August 27, 2024 • 39 mins
Today, in this episode of the Bom: Engineering a Path, we’re sitting down with Eric Weinhoffer, Senior Hardware Development Specialist at Skydio. Skydio isn’t just a drone company but instead an organization looking to advance what is even possible in safety and situational intelligence for first responders and utility workers. Imagine a fire from power lines being detected in minutes instead of hours.
Eric is going to tell us how he got his start in the engineering and design world through a want to have a Maker convention in his hometown, what Skydio is doing to advance the field of drones and 3D printing, and what kind of engineer would be interested in working with Skydio
Skydio
Skydio Careers
Eric Weinhoff
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
Eric is going to tell us how he got his start in the engineering and design world through a want to have a Maker convention in his hometown, what Skydio is doing to advance the field of drones and 3D printing, and what kind of engineer would be interested in working with Skydio
Skydio
Skydio Careers
Eric Weinhoff
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One thing Skydio can do specifically and that we are
doing is being careful about Yeah, who gets these things.
So when I started, a big part of our business
was consumers, So we used to make drones for consumers
like follow me, camera like follow me and film me
while I'm mountain biking. These days, you cannot just go
on skydio dot com and buy a drone. So if
(00:21):
you know anti privacy LLC like reaches out to buy
a drone or just going to say no, Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The Bomb, engineering a path forward. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
Drones are everywhere these days. Every movie, extreme sports, film,
and even your friend's wedding has a buzzing quadicopter in
the background getting photos in film. While this new angle
has made our favorite movies truly stunning, we've only just
started scratching the surface of what's possible with this technology.
Today on the Bomb, we're sitting down with senior hardware
(00:52):
development specialist at Skuydio, Eric Weinhoffer. Eric and Skuydeo have
been exploring and experimenting with what's possible in the world
old of drone technology. A key component of their quest
is to build an uncrashable drone with a mixture of
laser vision and AI positioning. Later, we'll hear tips on
how to organize your dream shop space and learn why
only certain people can buy us Guidio drone. We'll be
(01:14):
right back with Eric. We live in a time where
design and 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
(01:35):
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. 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
(01:57):
of design. What Welcome to the Bomb, Eric, Thank you
so much for joining us today. I'm really excited to
catch up.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, me too, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We're trying to We're just talking about when was the
last time we saw each other, and I think it
was at super Con in Pasadena, but we're trying to yeah,
twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Twenty nineteen, I think, yeah, And I think was the
first super Con for you. Yeah, yeah, and for me
and the only one I've been to unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, you got to couch more. Maybe this year is
the year. Yeah, yeah, we just celebrated. Well, I guess
it was actually ten years for Hackaday Prize, not technically
for super Con last year and then yeah, and last
year was technically the seventh super Con in person, but
we had to remote ones during the pandemic, so I'm like,
(02:52):
what does that mean? That's like nine, which means yeah,
this year's kind of tenth super Con, kind of not
because I don't know if we count the remote one,
but regardless, it's going to be epic and awesome. And
we just had our like kind of mini super Con
in Berlin, which we do in the spring, which always
gets us excited about just planning the next one. Okay,
(03:15):
but back to your kind of early days and engineering,
you know, story, tell us more about how you got
into it. You ended up studying mechanical engineering in school
right in university. So were there any major projects you
feel like that you remember that kind of were the
catalysts that got you in at that point or that
you were working on in school that also at the time,
were you thinking I'm going to end up in hardware
(03:37):
or was that something that came later.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, I think I definitely knew I wanted to do
hardware stuff. I didn't know what exactly, but certainly Make
Magazine was a huge influence, Like yeah, before college and
then during because I think without that, I wouldn't have
really known what to expect in terms of like what
engineers do day to day. But Make came out when
(04:02):
I was in high school and I started reading it
and finding that really fascinating and seeing cool projects that
people in this world of like the crafters Unders did.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, I also love to Make magazine and.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That was hugely influential, and I think made me want
to find like whatever that sort of job was, like
more of like the scrappy DIY mindset rather than like
a desk engineer. But I think that that's basically all
I knew. It's like, Okay, I think I had a
sense about college that if I were to go to
(04:34):
some Johnson and Johnson or something. I'd probably be sitting
at a desk like doing drawings a lot of time and.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Work on one little party. You're not really aware of
everything else.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I really knew I wanted to be more hands on.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
More hands on him.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So the big influence in college was working out a
maker space there. So I was able to help start
and build this this space called the Invention Studio at
Georgia Tech, which I think is is feel very well
known as like one of the first fully student run makerspaces.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So that was just a like free opportunity for me
to learn how to use these tools and use them
for whatever I wanted.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And how did you find out? Just sorry really quick, yeah, tangent,
But how did you find out about that opportunity when
you were in school? Did someone like pick you out
and say like you'd be good for this because you
had been in the shops or something like that, or
you had your eye out on opportunities like this, and
it was posted somewhere because I think it's helpful for
you know, students that might be in school right now
who want those kind of unicorn opportunities. But it's like
(05:34):
where do you look or or do you just have
to wait and help someone pix you for somebody.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I wish I had better advice. Yeah, it was mostly
luck for me, but I think you can set yourself
up by just following your interests. So the thing that's
that helped me was that I was really interested in
three D printing and was lucky enough to have an
internship at baker Bot in the summer of two thousand
and nine, so after my freshman year of college, and
(05:58):
so once I came back from that and I I
had a three D printer with me. Now, I guess
people knew that I like knew about and at the
time it was still so fresh and new that like
most people didn't have three D printers, and the maker
Bot Cupcake had just come out roback. So so yeah,
(06:18):
someone who's yeah, now a really good friend reached out. Yeah,
Chris Quintero, who also was at Bolt for a long time. Yeah,
I don't know how he found me, but yeah, he
was also at Georgia Tech and reached out and said
they were going to start up this makerspace and it
wanted I think initially I was like the three D
printing master. So the person who knew three D printing. Yeah,
and that's how I got my But do you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Still have that title on your resume?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Somemore?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I wish it's pretty these days.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
There are so many people who know. And yeah, I've
grown up. Yeah, I've been time, but it's definitely not
a mastery.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you remember any of the like first like wow
moments when you three D printed something, either whether you
know if you remember a specific component or product or something,
they were just like wow, I can't believe I just
did that, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I mean I think it was just a very early
just a I don't even think it really mattered or yeah,
I don't matter exactly what early prints I made were,
but it was just the fact that this is possible,
that it just popped out, like you're starting with this
plastic noodle, Like this is basically just a fancy hot
glue gun. But it's mazing that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
What I say when we were talking about it at
the lab, yeah, way to explain that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's fairly simple, but for it to
pop out, yeah, a fully three D hard plastic part
was just incredible. Yeah. So I remember the early classics
like the Stanford Bunny and I think like a Darth
Vader bust.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like you see those in
all the Maker spaces.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Definitely liked yeah yeah, all those early classics.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah awesome. And then from there did you start at
Make after that? And then obviously eventually got to Bolt
What else was in between there?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, lots of stuff. So I ended up at Meek
through well, yeah, I met Dale through doing the Atlanta
Minimaker Fair at Georgia Tech. So I'd been reading Make
magazine and had always wanted to go to a maker fair,
but the only two at the time are the two
biggest were in New York and hear the Bay Area,
but they were in September in May, when I was
in school. So my solution was to just start one
(08:23):
myself at Yeah, which I worked on fully remotely. I
was actually here in Sunny Vale for the summer of
twenty eleven and somehow like arranged the whole show to
happen at Georgia Tech that fall in September twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And I guess also somehow Dale, the founder of Make,
came or came shortly after, so we met and I
basically was like, yeah, I don't. I don't have a
job yet for next year.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, you're looking for anyone.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, So they hired a product development engineer, so I
was able to help help them. It was a really
good learning experience, especially just around supply chain and working
with suppliers.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah. What's it like being product development engineer for Make?
