):
Obviously it sounds like you have some bigger themes for
as the programs start, you know, mobility or some of
these things, But do you really think about kind of
the team dynamics or who's going to be kind of
in the space together or that happens pretty organically.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I think when we select startups, when we filter startups
that want to join motion app We always give them
feedback how good we believe we are with the emotional
motion of ecosystem can support their idea. Sometimes when a
startup applies, I wants to join. We have lots of
partners or talents that already worked in this area or
(18:04):
made the same products, or have experience there, and so
we can support these stutus better than others, and we
always give their feedback when people join, and for the programs,
it sometimes is part of the selection process, but sometimes
it's also diversity.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, definitely wanting a good group, good mix makes sense.
And so I'm curious, speaking of team dynamics, I want
to hear kind of the story of how you and
free Joff met and decided to build this thing. And
what do you think is kind of important about, you know,
the balance and a co founder team, because it's pretty common,
I think to have co founders for things, but it
(18:42):
takes a special kind of relationship I think to succeed
and for the relationship to be sustainable, right, And I
think you guys have very like from what I've seen
very briefly in our time, where we work with you
all complementary skill sets and that sort of thing. So
i'd love to hear from you how you guys got
started and how it's worked.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, it's been quite a journey. So we started as
three founders with very different mentalities, different backgrounds, and that
made it challenging on one hand, but also this is
what you said, it's like complementary skills, and I think
not a single person of the founder team would have
pulled this off, and also not two of them. It
(19:22):
was the three of us that kind of all the
complementary stills it kind of needed to make this place
the way it is now. But it's also like it's
challenging because it's like in a relationship, you have to communicate.
You see each other's five six, seven days a week,
and you experienced lots of stressful situations together. So when
it comes to find the perfect founding team, I think
(19:44):
it's about sharing a vision of the common project or
the project you do together. And it's about mutual respect
because they people so tasked differently, and I think it's
very important to trust the other person that they can
kind of pull or kind of like manage they're part
of the task, and be also willing to make compromises
(20:09):
because sometimes even if all the skills are on board,
you cannot achieve something, so you also have to be
able to deal with stressful situations together and kind of
kind of keep this solution oriented mindset, even if it's
really like a challenging.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Environment, absolutely focused on kind of the end goal, the
bigger picture. We're working towards something bigger than this moment,
so that's not so great. Of course, you've kind of
spun off your own company that you're working on. I'd
love for you to tell us more about that. You
were super busy this past weekend building and I think
even building some shipping creates for these things, right if
(20:47):
I'm not mistaken, So tell us more about the speaker biz.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, So, after six years of motion app, I decided
I need something new to kind of work on. So
I set Restless Audio company that kind of makes speakers
for festivals and clubs, and we focus on sound quality.
So there's lots of speakers in big venues that are
very loud or pretty big bar sound quality is most
(21:14):
of the time not one of the focus areas. So
what we want to achieve is imagine you have an
audio file sound system at home where you can really
hear whether artist is moving on stage. You have a
sound stage, you can locate the instruments in the space,
and we want to achieve the same for example, on
a festival with a thousand people on the floor, and
we're currently producing like a small amount of speakers every month.
(21:36):
You're going to launch our new line of speakers in
about eight weeks. And yeah, and it's another startup that
hopefully works somehow, another adventure, another adventure. Yes, I like
the name wrestless. You said restless speakers or audio. Yeah,
Restless Audio very fitting. I feel like, like you said,
you were like, I'm ready for something different. Where did
(21:57):
you get the inpo for this name?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Now? And I think a lot of folks can relate
to that, especially people who like to make things and
start things. It's like, once you get it going and
it's kind of going, well, it's not as interesting anymore.
So you got to start something a new challenge, right,
And so I also wanted to ask a little bit
about the kind of diversity of projects beyond the startups
(22:21):
that you work with in the incubator and accelerator program.
I'm just like a little distracted seeing one of the
I don't know if they're a member or what not.
Taking apart this awesome more creative piece that was up
during our event, remind me the name, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Sorry, Rubbin Baumgarten's Quantum Garden.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yes, which is super awesome, so much fun. So many
people were really enjoying interacting with that. But yeah, where
do projects like that kind of come from? Is that
a member? Is that another program you guys are running
that are more for I don't know, creative, you know,
interaction based projects or that sort of thing, because clearly
there's a lot of different stuff going on in the space.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yes, So I think I think currently motion artists at
Motion but underrepresented right now because motion, when you come
in here and for the first time, it looks very
professional to some people, intimidating, maybe business oriented, and so
artists are kind of like it, hesitant to join us.