I mean, because they're working on a bunch of different
from general projects. Actually, I guess I kind of forgot
they were also selling some things. So they were selling
like kits and things, right.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, so that was the whole the whole role was
the Makershed was their online store, which I don't think
exists anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I kind of totally forgot about that. I always
think about the affairs, I think about the magazine, but
of course.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Especially a huge part of the fair for Make was
having the makershed there, like the yeah store prece case. Yeah,
so working with working on the makershed was cool. It
was definitely a great experience figuring out how to combine
parts together for a kid that we think people would
want to produce. So I worked with a lot of
overseas suppliers and got some custom parts made by suppliers.
(09:49):
So that part was really interesting. And it was definitely
a big yeah, supply chain challenge and dealing with like
high quantities, and then the maker Fair side of it
was also just super fun.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Do you remember at that time what you were using
for supply chain management? Kind of as far as like spreadsheets, snowpads,
it was definitely a software dashboard, you know, a little
bit of everything.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It was not a software I mean, I think it
was a lot of just Excel.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, Excel and calling people up and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Definitely, I'm like shocked thinking back that they let me
do some of this, but like quantity projections for like
how many kits we would have to produce for maker
Fair and also to have in some retail stores because
when radio shack was a thing, they were in radio shacks.
It was like I missed too so much. Yeah, looking
at yeah, all the past sales, like trying to figure
(10:39):
out how many we should do and like, certainly it
was not qualified to be doing this, really, I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
use Excel and send an RFQ to our our giant
supplier in China and yeah we get boxes and boxes in.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
But an amazing experience, I mean as far as like
building up of kind of like you, yeskills from the
business side of things, Yeah, projecting, usage quantities, all of that.
So and budget of course definitely and everything you probably.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Got a yeah, a little bit of everything, and very
valuable to work with suppliers right out of the gate,
right out of college, because I think, you know, maybe
or a few years ago I would have been like
I wish I like had started doing more design stuff
early on, or more fabrication. But it was really great
to know the ins and outs of working with ye
(11:33):
overseas supply.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, I'm sure that came in handy so many times later.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, definitely did.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, okay, and so how did you eventually get into
more of the design and mechanical hearing.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So from make I then went yeah, just a few
blocks away here in the city to work for Other
Machine Co. Where he helped design the other mill. So
that was, you know, which is a tiny all plastic PCB.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Mailing machine run by the amazing Daniel Applestone.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes, amazing Danielle Applestone and a very small team of
like fairly junior engineers. Again thinking back, like, wow, we
did we really did not know what we were doing,
but it was.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
An increditle work.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
We made it work, and it was an incredible learning
experience and just like the typical super small team where
everyone does lots of different stuff. So we were producing
the mills in house and designing them, and our office
was at other Lab, which has this amazing prototyping shop.
So we would you know, design a part in solid
(12:31):
works and then go downstairs where production was happening on
the CNC router of these plastic frames. But we could
also pop over to the water jet and prototype sheet
metal part. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
And did you guys ever get to I know, like
at one point part of the vision was or correct
me if I'm wrong, I might be confusing it with
a different company. But for the other mills to also
kind of produce themselves in some ways, right, were they
producing some of the parts they would buy? The machines
are not quite I.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Don't think they ever. Well we could, yeah, we could
produce some.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, so like a lot of because a lot of
it is classic because it's a small.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, especially like the kind of linear bearings or like
very simple del im parts that we absolutely did machine
not for production but for prototyping. You can produce them
on the other mal yeah, which is super cool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah. We still have three other mills a design lab,
but they're super fun. Yeah, and I love like the
form factor. Obviously it has limitations as far as like
the build size and whatnot, but for little things, it's
so convenient and they just like look great in our
space obviously, like our space is just as much, I
feel like as a showroom as it it's a shop
space and stuff, so they do that sounds silly, but
(13:36):
they just look great and they're so compact, and I yeah,
the design is really nice.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, they're super cute. I think again, in hindsight, thinking
about the product fit, you know, probably wasn't the most
important thing to have a piece of like a really
a really high accuracy PCB mill in a tiny frame
that you could like with handles and take on the bart,
But the fact that it is that way is like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Just still super cool.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, still super cool.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, and we carry them around our space like that
is part of the fun of having the handles and stuff.
You know, we keep them in one room, but when
we're working on a project where we're going to use
them more regularly, we'll bring it out to the main space.
And that's a big part of Also, you know, design
Lab is having kind of this modular setup and they
work really well for that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
So I wish this category of like somewhat portable tools
or tools like really yeah, accurate tools with handles was
more of a thing. There are a few, like shaper
Origin comes to mind, but I'd love that like aesthetic, yeah, totally. Yeah.
Shop Bot had like a handibot at some point, which
is like a tiny router you like put up into
(14:40):
a wall and cut out a hole.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like yeah, it kind of makes sense, and yeah, I
guess I am surprised that there's not more of that too.
There's I guess fine line of like when it really
is functional and practical and when it's just going too
far into fun. But also there's a place for that.
There's always a time and a place for that, and
we would use it. So they have at least, you know,
a market there, but no, I can think of a
(15:02):
lot of people who would be excited about those kinds
of tools. And I think that's actually a really nice
segue to kind of managing shop spaces as part of
a lot of your roles, because I feel like, obviously
I know at Bull you were you know a big
part of your role role was managing the facility, the
prototyping facility, and you can tell us more about that,
(15:22):
but it sounds like also in your Georgia Tech days,
you were doing that sort of thing. So it's always
kind of been a part. Probably maybe if it's not
always officially unofficially part of the job, because i'd beel like,
once you do that role a few times you just
end up gravitating, like they're like, he can help us
fix this machine. He knows the best way to work.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, that absolutely happens. Yeah, but it is fun to
have it as as part of the role too. I
just love the combination of yeah, setting up a prototyping
space and then using it too. I think it would
be hard to put in all the work. And I
actually have done a little bit of contract work with
like setting up machine shops, and it was super fun
(16:00):
to have. Of course, when you're working with a giant
budget also they're like, oh, yeah, let's do this like
three hundred thousand dollars CNC machine and that like crazy
vinyl like whatever. But then to not be able to use.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
The tools or use the space, Yeah, those tools are
so nice.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I wish I could use them, so that, yeah, is
sort of sad. So it's really great when you can
set up the space and then use the tools yourself
because you can, yeah, feel all the work that you
put into it. But the other the third part that
I also really enjoy is the education, So helping, you know,
setting up the space, using the tools myself and improving,
but then also educating other people on how to use
(16:35):
the tools safely.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back.
Eric is going to share with us the ins and
outs of his role of Guideo and why the drones
he and his team are building are designed with humanity
in mind. Welcome back to the Bomb. I'm your host
(17:02):
Magenta's Drumheart. Drones have changed so many aspects of the
way we record our lives, but what if they could
start protecting them too. Skydio has been working to build
drones that can go where it's too dangerous for humans
to go. So now you're at Skydeo, I would love
to hear kind of the elevator pitch of what Skadio
does and then tell us more about your role there,
(17:23):
because you're also working at the shops there and doing
all the things engineering and design and all the things.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, so it's great. So Skydio is a drone company.
We make drones that are like back fold up, fold
the bowl and like put into backpack sort of size,
so a few pounds. The main thing that, yeah, sets
us apart is the autonomy. So you know, the typical
drone you might see today or for the last however
long drones have existed are very manual and like if
(17:50):
you stick forward into a wall, they will typically fly
into the wall. So our big bet, similar to how
like Tesla approached it with autonomous driving, is using cameras
for navigation. So in addition to the the camera on
the gimbal that does the filming that all drones have,
we also have three super high field of view like
(18:11):
two hundred and ten degree field of view navigation cameras,
three on the top and three on the bottom of
each vehicle. And so we use these with optical flow
another crazy computer vision and AI that I don't understand,
to yeah, make sure we're not going to hit obstacles
or make an uncrashable drone. So what this.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Allows drone because that's always the fear. Even with our
we're just talking about our producer team. You know, they
pull out the drone every once in a while and
it's always like nerve wrackingla, like don't lose it too far.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That So that that was Scott Or the idea is
to just just null that completely so anyone could pick
them up and fly them in a few minutes and
be like fully confident that it's not going to crash.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's awesome, and.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The vision system is the way to do that. But
really what that's sort of the like the base layer
and then everything on top of that is just unlocking
capabilities you could get from putting a sensor somewhere in
the sky autonomously and on a repeatable basis.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
The sensors are you saying those are like built in
and optional for people to kind of customize, or you're saying,
just have a platform for people to add their own sensors.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So the vision is or the big picture is like
think about any sensor and where this can be in
the sky and how it could be useful. But today
it's basically it's just cameras and terminal sensors. So like
on our flagship product, we have a few different gimbals
that you could put on that have different camera payloads,
different types of cameras. Yeah, that you can fly and
(19:41):
use for a variety of things. So the main customers
these days are public safety, so it's you know, like
responding to an animal longe call, have a drone in
the air to give police officers an idea of what's
happening on the ground, which is super valuable and good
for de escalation. And then energy utilities, which is when
I was I never would have guests when I got
into this, but they really rely on it for inspections
(20:04):
of like power pomes.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay and places it's harder for someone to get there. Yeah,
that sort of thing exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, yeah, this isn't that in the energy utility category.
But a perfect example is bridge inspection. Yeah, since they
have these crazy trucks called snooper trucks or they like
they're on top of the bridge, but then the crane
like put someone in a bucket under the bridge to
be like looking at the underside bridge, which of course
takes days and it's super dangerous and expensive. So if
(20:33):
you can have a drone that does this can make.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The other great benefit we have from using vision to
fly is that you know, typically if you fly a
drone under a bridge, it's going to lose GPS, so
then you can really get into trouble. I like, you're
under a bridge and you press like fly home and
it doesn't know where it's So with our reliance on
vision to navigate, we don't need GPS.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So we can you know, put the camera up and
do our inspection under the.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Bridge and then also fly out of their yeah, into
those hard to reach places. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, so my and then to get your question about
the role. So the amazing thing and why I love
being at sku IDEO is it is really like the
combination of all three. So we have a prototyping lab,
a small machine shop, and yeah, a rapidly growing number
of engineers who use the space. So when I started,
it was maybe twenty of us on the hardware team,
(21:27):
and now it's like triple that side sixty.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Or so, oh what time periods, like that's been three
years okay, w Yeah, so yeah, lots of like dozens
of engineers using this space doing yeah, three D printing, machining, yeah, electronics, prototyping, antennas,
like all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Because the drums are all custom. Yeah, so that's been
great to like figure out where stuff goes, Like machines
help design and fabricate things myself typically one offs, yeah,
and then educating people how to use the tools.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And so do you find in spaces like that as
far as the education point, what's the average would you
say people coming in or is there a big range?