(23:21):
But the ones that do more professional work that I
hear so Robin Robin Bomgarten with Kuinnegarden is one of
the examples. It's also Nick Prilla with the morph It
was a huge kinetic light installation, a huge ball that
was released I think two years ago. So we have
very professional artists. But if you if you're kind of
looking for the people that people have in mind when
(23:43):
they think about artists that play around that do something
with electronics and lights and stuff. They are not as
many here yet, and I would really like to work
on that. I would really like to provide like more
space and more and more opportunities for for for for
for that create something amazing. The problem is currently motion
(24:04):
is full, so we're running out of space. So if
I would have to do motion up again, I would
pick a biggest place, and I also would have like
artists or dedicated area for artists as well, where they
can kind of try out stuff, light, installations, sound, whatever
comes around. Can Ike sculptures.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So crazy for me to hear that, because I'm like,
this space is I don't even know what do you think,
like eight times bigger than Design Lab? I don't know exactly,
but and we also, of course are I was like,
we wish we had more space, for sure, because you're
gonna fill whatever space you have. But it is a
huge space. So I think that you know, you're probably
how many how many people are you able to, like
(24:40):
you said, it's full right now? How many members are
there at the moment?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I think currently we have four hundred and fifty to
five hundred active members. Wow. Yeah, and round about I
would say ninety startups that come and go yeah, and
I think I would say thirty forty of them are
kind of permanently based here. With the private space, that's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So if you think about you said, if you were
to do it again, would you have more members and
a larger space or just more space for the same
amount of members, because that's even something we talk about
for like the Hackaday conference events. We get a lot
of people of course that are disappointed they if tickets
sell out and they can't make it. But we've also
heard from the community that if we had more people,
(25:20):
it would kind of lose some of the magic of
it being to me it's not a small event, but
slightly smaller event. You know. Three hundred, four hundred people
is way different than like CCC, where I think there's
like fifteen thousand or something, right, So huge difference, and
I think people like that experience for in some cases,
you know, So, yeah, how do you feel kind of
about the ratio I guess of the people to the
(25:42):
size of the space. Would you want to grow like
multiple locations with more people.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, so we thought about it because we looking for
bigger spaces of course to kind of grow the motion
of ecosystem. And my personal belief is both sides are right,
so you have to take best of both worlds. And
I think imagined like a small with districts. Imagine you
have a bigger space that has a common community area,
but there's the art district, there's a metal working district,
(26:07):
there's an electronic district. So you have people in smaller
groups that have a common focus area. But if you
want to do something completely different, you just walked towards
the kitchen and then you're in a completely different space
that are totally into woodworking or I don't know, electronics
or AI or whatever. And I think this keeps the
magic of having small groups that are really connected, deeply
connected with topic they're working on, but also have the
(26:30):
big ecosystem in one space. So if someone who does
electronics needs, for example, a welding person or metal person,
perfect to just walk over the metal topics.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah no, that's great, that's a super fun idea. I
like that. So can people keep an eye out? Do
you think expansion is on the horizon?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I hope, So We're working on it behind the scenes,
and I think it will happen one way or the
other the next one or two years. We have a
location in Matsan that we opened two years ago, but
that's only a small satellite, but we're aiming to have
something bigger by the end of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Cool, very exciting. And so about how long do the
startup teams tend to stay in the space, like right now,
do you have the same startups that were here six
years ago in early the start of the program or
do people kind of come through for a limited time
and move on. Maybe they end up getting their own
building or something, depending on how they are scaling.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah. I think we have three groups here of members
that just do their side projects here and they're here
forever because their business is going. Like they work on
their project like one or two nights a week. We
have startups that kind of are part of the programs
and then after the program ends, they kind of leave
the space or go to a different program, and we
have setups that stay at motion Map And for these startups,
(27:51):
I think the average time they stay at motion Up
is about one and a half years, because then afterwards
either they went bankrupt or they are so successful that
we cannot provide them enough space anymore. And this is
also one of the reasons why we would like to
kind of have a bigger space, because we believe that
the motion of ecosystem is super supportive for startups in
(28:14):
the first five years. So we would like to have
theirselves at starting at motion app to be able to
stay at motion for at least five years and grow
into the space into into the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Okay, and you also mentioned that you don't you provide
like a little bit of funding or some resources early on.
I think you said you have money for the mentors
and then a little bit for the teams. But it
sounds like you guys, you're not taking any ip right
from the teams or how does you know? I know
that some incubator models, right they'll put you know, maybe
(28:45):
a seed kind of round of funding or something they
own some portion of the company and exchange. How does
all of that kind of work for your program?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, we have different programs. Some programs they are government funded.
We don't take any ip apart. We have of programs
that we run ourselves. Then we have the Motion of
Ventures Arm, the kind of investment startups, and if you
apply for that, it's sometimes it's industry focus, sometimes it's
it's a very specific focus area that we're looking for.
And then we invest ourselves and also take ip from
(29:16):
the startups, and we do it with startups that we
will leave we can support pretty well with the ecosystem
we have, so be looking for synergies maybe with other startups,
with industry partners we have, or with the talent pool
we kind of build up in the background.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So we need to give context to the bus, and
I actually think the story is so relevant to just
I think the startup journey and some things that people miss.
Often there's an important, you know factor to being kind
of iconic and having something memorable for folks when it
comes to marketing or promotion of an early venture. So
(29:51):
tell us a story about the bus.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, So when when we open Motion Lab, or when
when we first got the keys to Motion It was December,
so it was super cool here in Germany, and we
had an empty warehouse of fifty hundred square meters that
we couldn't heat because the landlorders didn't know how to
turn on the heating. And we need that.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Is because the money had to go somewhere else, but.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Technical difficulty and we had to kind of find a
meeting space inside of the big factory hall we have
and we found this this bus on the German crackslist
and it was super cheap and we got a double
decker bus towed into the factory space we're in. And
in the first two years when when we asked people, hey,
(30:32):
do you know about motion app and so on, they
were like, I never heard about motion app. And then
you're like, yeah, we have the space the bus, and
oh the space with the bus, I've been there a
couple of times. So this is this is where we
realized that having something iconic in your space, people might
not remember your name or where your location is, but
you've seen that if you heard something iconic, they've seen
(30:53):
it online on pictures of videos, and if they've been there,
they remember the iconic thing. So everything what we would
new Yuncation, we would we would open would have like
something that people would remember, like a boat or like
an airplane or a robot. And this is what we
learned from the best story.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, no, I think that's super key and a good
a good reminder. Just sometimes it's I mean not to
say that bringing of us into the space was simple
by any means, but sometimes it's the things you don't
expect that really end up making an impact, or maybe
something you didn't plan for ended up having. You guys
were just looking for a warmer meeting space, but it
ended up having this really big impact on the way
(31:32):
people remembered you, of course, and you were able to
kind of promote this space awesome. So We're gonna wrap
it up shortly here, So I'm going to ask a
few kind of shorter questions. So what's your favorite part
of your job here Emotional Lab.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
My favorite part is that every day I can dive
into multiple different problems and I can take part into
multiple different like startups or ideas going on. So in
the morning, I might do buocracy for one setup that
I might do some electronic consulting for the other, and
in the evening, I'm on the cncmill building something for
(32:05):
someone else. And this gives me the freedom of kind
of like having a really diverse day work day. It's
really exciting. It's really something new is coming up every
day and that's challenging for me, and I really love
that about my work.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Totally. I can relate to that. That's pretty much my
favorite part of my job as well. Absolutely, And what's
something when it comes to technology that's really inspiring you
right now?