Because I feel like, as we were even just discussing
earlier in the interview, like a lot of engineers tend
to like have this desire to have the hands on experience,
and they might have, you know, bought a three D
(22:21):
printer at home or had experience in their university shops
or something like that. But have you found are there
engineers that'll come in with like very little experience on
any of the tools yea, and really need like start
from the beginning kind of introduction.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah. I think a lot of it does depend on
their personal interest too, because if I'm thinking about the
engineers who have come in into like a product design
role where the most of their job is going to
be doing cat workd Yeah, we have had some people
start who, yeah, tons of hands on experience, but maybe
they have a million machine in their garage and just
have done this out of passion. Yeah, and then yeah,
(22:57):
for junior engineers it also rains, which is widely i'd
say these days. Like some knowledge of three D printing
is very common and sort of table stakes, but once
you get beyond that into more and like laser cutters,
a lot of people know and understand, But once you
get into more of the subtractive stuff like droll press
is maybe like half of people are like comfortable on
(23:19):
a droll press, but then as you get past that
into like million or turning much more rare.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah. What's kind of the culture or is there a
culture within the company of how much people should rely
on you or I don't know, if there's other people,
you know, managing the shop to or have that kind
of expertise versus like they should be doing parts themselves.
What do you feel like, also, is the advantage for
someone to do the part themselves versus however it might
(23:44):
be produced, versus like pass it off to the prototyping person.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, it's a big question and something we think about
a lot, and it really depends on the situation and
how the company is growing and our priorities. We're definitely
not at the point yet or I don't know if
we will ever be where we sort of have an
internal job shop. I know that's how a lot of
bigger companies operate, where people do the design and then
(24:09):
sort of throw it over the wall and it gets
made in a certain number of days. One one disadvantage
of that is speed, like if and one reason to
teach people how to use the tool is speed and
just self reliance.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, and they're going to prioritize their own part more
than if it goes into this long list of Then
you have to figure out how are you guys prioritizing And.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, it's a huge challenge to do that. Like internal
job shop model, it's really just a judgment call. When
someone comes to us and say, hey, I need this
part made. If it's you know, it depends on the person,
depends on the part. We might just say like, okay, yeah,
I can do that for each today. Or if like
a lot of stuff requests we get on my team
are trivial to me, but maybe to someone else seem
(24:50):
like a big ask. I think, can you please just
like cut this thing on the vands Like sure, that
will take me, Like thirty Yeah. Yeah, so that's it,
that's what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It just a kind of a fine line of like,
that's also something you should be able to do seconds.
So maybe it's not worthy for me to do a
million of these thirty second jobs.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, so if they're coming a lot, yeah, actually, let
me teach you how to this tool. So yeah, it
depends on a lot of factors, but it's something I
mean we're constantly thinking about. Yeah, but speed is a
big one.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Just like allowing to optimize, especially if you're a smaller
growing team and you know, you really have to figure out, yeah,
what's what's the highest priority and what makes the most
take the advantage of each person's time where they need
to be putting their time most.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I think I said that the same thing like that
every just moving on. Do you have a favorite tool
in your shop?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, this is I mean constantly evolving. I think these
days probably the ultrasonic cutter. Okay, yeah, there are these
handheld cutters that I.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Don't think I've ever worked with an ultrasonic character.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Tell us, especially for plastics. Okay, cool, So, like if
you do a lot of three D printing and then
need to modify the three D printed part like the
whole bigger or cut out a little slot for some clearance.
Ultrasonic knives are amazing because they just they vibrated the
ultrasonic frequency and just like cut through plastic like butter.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Wow, we got to get one for design put in
a request.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah it has been I will say, like they can
you can find yeah, like pretty affordable ones on Amazon
that just have a pack this big and then the
knife just looks like a fat exact.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Of Okay, it's almost like an exactly. That's what I
was wondering. Is it like that or is it kind
of maybe a smaller sauzle or something like that was
what I was imagining.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Cool, Yeah, that's I need to recommend. I mean, yeah,
there are some you can find on Amazon that are
like pretty cheap, but they they die really fast. So like, yeah,
we've had a struggle finding some high quality depends.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And we are getting close to time here, so I'll
wrap it up shortly. But I did want to kind
of hear from you what you think as far as
like working on the drone, working on a device that's
heavily you know, involving autonomy and kind of machine learning
and AI, and how do you feel about kind of
the responsibility that comes with that. I think that obviously
(27:16):
just anybody at these days, like in and out of tech,
we're talking about this, you know, so it's kind of
on everybody's mind, and especially when it's at the forefront
of like what you're working on on a daily basis.
How do you feel like you guys kind of balance
that and where do you kind of see the future
of that going as far as even like I'm interested
in like legislation and like, you know, I feel like,
(27:39):
not to get off topic, but even with like copyright
and things, it's almost like the parameters around it can't
keep up with how fast it's moving, you know, and
I feel like something similar is happening with AI of course,
So how do you guys kind of navigate that? And
I know it's a big question. You can respond to
whichever you feel, you know, whatever point you kind of
(27:59):
feel most passionate, But yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It is, yeah, definitely something worth thinking about for people
working in technology, especially with a product that touches AI
or for us, Yeah, a product that has cameras on it.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, privacy the.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Product certainly, Yeah, the privacy thing is something I think
about a lot. Yeah, I mean, I guess, so there's
like the two prongs of the AI and privacy which
could certainly come in together also in some way. But yeah,
I guess on the privacy thing first. Some things I
think about are like comparing a drone in the sky
(28:35):
with a camera on it to your typical CCTV camera
that's plastered to a wall. I guess one pro of
the drone is that it's not it's active, so it's
not the CCTV cameras just recording all the time and
like presumably someone's looking at that footage or it's recorded.
That kind of sucks. The drone you can just point
where you need it when you need it, which is nice.
(28:58):
One thing that also makes me feel better, or one
thing Scudio can do specifically and that we are doing
is being careful about Yeah, who gets these things. So
when I started, a big part of our business was consumers,
So we used to make drones for consumers like follow
me camera, like phone film me while I'm mountain biking.