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So right now, I like the combination of AI and
the data that sensors and embedded devices generate here and
making sense of it. So it's something totally new for me.
I had an IT background, but I never did any
deep tech AI stuff and it's not directly hardware related,
but I see how much this information can generate in
(32:51):
value and functionality for practical devices, and that's what I'm
super interested in it right now.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And are you kind of doing research project on that
or like experiments to be able to understand it better
and more reading and learning a bit in that way.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I'm reading and learning and I'm doing Python projects in
my free time at home, so I don't know, watching
watching mushrooms grow, and I don't know, taking taking a
data ferent public databases and kind of making predictions about it.
So that's kind of a hobby that I'm currently into.
So yeah, that's how I try to get more into
the topic.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Very cool casual AI match from growing side hobby in
additional building speakers and consulting with teams at Motion Lapp,
Chris International, and last Banale's what is on your personal
build of materials?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, it sounds me like the question is like, you're
going to go to a deserted island with three items
are you're going to take? And then I think I would.
I would kind of take probably hot glue, duct tape,
and and I don't know, maybe some water frautrition the
west of the island. But here in Motion LAP, I
(34:00):
think my build of materials would be I'm looking for
a really good cheap air quality sensor for one of
the mushroom growing chambers. I'm looking for the perfect audio
high frequency cracksh driver, which is a very specific thing
for one of my audio projects. Yeah, that would be
my bill of material Nay.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm like, we need to put out an open call
at the end of the We'll have a comment below
if you know of a good component for this for
the challenges that Chris has pose. Awesome, and I like,
I think duct tape is always good no matter what
I thought, you were going to bring that to your
answer promotion lab as well. I always have to carry
around duct tape. We literally when we packed for this event.
I was like, Amanda, we need to bring blue painters
(34:40):
tape and gaff tape and a sharpie because we're always
going to need that no matter where we go. Awesome, Well,
thank you so much, Chris. Is great to learn more
after you know all this time working with you all.
I'm excited to now know a little bit more about
the history and foundation of the space and really excited
to stay tuned for what you do with Restless Audio
and how the emotion lap continues to grow and expand
(35:01):
maybe we'll have to check out one of the other
spaces in the future for our events.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yes, thanks for having me, Seth, thanks for coming by
and having a Hackaday event here for the second time,
and I hope you see each out the next year.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That was Chrissy Vasuta, co founder of Motion Lamberlain, and
his ideals for building a better collaborative space for artists,
designers and engineers. This has been the bomb, engineering a
path forward. If you like the Bomb, don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and share the show wherever you get your podcasts. You
(35:41):
can follow supply Frame and Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and design Lab at supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram
and Twitter. The Bomb is a supply frame podcast produced
by Me, Magenta Strongheart and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie
Bowles and edited by Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by
Anna Hogman. Show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to
Giovanni Selinas, Bruce Dominguez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark,
(36:05):
the entire supply from Team and you are wonderful listeners.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week.
Imagine you have a bigger space that has a common
community area, but there's the art district, there's a metalworking district,
there's electronic district. So you have people in smaller groups
that have to have a common focus area. But if
you want to do something completely different, you just walked
towards the kitchen and then you're in a completely different
space that are totally into woodworking or I don't know,
electronics or AI or whatever. And I think this keeps
(00:22):
the magic of having small groups that are really connected,
deeply connected with the topic they're working on, but also
have the big ecosystem in one space.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome back to the bomb Engineering a Path Forward. I'm
your host, Magenta Strongheart, And if you're anything like me,
having the space to build, experiment, and explore the possibilities
of design and engineering is crucial. But unless you're really lucky,
chances are you're often siloed inside university campus labs or
your garage and really pushing the limits of your tools
and what they're capable of. Today, we're exploring what make
(00:53):
your culture and design spaces might look like if engineers
and artists weren't so limited by space. Joining us on
the bar Chris Ivasuta, co founder of the Motion Lab
Berlin collaborative space. Motion Lab is in essence a playground
for designers and engineers and a space that grows with
them if they're interested in scaling their projects. We're going
to learn about how Chris first formulated the idea to
(01:15):
create the space, why having a dedicated and flexible space
for artists to work with engineers is so important, and
how he used double decker bus to help create a bus.
This is my conversation with Chris Ivasuta, and this is
the bomb. We live in a time where design and
(01:36):
technology touch every aspect of our lives. But where did
it all come from? Who designed it? How is it
built and brought to market? What will look like in
a year, two years, one hundred years. From the phones
and smartwatches that help us in our day to day
to the cutting edge spaceships and three D printers that
are leading us into the future. Modern design is constantly
shaping the way we work, communicate, problem solve and play,
(01:57):
and every new design, bigger, small, starts with an idea
and a bill of materials. I'm agenta strongheart and this
is the bomb where we talk to leading innovators in
the tech world and celebrate the transformational power of design.
Welcome to the Bomb, Chris. I'm so excited to have
(02:18):
you on our podcast. I feel like we've been working
with motion Lab for a couple of years now, but
I really don't know a ton of background about the
space or how you and your co founder free Joff
got started building this space up. And it's an incredible
resource for the community. So I'm really excited to get
into the conversation today.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thanks for having me, and yeah, I'm also very thrilled
to tell you what you want to know.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Let's go with the first question, and you were actually
one of the I think few people from the team
when we first approached motion Lab about having the Hackaday
Berlin conference here last year in twenty twenty three who
was familiar with Hackaday, right. I remember on one of
our initial calls, you were like, we love Hakaday, We're
excited to be a part of this, and I think
Freejoff is kind of like, yeah, yeah, cool, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So I'm a long term Hackaday event. Actually I read
it daily for I think eight ten years. Maybe that's
so awesome, not from the very beginning, but from the
early days, and I really enjoy it because it's totally
my topics. I love the blog, love how the artics
are written, and I love the combination of like having
a nice story and having enough technical details to kind
of get excited about the thing.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, well, we appreciate that. It's always great to meet
another person who's familiar. It's funny because obviously, like it's
a little convoluted the way supply Frame Design Lab Hackaday
is all kind of connected, so we meet people who
maybe know one one part of the family and not
the other. And so it's great that it worked out
this way because we were working with you on a
hacka Day event. And what did you guys think about
(03:46):
Hacke Day Berlin last year when it got started or
did you feel like this is what you expected or
how do you feel like the event went and compared
to what you were expecting after our early conversations.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, so after the early conversations, I got very nervous.
It's a big event, and of course because I was
excited about having Hackaday here, I was very nervous before
they event started. But after the first the first attendees
came in and it started rolling and we got into
the floor, I really enjoyed it. And what I really
(04:18):
liked is I've seen many familiar faces I've met all
over the world earlier in my maker life, and I
was so happy to welcome them here in Berlin with
hacka Day because if for me, it felt a bit
like a family meeting, and it was also very special
for me because I could could for the first time
my life meet the editors in person or the people
that that kind of are behind hacka Day, and that
(04:39):
made it even more exciting for me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think we were, like you
guys didn't quite realize how the intense the arrival of
everyone was going to be. I know, we were like, Okay,
here we go.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's happening.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
But it's also great once the program gets started, like
people are just so stoked to be there. They loved
the space, and I do feel like I've even heard
at ten you say the same thing, you know, like
it's just kind of a family readunion each year. So
and folks were super stoked to have an event back
in Europe because we had taken a few years off
with the pandemic, and I think previously I don't know
(05:12):
if it was twenty seventeen or even earlier that we
had had maybe one event in Munich, one in London,
and one in Dublin, I think, but they were much
smaller meetups. So people love hacke Day Berlin slash Hackaday Europe,
and we're definitely going to try to continue keeping it
going because we just had the second one this past
weekend and it was another big hit, big success, so
(05:34):
and your team always nails it for us, so we
really appreciate it. But I think that's a great segue
into your kind of personal background. So I'd love to
learn more about the early years of Chris as much
as you're willing to share how you got into design, fabrication, electronics,
building stuff, making stuff, and then all the way up
to founding Motion Lab, which I know is the story
(05:57):
in and of itself, but as much you know want
to summarize kind of the foundational years of how you
got there.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I guess the short version of this story is like
I had a former career in IT management and I
quit the job because it's I didn't didn't want to
do it anymore. And in the last month I helped
one of my coworkers move flats and when we cleared
out his his his house, there was a small scene
c machine in his in his basement. He was like, oh, Chris,
this is what you should have. And I was like
(06:24):
a scene sea machine, are you sure? And he's like, yeah,
I think it's for you. And then I had a
scene seamal in my kitchen for for a couple of months.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
How there was like yeah, you could kind of work
on a sheet of paper.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's the working area it has had.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Was it another mill, No, it was like.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
A really really old German design and it took me
like a week or something to get it running. But
the problem is like, of course it's very noisy, and
you shouldn't have a scene seamal in the kitchen if
you have neighbors. And because they kind of rang the
doorbell a couple of times when he has a bit
late for being noisy in your kitchen. I walked into
the first maker space in Hamburg to attractor and I
(07:08):
got in there for the for the open night on
a Thursday at six and I left on Friday morning
at I think six am, so it was there for
twelve hours. Because I first time in my life I
felt like well, here's people that understand me. And that's
how I kind of got in touch with this maker
culture and with the other people and maker spaces in particular.