These days, you cannot just go on skydio dot com
(29:20):
and buy a drone. So if you know anti privacy
LLC like reaches out to buy a drone or just
gonna say no. But yeah, certainly, when working with police departments,
what we try to do is just celebrate the ones
and sell to ones that are what we think doing
this the right way. And it is so new that
(29:42):
it's it's hard to know, but I think we have
a good sense that like transparency and communication are super
important around the privacy stuff specifically. So I think a
lot of police departments who are using drones to like
respond to nine one one calls similar to what they
do for the body worn camera is they like they
publish when they have flown and like filmed with the drone.
(30:05):
So I think that's super valuable and we got to
keep up with that. Those are some yeah things on
the privacy side. On the AI side, yeah, certainly, I'm
grateful that we don't work with weapons because I think
that that area is rife with yeah, terror of you know,
drones that are flying autonomously with munitions on board is
(30:29):
pretty terrifying. I think this is where like the legislative
bodies can help, Like when you're working with the FAA,
like we do so much, they really care about there
being a pilot in the loop currently and these things
are all evolving, so over the next five to ten years, well,
I'm sure they'll change a lot. But currently, like with
our drones, even if someone is sitting at a desk
flying one remotely from their computer, I mean that it
(30:52):
is required that they are watching. And in most places, yeah, exactly,
even if it's flying autonomously and moving all on its own,
someone's still keeping an eye on, which I think is
super important. Certainly, as like the FA evolves and flying
like multiple drones from a single person or a single
(31:13):
controller becomes more of a thing that will become more challenging.
It's like making sure this person whoever is watching to
make sure all the drones are doing what they're supposed
to do. But I think this is where Yeah, relying
on the FA some to like set the groundwork and
move move a little slowly, is is healthy, Which is
a tough thing because in some ways we also wish
(31:35):
the FA would move faster. Yeah, it's definitely a.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Tough Yeah, it's hard because it is heavy. It's like
it makes sense that they need to take time to
figure out what the best strategy moving forward is. But
I also think, yeah, the technology is just moving so
fast you can't ignore that there's kind of a desperate
need for yeah, like regulative bodies to kind of keep up.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, and I honestly don't know what they're you know,
what their top concerns are, like if they're thinking about
drones flying, Like are they thinking about you know, a
cop flying a drone in the street and like using
the camera to like peep in someone's window, or are
they more concerned about it just falling out of the
sky and hitting someone. Yeah, like probably the latter, huge concerns. Yeah,
(32:17):
we're much more certain about and confident in the second one.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Of like to drop out of the sky.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And yeah, at least in terms of my world of
like the hardware and building a thing, we're always getting
better and making them just super reliable. But yeah, big
huge questions.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, Second, we could, and like I said, we're gonna
invite you to La. We'll do a part two. We'll
do a demo of the drone, which would be awesome,
And I would also love to do I'm like a
part three, part four, No, but another part where maybe
we can tour the shop at some point if you
guys are opened up.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That'd be really fun.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
We're trying to do more of o Our detoured episodes.
We used to have this detoord series where we would
tour shops all over We did like the are do
we know manufacturing facility, which was super cool, and we
did different prototyping labs and across all kinds of disciplines
and industries. So it's fun. I selfishly just want to
bring it back because it was like one of my
(33:10):
favorite projects.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That is like my favorite category of YouTube video the
shop toy.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah totally. What is one thing outside of technology that's
inspiring you right now?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, the easy It's definitely my son. Yeah, the thing
that surprised me about being a parent and seeing the
way he or he as he has grown, the way
he's changed and or the way he interacts with toys
and like physical things has changed, and that's super fascinating
to watch.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Like have you made him any toys?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Have I? I've three D printed him some Brio tracks
nice you know for spares or like some fun custom ones,
but no, I wish I have made him more. But yeah,
the leven.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I feel like we could talk about all kinds of
projects that like you know, you've started and it's like
when you work in a space like that, you never
make as much stuff as you think you're going to
make or hope to make, because you're also doing it
all day for business exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, it's also like sort of the curse of things
like Amazon or like he had this yeah, really cute
little like switchbox, like a little a box of a
bunch of switches on and like LEDs turn on and
it broke. Yeah, Oh, I could make him really sweet one,
Like we've extra switches at work and LEDs and like
I can put in the time to make this. Oh,
or we could just buy like a new perfectly good
on Amazon for like nine yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I can save myself whatever yeah or whatever to make it. Yeah,
I know. I saw a cool toy that my friend's
kid had that was like basically all the fun hardware
from a hardware store that's like you know, door latches
and things like that, hinges whatever, And I was like, oh,
I could totally make a cute version of this. And
I was like, one day, maybe I'll make it as
(34:45):
a gift. Have I done that yet now? But maybe
one day. Still it's in the idea ethers. But okay,
And last but not least what's on your personal bill
of materials.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yes, so for me, I I just think about what
makes eric at work. I guess. I mean some of
these could carry over to home, but I think about
the things that I, yeah, carry with me or use
a lot. So it's a good pocket knife.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I actually haven't heard pocketknife in a while. I think
that is a solid, solid response.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Ten out of ten. Yeah, I'm a little bit ashamed
to say that like ninety nine percent of the use
is just opening packages.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah, but that's I.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Still think it's good to have, you know, there's somewhere.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah, pocket knife definitely on my person at all times
at work. The other two I highly recommend and carry
with me a lot or use a lot are prescription
safety glasses. Those are like incredible and way cheaper.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Than I to double up the glasses.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, doubly not is terrible. Yeah, that's as a classes where.