And afterwards I had a gap year and I went
(07:30):
traveling New Zealand, Australia, the States and whenever I had
the chance of visiting local maker spaces and it was
such a great experience to experience the different cultures, but
always this welcoming atmosphere and this supporting community that was
around these spaces. And by accident that today I have a.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Noise bridge yes we love noise brid yes, and.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Which was here like on this weekend. And this is
so great because I came into a noisebridge, for example,
and the guy who opened the door was like, oh,
you look like you've never been here before. Let me
give you a tour. And this atmosphere was so inspiring
for me that when I came back to Germany and
I was looking for something to do, I came to
Berlin and I walked into the biggest fab lab they
(08:15):
had at that time, and I was like, well, we
can't afford your membership, but I know stuff about what
you do here, and then the hired me as a
mentor and then I became managing director there and this
was kind of the predecessor to Motion Up because fablops
are a big thing and they're super important for the
makeup community for my belief, But what at that time
(08:41):
didn't work in Berlin was the support for startups. So
if you developed your prototype there was a fab lab
that was great, but the moment you were looking for financing,
or for professional support or for more space, the fablot
couldn't satisfy the needs of these young startups. And that's
why we decided to start motion app to create a
(09:02):
space where startups can really have a place to grow.
And yeah, this is where we were sitting today.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And it's such an epic space. Honestly, I feel like
the space really speaks for itself. But I think that's
an interesting direction to go as far as the financial
support and that sort of thing that you guys provide,
and that this space really brings a lot of different
types of people through your programs. So it's not like
you have to have a startup to be able to
access the space, but you also don't necessarily need to
(09:30):
be a member. You also have you know, public events
and different workshops and things like that, which is kind
of similar in some ways to what we do at
Design Lab, but this is at a much grander scale.
So yeah, I would love to learn more about how
you started it first. I'd be interested to hear if
the model evolved much from your initial concept, like before
you guys started your plan that you had for how
(09:52):
it was all going to kind of weave together and
where the different funding streams were coming from versus now.
And you mentioned earlier, I think it's five or six
years old, the space. You can tell us six years yeah, okay, cool,
And so yeah, just tell us a little bit about
what the initial plan was versus kind of how it's
grown to now, because it's always interesting. You said, you
(10:13):
guys are a startup yourself, right, so you're figuring things
out as you go, and I'm sure there's been some changes.
And I think it's also interesting just with the history
of major spaces and fab labs all over what's been
sustainable so that spaces can really last and survive. And
there are a lot of different models we've seen within
the community versus you know, what kind of leads to
(10:33):
unfortunately doors having to close or you know, not long
term success.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So yeah, So initially we were very naive about how
this would develop because none of us has started a
company before, and we believe that if we have a
like a big factory hole like this one is a
fifteen hundred square meters and fill it with machines and
community areas, we would be very successful within their first
(11:01):
six months. What happened is we were nearly bankrupt after
six months, and we got an initial investment that enabled
us to kind of pay the deposit for the space
and also pay for the first machines. But we were
too naive to kind of do a proper financial planning,
so we got lucky. We got saved by the same investor.
(11:21):
We believed that in the first month. We believe that
our business model would be like kind of selling memberships
in renting out space like some pab labs do. But
the problem is what we believe because of the size
of motion app it's fifty hut square meters, we believe
that this model of membership of falancing spaces through memberships
only works with smaller spaces in Germany because it's super
(11:42):
expensive to maintainance space like this and the memberships alone
won't do so we started adding like renting out dedicated
spaces to startups. Imagine like a coworking office but with workbenches.
We called it makeer garages that enable startups to kind
of their own space and develop their physical products. So
there were companies that drove in cars and outfitted them
with sensors and stuff. They work quite well, but we
(12:06):
were still not paying us any salaries, so the business
model kind of kept us alive but not really thriving.
And then we discovered that having events dedicated to hardware building,
to kind of the makeup community would kind of add
a lot to the to the business model, and so
we started hosting events that are kind of focused on
(12:28):
the startup setup culture, innovation ecosystem here and Berlin, which
turned out quite well, but then Corona came and events
weren't possible anymore. We were lucky to kind of be
able to open and keep the doors open during Corona
because we're kind of a production facility, kind of a
small factory, but we had to adjust our business model
(12:50):
afterwards because events weren't running anymore and we were still there,
and so we decided to look into the needs the
startups we supported, and here in Germany. It's for setups.
It's very difficult to kind of find a proper space
to make hardware, but also to get the funding for it,
and we applied for government support, so some of our
(13:13):
accelerator incubator programs are government funded and this enables us
to kind of pay the mentors and also give the
setups some kind of like initial support to kind of
get their product to the product typing stage.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And do those programs there exclusively for hardware electronics startups
or can they be software only or can they be
just products that have nothing to do with technology. What's
the kind of boundaries of what kind of startups you
let in?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
First the first program we ran was about ability because
motion Lips started with the mobility focus. But when then
we saw what we created here is interesting for all
hardware startups. So the programs we currently have are kind
of tailored to hardware startups. But nowadays hardware a lot
of times and most of the times is already connected
with IoT embedded devices sensors to make it smart, to
(14:07):
get some data out of it. And that's why later
on we also edit electronics and now we have we
will have in future dedicated programs for electronic projects, but
currently it's everything that is tangible. I would say when
people apply with the software project, we would kind of
we would not refuse him, but we would tell them
(14:28):
that there's better places in the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, we feel similarly a design leve. We're like, you're
not really going to be able to take advantage of
what we have here and our network and our expertise
and the tools. Of course, I was curious, what were
the first three tools that you had when you guys
started the space.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, we were lucky. We had we had some old
three D printers, some old FDM machines like Prusia MK
three copies. I guess that's where we started with. We
got to see c machine because I'm total leap sncfan,
so I bet do it every day and that's why
it was so important for me to get a machine.