And then yeah, custom fit earplugs also, like it's way
cheaper than I thought they would and like highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I was just telling GEO my colleague that I really
want to get some of the over the ear ear
protection with built in like bluetooth, yeah, headphones, because I'm
always putting my air pods under the headphones and or
whatever you're hearing protection and like some of the time,
(36:11):
but like if it just shifts slightly, the air pod
pops up off, but then it's in there, but it's
not playing.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
And yeah, just buy the Bluetooth yeah productions.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
But yeah, nos, two custom things and highly recommend nice
and then a good notebook. And then last thing. Yeah,
a hand tool that I really love is a ceramic
de Burrn tool. We use these, yeah, so you know,
like the normal swiftly burning tool. This is just like
a handle with like a ceramic triangle on the end,
(36:44):
and they're just really great for like really light touch
ups on stuff, especially classics you can take. Really I
need to look into that.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I love these like funky tools, Like we could have
a whole like a whole video funky tools will hit
you up. We ever make that absolutely Yeah awesome, No,
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing. If
there's anything else you want to shout out before we
wrap it up, any exciting personal projects or anything you
wanted through out there, I'm going to say, like, follow
you on Instagram is your Instagram public my Instagram like
(37:14):
your Instagram always has cool projects that you're working on,
and you bump through some phases of like I love
you know. I don't know if exactly if it's like
one hundred days of this or thirty days of that,
but I love seriously.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah. It was every week for about three I think
it was three years, where every week for three years
I made some kind of art and posted online. Yeah,
and that was really fun and like a big challenge
and that was a good exercise and just sharing work
that you otherwise wouldn't have shared because I'm horrible at
sharing work. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. Yeah,
I haven't posted much recently, but yeah it's public, so
(37:43):
on my website. Yeah. And then if you're interested in
Skydio skydio dot com. We actually just yesterday May twenty ninth,
we posted a job for a prototyping lab specialist.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Okay, yeah with me in the lab.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, slash career.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It's a great person. You want to work with him
work at this space. Very cool. Well, we'll put it
out there. We'll find the link and post it as
well on the show. And yeah, thank you so much
for the time. Eric. It was so cool to catch
up and hear about everything that's happened since last time,
and we have to not let so much time pass
between the next one and definitely looking forward to part
two one day.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Thanks. Yeah, it was great to be here. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That was Eric Weinhoffer's senior hardware development specialist at Skuydio.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and this is the Bomb.
If you like the Bomb, don't forget to subscribe, rate
and share the show wherever you get your podcasts. You
can follow supply Frame and Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube,
(38:51):
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 Mac
Ebols and edited by Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by
Anna Hogben. Show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to
Giovanni Selinaz, Bruce Dimingez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark,
the entire supply From team, and you are wonderful listeners.
(39:14):
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week. What
One thing Skydio can do specifically and that we are
doing is being careful about Yeah, who gets these things.
So when I started, a big part of our business
was consumers, So we used to make drones for consumers
like follow me, camera like follow me and film me
while I'm mountain biking. These days, you cannot just go
on skydio dot com and buy a drone. So if
(00:21):
you know anti privacy LLC like reaches out to buy
a drone or just going to say no, Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The Bomb, engineering a path forward. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
Drones are everywhere these days. Every movie, extreme sports, film,
and even your friend's wedding has a buzzing quadicopter in
the background getting photos in film. While this new angle
has made our favorite movies truly stunning, we've only just
started scratching the surface of what's possible with this technology.
Today on the Bomb, we're sitting down with senior hardware
(00:52):
development specialist at Skuydio, Eric Weinhoffer. Eric and Skuydeo have
been exploring and experimenting with what's possible in the world
old of drone technology. A key component of their quest
is to build an uncrashable drone with a mixture of
laser vision and AI positioning. Later, we'll hear tips on
how to organize your dream shop space and learn why
only certain people can buy us Guidio drone. We'll be
(01:14):
right back with Eric. We live in a time where
design and 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
(01:35):
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. 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
(01:57):
of design. What Welcome to the Bomb, Eric, Thank you
so much for joining us today. I'm really excited to
catch up.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, me too, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We're trying to We're just talking about when was the
last time we saw each other, and I think it
was at super Con in Pasadena, but we're trying to yeah,
twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Twenty nineteen, I think, yeah, And I think was the
first super Con for you. Yeah, yeah, and for me
and the only one I've been to unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, you got to couch more. Maybe this year is
the year. Yeah, yeah, we just celebrated. Well, I guess
it was actually ten years for Hackaday Prize, not technically
for super Con last year and then yeah, and last
year was technically the seventh super Con in person, but
we had to remote ones during the pandemic, so I'm like,
(02:52):
what does that mean? That's like nine, which means yeah,
this year's kind of tenth super Con, kind of not
because I don't know if we count the remote one,
but regardless, it's going to be epic and awesome. And
we just had our like kind of mini super Con
in Berlin, which we do in the spring, which always
gets us excited about just planning the next one. Okay,
(03:15):
but back to your kind of early days and engineering,
you know, story, tell us more about how you got
into it. You ended up studying mechanical engineering in school
right in university. So were there any major projects you
feel like that you remember that kind of were the
catalysts that got you in at that point or that
you were working on in school that also at the time,
were you thinking I'm going to end up in hardware
(03:37):
or was that something that came later.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, I think I definitely knew I wanted to do
hardware stuff. I didn't know what exactly, but certainly Make
Magazine was a huge influence, Like yeah, before college and
then during because I think without that, I wouldn't have
really known what to expect in terms of like what
engineers do day to day. But Make came out when
(04:02):
I was in high school and I started reading it
and finding that really fascinating and seeing cool projects that
people in this world of like the crafters Unders did.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, I also love to Make magazine and.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That was hugely influential, and I think made me want
to find like whatever that sort of job was, like
more of like the scrappy DIY mindset rather than like
a desk engineer. But I think that that's basically all
I knew. It's like, Okay, I think I had a
sense about college that if I were to go to
(04:34):
some Johnson and Johnson or something. I'd probably be sitting
at a desk like doing drawings a lot of time and.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Work on one little party. You're not really aware of
everything else.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I really knew I wanted to be more hands on.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
More hands on him.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So the big influence in college was working out a
maker space there. So I was able to help start
and build this this space called the Invention Studio at
Georgia Tech, which I think is is feel very well
known as like one of the first fully student run makerspaces.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So that was just a like free opportunity for me
to learn how to use these tools and use them
for whatever I wanted.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And how did you find out? Just sorry really quick, yeah, tangent,
But how did you find out about that opportunity when
you were in school? Did someone like pick you out
and say like you'd be good for this because you
had been in the shops or something like that, or
you had your eye out on opportunities like this, and
it was posted somewhere because I think it's helpful for
you know, students that might be in school right now
who want those kind of unicorn opportunities. But it's like
(05:34):
where do you look or or do you just have
to wait and help someone pix you for somebody.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I wish I had better advice. Yeah, it was mostly
luck for me, but I think you can set yourself
up by just following your interests. So the thing that's
that helped me was that I was really interested in
three D printing and was lucky enough to have an
internship at baker Bot in the summer of two thousand
and nine, so after my freshman year of college, and
(05:58):
so once I came back from that and I I
had a three D printer with me. Now, I guess
people knew that I like knew about and at the
time it was still so fresh and new that like
most people didn't have three D printers, and the maker
Bot Cupcake had just come out roback. So so yeah,
(06:18):
someone who's yeah, now a really good friend reached out. Yeah,
Chris Quintero, who also was at Bolt for a long time. Yeah,
I don't know how he found me, but yeah, he
was also at Georgia Tech and reached out and said
they were going to start up this makerspace and it
wanted I think initially I was like the three D
printing master. So the person who knew three D printing. Yeah,
and that's how I got my But do you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Still have that title on your resume?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Somemore?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I wish it's pretty these days.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
There are so many people who know. And yeah, I've
grown up. Yeah, I've been time, but it's definitely not
a mastery.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you remember any of the like first like wow
moments when you three D printed something, either whether you
know if you remember a specific component or product or something,
they were just like wow, I can't believe I just
did that, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I mean I think it was just a very early
just a I don't even think it really mattered or yeah,
I don't matter exactly what early prints I made were,
but it was just the fact that this is possible,
that it just popped out, like you're starting with this
plastic noodle, Like this is basically just a fancy hot
glue gun. But it's mazing that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
What I say when we were talking about it at
the lab, yeah, way to explain that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's fairly simple, but for it to
pop out, yeah, a fully three D hard plastic part
was just incredible. Yeah. So I remember the early classics
like the Stanford Bunny and I think like a Darth
Vader bust.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like you see those in
all the Maker spaces.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Definitely liked yeah yeah, all those early classics.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah awesome. And then from there did you start at
Make after that? And then obviously eventually got to Bolt
What else was in between there?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, lots of stuff. So I ended up at Meek
through well, yeah, I met Dale through doing the Atlanta
Minimaker Fair at Georgia Tech. So I'd been reading Make
magazine and had always wanted to go to a maker fair,
but the only two at the time are the two
biggest were in New York and hear the Bay Area,
but they were in September in May, when I was
in school. So my solution was to just start one
(08:23):
myself at Yeah, which I worked on fully remotely. I
was actually here in Sunny Vale for the summer of
twenty eleven and somehow like arranged the whole show to
happen at Georgia Tech that fall in September twenty eleven.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And I guess also somehow Dale, the founder of Make,
came or came shortly after, so we met and I
basically was like, yeah, I don't. I don't have a
job yet for next year.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, you're looking for anyone.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, So they hired a product development engineer, so I
was able to help help them. It was a really
good learning experience, especially just around supply chain and working
with suppliers.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah. What's it like being product development engineer for Make?
I mean, because they're working on a bunch of different
from general projects. Actually, I guess I kind of forgot
they were also selling some things. So they were selling
like kits and things, right.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, so that was the whole the whole role was
the Makershed was their online store, which I don't think
exists anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I kind of totally forgot about that. I always
think about the affairs, I think about the magazine, but
of course.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Especially a huge part of the fair for Make was
having the makershed there, like the yeah store prece case. Yeah,
so working with working on the makershed was cool. It
was definitely a great experience figuring out how to combine
parts together for a kid that we think people would
want to produce. So I worked with a lot of
overseas suppliers and got some custom parts made by suppliers.
(09:49):
So that part was really interesting. And it was definitely
a big yeah, supply chain challenge and dealing with like
high quantities, and then the maker Fair side of it
was also just super fun.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Do you remember at that time what you were using
for supply chain management? Kind of as far as like spreadsheets, snowpads,
it was definitely a software dashboard, you know, a little
bit of everything.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It was not a software I mean, I think it
was a lot of just Excel.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, Excel and calling people up and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Definitely, I'm like shocked thinking back that they let me
do some of this, but like quantity projections for like
how many kits we would have to produce for maker
Fair and also to have in some retail stores because
when radio shack was a thing, they were in radio shacks.
It was like I missed too so much. Yeah, looking
at yeah, all the past sales, like trying to figure
(10:39):
out how many we should do and like, certainly it
was not qualified to be doing this, really, I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
use Excel and send an RFQ to our our giant
supplier in China and yeah we get boxes and boxes in.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
But an amazing experience, I mean as far as like
building up of kind of like you, yeskills from the
business side of things, Yeah, projecting, usage quantities, all of that.
So and budget of course definitely and everything you probably.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Got a yeah, a little bit of everything, and very
valuable to work with suppliers right out of the gate,
right out of college, because I think, you know, maybe
or a few years ago I would have been like
I wish I like had started doing more design stuff
early on, or more fabrication. But it was really great
to know the ins and outs of working with ye
(11:33):
overseas supply.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, I'm sure that came in handy so many times later.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, definitely did.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, okay, and so how did you eventually get into
more of the design and mechanical hearing.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So from make I then went yeah, just a few
blocks away here in the city to work for Other
Machine Co. Where he helped design the other mill. So
that was, you know, which is a tiny all plastic PCB.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Mailing machine run by the amazing Daniel Applestone.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes, amazing Danielle Applestone and a very small team of
like fairly junior engineers. Again thinking back, like, wow, we
did we really did not know what we were doing,
but it was.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
An increditle work.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
We made it work, and it was an incredible learning
experience and just like the typical super small team where
everyone does lots of different stuff. So we were producing
the mills in house and designing them, and our office
was at other Lab, which has this amazing prototyping shop.