(15:06):
And we were lucky to have a company that supported
us with laser cutters. Okay, so we had Eppy Lop
laser cutters in the beginning for the first two years,
so we weren't completely empty, but there were also not
that many machines available in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, I can't imagine honestly, I can't imagine the space
without all the tools and machines you have now, So
it's funny to think about that. But yeah, no, that's
a good starting point. I feel like because three D printers,
laser cutters, there's a great kind of entryway obviously to
some of the larger machines and understanding how they operate
and how to get some three D design done and
(15:42):
then be able to transition into building bigger stuff. But also,
I'm sure there's not so many I would imagine huge projects, right,
Like generally, could you give us some examples of some
of the startups that have come through your doors.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, it's very diverse. So we had a serve that
built turbo pumps for rocket engines. We had a startup that,
or one of the current setups, they making devices to
kind of to analyze insect population in certain areas. So
they have a small box that kind of looks at
who's coming in and out and then the kind of
counting bees and and like flies and whatever is around.
(16:19):
We had a setup that made autonomous self driving cars.
We currently have a setup that makes my celium climbing holes.
So it's very diverse and there's no clear focus area
right now, which is really good because you have lots
of angers looking at problems and as a community is
very helpful here, like there's lots of inputs if you
(16:42):
have a problem that you can assolve by yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We have to take a quick break, but when we return,
we'll explore what a startup needs to be able to
join Motion Lab and how working on seemingly unrelated projects
can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Welcome back to the bomb
(17:08):
Engineering a path Forward. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. When
we left off, Chris gave us a rundown of the
types of projects Motion Lab invites into their space and
the type of engineering ecosystem he felt the call to build.
Do you guys kind of take care with each cohort
to think about curating you know, these different groups together.
(17:29):
Obviously it sounds like you have some bigger themes for
as the programs start, you know, mobility or some of
these things, But do you really think about kind of
the team dynamics or who's going to be kind of
in the space together or that happens pretty organically.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I think when we select startups, when we filter startups
that want to join motion app We always give them
feedback how good we believe we are with the emotional
motion of ecosystem can support their idea. Sometimes when a
startup applies, I wants to join. We have lots of
partners or talents that already worked in this area or
(18:04):
made the same products, or have experience there, and so
we can support these stutus better than others, and we
always give their feedback when people join, and for the programs,
it sometimes is part of the selection process, but sometimes
it's also diversity.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, definitely wanting a good group, good mix makes sense.
And so I'm curious, speaking of team dynamics, I want
to hear kind of the story of how you and
free Joff met and decided to build this thing. And
what do you think is kind of important about, you know,
the balance and a co founder team, because it's pretty common,
I think to have co founders for things, but it
(18:42):
takes a special kind of relationship I think to succeed
and for the relationship to be sustainable, right, And I
think you guys have very like from what I've seen
very briefly in our time, where we work with you
all complementary skill sets and that sort of thing. So
i'd love to hear from you how you guys got
started and how it's worked.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, it's been quite a journey. So we started as
three founders with very different mentalities, different backgrounds, and that
made it challenging on one hand, but also this is
what you said, it's like complementary skills, and I think
not a single person of the founder team would have
pulled this off, and also not two of them. It
(19:22):
was the three of us that kind of all the
complementary stills it kind of needed to make this place
the way it is now. But it's also like it's
challenging because it's like in a relationship, you have to communicate.
You see each other's five six, seven days a week,
and you experienced lots of stressful situations together. So when
it comes to find the perfect founding team, I think
(19:44):
it's about sharing a vision of the common project or
the project you do together. And it's about mutual respect
because they people so tasked differently, and I think it's
very important to trust the other person that they can
kind of pull or kind of like manage they're part
of the task, and be also willing to make compromises
(20:09):
because sometimes even if all the skills are on board,
you cannot achieve something, so you also have to be
able to deal with stressful situations together and kind of
kind of keep this solution oriented mindset, even if it's
really like a challenging.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Environment, absolutely focused on kind of the end goal, the
bigger picture. We're working towards something bigger than this moment,
so that's not so great. Of course, you've kind of
spun off your own company that you're working on. I'd
love for you to tell us more about that. You
were super busy this past weekend building and I think
even building some shipping creates for these things, right if
(20:47):
I'm not mistaken, So tell us more about the speaker biz.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, So, after six years of motion app, I decided
I need something new to kind of work on. So
I set Restless Audio company that kind of makes speakers
for festivals and clubs, and we focus on sound quality.
So there's lots of speakers in big venues that are
very loud or pretty big bar sound quality is most
(21:14):
of the time not one of the focus areas. So
what we want to achieve is imagine you have an
audio file sound system at home where you can really
hear whether artist is moving on stage. You have a
sound stage, you can locate the instruments in the space,
and we want to achieve the same for example, on
a festival with a thousand people on the floor, and
we're currently producing like a small amount of speakers every month.
(21:36):
You're going to launch our new line of speakers in
about eight weeks. And yeah, and it's another startup that
hopefully works somehow, another adventure, another adventure. Yes, I like
the name wrestless. You said restless speakers or audio. Yeah,
Restless Audio very fitting. I feel like, like you said,
you were like, I'm ready for something different. Where did
(21:57):
you get the inpo for this name?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Now? And I think a lot of folks can relate
to that, especially people who like to make things and
start things. It's like, once you get it going and
it's kind of going, well, it's not as interesting anymore.
So you got to start something a new challenge, right,
And so I also wanted to ask a little bit
about the kind of diversity of projects beyond the startups
(22:21):
that you work with in the incubator and accelerator program.
I'm just like a little distracted seeing one of the
I don't know if they're a member or what not.
Taking apart this awesome more creative piece that was up
during our event, remind me the name, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Sorry, Rubbin Baumgarten's Quantum Garden.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yes, which is super awesome, so much fun. So many
people were really enjoying interacting with that. But yeah, where
do projects like that kind of come from? Is that
a member? Is that another program you guys are running
that are more for I don't know, creative, you know,
interaction based projects or that sort of thing, because clearly
there's a lot of different stuff going on in the space.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yes, So I think I think currently motion artists at
Motion but underrepresented right now because motion, when you come
in here and for the first time, it looks very
professional to some people, intimidating, maybe business oriented, and so
artists are kind of like it, hesitant to join us.
(23:21):
But the ones that do more professional work that I
hear so Robin Robin Bomgarten with Kuinnegarden is one of
the examples. It's also Nick Prilla with the morph It
was a huge kinetic light installation, a huge ball that
was released I think two years ago. So we have
very professional artists. But if you if you're kind of
looking for the people that people have in mind when
(23:43):
they think about artists that play around that do something
with electronics and lights and stuff. They are not as
many here yet, and I would really like to work
on that. I would really like to provide like more
space and more and more opportunities for for for for
for that create something amazing. The problem is currently motion
(24:04):
is full, so we're running out of space. So if
I would have to do motion up again, I would
pick a biggest place, and I also would have like
artists or dedicated area for artists as well, where they
can kind of try out stuff, light, installations, sound, whatever
comes around. Can Ike sculptures.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So crazy for me to hear that, because I'm like,
this space is I don't even know what do you think,
like eight times bigger than Design Lab? I don't know exactly,
but and we also, of course are I was like,
we wish we had more space, for sure, because you're
gonna fill whatever space you have. But it is a
huge space. So I think that you know, you're probably
how many how many people are you able to, like
(24:40):
you said, it's full right now? How many members are
there at the moment?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I think currently we have four hundred and fifty to
five hundred active members. Wow. Yeah, and round about I
would say ninety startups that come and go yeah, and
I think I would say thirty forty of them are
kind of permanently based here. With the private space, that's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So if you think about you said, if you were
to do it again, would you have more members and
a larger space or just more space for the same
amount of members, because that's even something we talk about
for like the Hackaday conference events. We get a lot
of people of course that are disappointed they if tickets
sell out and they can't make it. But we've also
heard from the community that if we had more people,
(25:20):
it would kind of lose some of the magic of
it being to me it's not a small event, but
slightly smaller event. You know. Three hundred, four hundred people
is way different than like CCC, where I think there's
like fifteen thousand or something, right, So huge difference, and
I think people like that experience for in some cases,
you know, So, yeah, how do you feel kind of
about the ratio I guess of the people to the
(25:42):
size of the space. Would you want to grow like
multiple locations with more people.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, so we thought about it because we looking for
bigger spaces of course to kind of grow the motion
of ecosystem. And my personal belief is both sides are right,
so you have to take best of both worlds. And
I think imagined like a small with districts. Imagine you
have a bigger space that has a common community area,
but there's the art district, there's a metal working district,
(26:07):
there's an electronic district. So you have people in smaller
groups that have a common focus area. But if you
want to do something completely different, you just walked towards
the kitchen and then you're in a completely different space
that are totally into woodworking or I don't know, electronics
or AI or whatever. And I think this keeps the
magic of having small groups that are really connected, deeply
connected with topic they're working on, but also have the
(26:30):
big ecosystem in one space. So if someone who does
electronics needs, for example, a welding person or metal person,
perfect to just walk over the metal topics.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah no, that's great, that's a super fun idea. I
like that. So can people keep an eye out? Do
you think expansion is on the horizon?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I hope, So We're working on it behind the scenes,
and I think it will happen one way or the
other the next one or two years. We have a
location in Matsan that we opened two years ago, but
that's only a small satellite, but we're aiming to have
something bigger by the end of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Cool, very exciting. And so about how long do the
startup teams tend to stay in the space, like right now,
do you have the same startups that were here six
years ago in early the start of the program or
do people kind of come through for a limited time
and move on. Maybe they end up getting their own
building or something, depending on how they are scaling.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah. I think we have three groups here of members
that just do their side projects here and they're here
forever because their business is going. Like they work on
their project like one or two nights a week. We
have startups that kind of are part of the programs
and then after the program ends, they kind of leave
the space or go to a different program, and we
have setups that stay at motion Map And for these startups,
(27:51):
I think the average time they stay at motion Up
is about one and a half years, because then afterwards
either they went bankrupt or they are so successful that
we cannot provide them enough space anymore. And this is
also one of the reasons why we would like to
kind of have a bigger space, because we believe that
the motion of ecosystem is super supportive for startups in
(28:14):
the first five years. So we would like to have
theirselves at starting at motion app to be able to
stay at motion for at least five years and grow
into the space into into the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Okay, and you also mentioned that you don't you provide
like a little bit of funding or some resources early on.
I think you said you have money for the mentors
and then a little bit for the teams. But it
sounds like you guys, you're not taking any ip right
from the teams or how does you know? I know
that some incubator models, right they'll put you know, maybe
(28:45):
a seed kind of round of funding or something they
own some portion of the company and exchange. How does
all of that kind of work for your program?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, we have different programs. Some programs they are government funded.
We don't take any ip apart. We have of programs
that we run ourselves. Then we have the Motion of
Ventures Arm, the kind of investment startups, and if you
apply for that, it's sometimes it's industry focus, sometimes it's
it's a very specific focus area that we're looking for.
And then we invest ourselves and also take ip from
(29:16):
the startups, and we do it with startups that we
will leave we can support pretty well with the ecosystem
we have, so be looking for synergies maybe with other startups,
with industry partners we have, or with the talent pool
we kind of build up in the background.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So we need to give context to the bus, and
I actually think the story is so relevant to just
I think the startup journey and some things that people miss.
Often there's an important, you know factor to being kind
of iconic and having something memorable for folks when it
comes to marketing or promotion of an early venture. So
(29:51):
tell us a story about the bus.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, So when when we open Motion Lab, or when
when we first got the keys to Motion It was December,
so it was super cool here in Germany, and we
had an empty warehouse of fifty hundred square meters that
we couldn't heat because the landlorders didn't know how to
turn on the heating. And we need that.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Is because the money had to go somewhere else, but.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Technical difficulty and we had to kind of find a
meeting space inside of the big factory hall we have
and we found this this bus on the German crackslist
and it was super cheap and we got a double
decker bus towed into the factory space we're in. And
in the first two years when when we asked people, hey,
(30:32):
do you know about motion app and so on, they
were like, I never heard about motion app. And then
you're like, yeah, we have the space the bus, and
oh the space with the bus, I've been there a
couple of times. So this is this is where we
realized that having something iconic in your space, people might
not remember your name or where your location is, but
you've seen that if you heard something iconic, they've seen
(30:53):
it online on pictures of videos, and if they've been there,
they remember the iconic thing. So everything what we would
new Yuncation, we would we would open would have like
something that people would remember, like a boat or like
an airplane or a robot. And this is what we
learned from the best story.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, no, I think that's super key and a good
a good reminder. Just sometimes it's I mean not to
say that bringing of us into the space was simple
by any means, but sometimes it's the things you don't
expect that really end up making an impact, or maybe
something you didn't plan for ended up having. You guys
were just looking for a warmer meeting space, but it
ended up having this really big impact on the way
(31:32):
people remembered you, of course, and you were able to
kind of promote this space awesome. So We're gonna wrap
it up shortly here, So I'm going to ask a
few kind of shorter questions. So what's your favorite part
of your job here Emotional Lab.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
My favorite part is that every day I can dive
into multiple different problems and I can take part into
multiple different like startups or ideas going on. So in
the morning, I might do buocracy for one setup that
I might do some electronic consulting for the other, and
in the evening, I'm on the cncmill building something for
(32:05):
someone else. And this gives me the freedom of kind
of like having a really diverse day work day. It's
really exciting. It's really something new is coming up every
day and that's challenging for me, and I really love
that about my work.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Totally. I can relate to that. That's pretty much my
favorite part of my job as well. Absolutely, And what's
something when it comes to technology that's really inspiring you
right now?
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So right now, I like the combination of AI and
the data that sensors and embedded devices generate here and
making sense of it. So it's something totally new for me.
I had an IT background, but I never did any
deep tech AI stuff and it's not directly hardware related,
but I see how much this information can generate in
(32:51):
value and functionality for practical devices, and that's what I'm
super interested in it right now.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And are you kind of doing research project on that
or like experiments to be able to understand it better
and more reading and learning a bit in that way.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I'm reading and learning and I'm doing Python projects in
my free time at home, so I don't know, watching
watching mushrooms grow, and I don't know, taking taking a
data ferent public databases and kind of making predictions about it.
So that's kind of a hobby that I'm currently into.
So yeah, that's how I try to get more into
the topic.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Very cool casual AI match from growing side hobby in
additional building speakers and consulting with teams at Motion Lapp,
Chris International, and last Banale's what is on your personal
build of materials?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, it sounds me like the question is like, you're
going to go to a deserted island with three items
are you're going to take? And then I think I would.
I would kind of take probably hot glue, duct tape,
and and I don't know, maybe some water frautrition the
west of the island. But here in Motion LAP, I
(34:00):
think my build of materials would be I'm looking for
a really good cheap air quality sensor for one of
the mushroom growing chambers. I'm looking for the perfect audio
high frequency cracksh driver, which is a very specific thing
for one of my audio projects. Yeah, that would be
my bill of material Nay.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm like, we need to put out an open call
at the end of the We'll have a comment below
if you know of a good component for this for
the challenges that Chris has pose. Awesome, and I like,
I think duct tape is always good no matter what
I thought, you were going to bring that to your
answer promotion lab as well. I always have to carry
around duct tape. We literally when we packed for this event.
I was like, Amanda, we need to bring blue painters
(34:40):
tape and gaff tape and a sharpie because we're always
going to need that no matter where we go. Awesome, Well,
thank you so much, Chris. Is great to learn more
after you know all this time working with you all.
I'm excited to now know a little bit more about
the history and foundation of the space and really excited
to stay tuned for what you do with Restless Audio
and how the emotion lap continues to grow and expand
(35:01):
maybe we'll have to check out one of the other
spaces in the future for our events.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yes, thanks for having me, Seth, thanks for coming by
and having a Hackaday event here for the second time,
and I hope you see each out the next year.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That was Chrissy Vasuta, co founder of Motion Lamberlain, and
his ideals for building a better collaborative space for artists,
designers and engineers. This has been the bomb, engineering a
path forward. If you like the Bomb, don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and share the show wherever you get your podcasts. You
(35:41):
can follow supply Frame and Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and design Lab at supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram
and Twitter. The Bomb is a supply frame podcast produced
by Me, Magenta Strongheart and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie
Bowles and edited by Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by
Anna Hogman. Show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to
Giovanni Selinas, Bruce Dominguez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark,
(36:05):
the entire supply from Team and you are wonderful listeners.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.