So we would you know, design a part in solid
(12:31):
works and then go downstairs where production was happening on
the CNC router of these plastic frames. But we could
also pop over to the water jet and prototype sheet
metal part. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
And did you guys ever get to I know, like
at one point part of the vision was or correct
me if I'm wrong, I might be confusing it with
a different company. But for the other mills to also
kind of produce themselves in some ways, right, were they
producing some of the parts they would buy? The machines
are not quite I.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Don't think they ever. Well we could, yeah, we could
produce some.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, so like a lot of because a lot of
it is classic because it's a small.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, especially like the kind of linear bearings or like
very simple del im parts that we absolutely did machine
not for production but for prototyping. You can produce them
on the other mal yeah, which is super cool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah. We still have three other mills a design lab,
but they're super fun. Yeah, and I love like the
form factor. Obviously it has limitations as far as like
the build size and whatnot, but for little things, it's
so convenient and they just like look great in our
space obviously, like our space is just as much, I
feel like as a showroom as it it's a shop
space and stuff, so they do that sounds silly, but
(13:36):
they just look great and they're so compact, and I yeah,
the design is really nice.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, they're super cute. I think again, in hindsight, thinking
about the product fit, you know, probably wasn't the most
important thing to have a piece of like a really
a really high accuracy PCB mill in a tiny frame
that you could like with handles and take on the bart,
But the fact that it is that way is like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Just still super cool.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, still super cool.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, and we carry them around our space like that
is part of the fun of having the handles and stuff.
You know, we keep them in one room, but when
we're working on a project where we're going to use
them more regularly, we'll bring it out to the main space.
And that's a big part of Also, you know, design
Lab is having kind of this modular setup and they
work really well for that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
So I wish this category of like somewhat portable tools
or tools like really yeah, accurate tools with handles was
more of a thing. There are a few, like shaper
Origin comes to mind, but I'd love that like aesthetic, yeah, totally. Yeah.
Shop Bot had like a handibot at some point, which
is like a tiny router you like put up into
(14:40):
a wall and cut out a hole.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like yeah, it kind of makes sense, and yeah, I
guess I am surprised that there's not more of that too.
There's I guess fine line of like when it really
is functional and practical and when it's just going too
far into fun. But also there's a place for that.
There's always a time and a place for that, and
we would use it. So they have at least, you know,
a market there, but no, I can think of a
(15:02):
lot of people who would be excited about those kinds
of tools. And I think that's actually a really nice
segue to kind of managing shop spaces as part of
a lot of your roles, because I feel like, obviously
I know at Bull you were you know a big
part of your role role was managing the facility, the
prototyping facility, and you can tell us more about that,
(15:22):
but it sounds like also in your Georgia Tech days,
you were doing that sort of thing. So it's always
kind of been a part. Probably maybe if it's not
always officially unofficially part of the job, because i'd beel like,
once you do that role a few times you just
end up gravitating, like they're like, he can help us
fix this machine. He knows the best way to work.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, that absolutely happens. Yeah, but it is fun to
have it as as part of the role too. I
just love the combination of yeah, setting up a prototyping
space and then using it too. I think it would
be hard to put in all the work. And I
actually have done a little bit of contract work with
like setting up machine shops, and it was super fun
(16:00):
to have. Of course, when you're working with a giant
budget also they're like, oh, yeah, let's do this like
three hundred thousand dollars CNC machine and that like crazy
vinyl like whatever. But then to not be able to use.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
The tools or use the space, Yeah, those tools are
so nice.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I wish I could use them, so that, yeah, is
sort of sad. So it's really great when you can
set up the space and then use the tools yourself
because you can, yeah, feel all the work that you
put into it. But the other the third part that
I also really enjoy is the education, So helping, you know,
setting up the space, using the tools myself and improving,
but then also educating other people on how to use
(16:35):
the tools safely.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back.
Eric is going to share with us the ins and
outs of his role of Guideo and why the drones
he and his team are building are designed with humanity
in mind. Welcome back to the Bomb. I'm your host
(17:02):
Magenta's Drumheart. Drones have changed so many aspects of the
way we record our lives, but what if they could
start protecting them too. Skydio has been working to build
drones that can go where it's too dangerous for humans
to go. So now you're at Skydeo, I would love
to hear kind of the elevator pitch of what Skadio
does and then tell us more about your role there,
(17:23):
because you're also working at the shops there and doing
all the things engineering and design and all the things.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, so it's great. So Skydio is a drone company.
We make drones that are like back fold up, fold
the bowl and like put into backpack sort of size,
so a few pounds. The main thing that, yeah, sets
us apart is the autonomy. So you know, the typical
drone you might see today or for the last however
long drones have existed are very manual and like if
(17:50):
you stick forward into a wall, they will typically fly
into the wall. So our big bet, similar to how
like Tesla approached it with autonomous driving, is using cameras
for navigation. So in addition to the the camera on
the gimbal that does the filming that all drones have,
we also have three super high field of view like
(18:11):
two hundred and ten degree field of view navigation cameras,
three on the top and three on the bottom of
each vehicle. And so we use these with optical flow
another crazy computer vision and AI that I don't understand,
to yeah, make sure we're not going to hit obstacles
or make an uncrashable drone. So what this.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Allows drone because that's always the fear. Even with our
we're just talking about our producer team. You know, they
pull out the drone every once in a while and
it's always like nerve wrackingla, like don't lose it too far.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That So that that was Scott Or the idea is
to just just null that completely so anyone could pick
them up and fly them in a few minutes and
be like fully confident that it's not going to crash.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's awesome, and.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The vision system is the way to do that. But
really what that's sort of the like the base layer
and then everything on top of that is just unlocking
capabilities you could get from putting a sensor somewhere in
the sky autonomously and on a repeatable basis.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
The sensors are you saying those are like built in
and optional for people to kind of customize, or you're saying,
just have a platform for people to add their own sensors.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So the vision is or the big picture is like
think about any sensor and where this can be in
the sky and how it could be useful. But today
it's basically it's just cameras and terminal sensors. So like
on our flagship product, we have a few different gimbals
that you could put on that have different camera payloads,
different types of cameras. Yeah, that you can fly and
(19:41):
use for a variety of things. So the main customers
these days are public safety, so it's you know, like
responding to an animal longe call, have a drone in
the air to give police officers an idea of what's
happening on the ground, which is super valuable and good
for de escalation. And then energy utilities, which is when
I was I never would have guests when I got
into this, but they really rely on it for inspections
(20:04):
of like power pomes.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Okay and places it's harder for someone to get there. Yeah,
that sort of thing exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, yeah, this isn't that in the energy utility category.
But a perfect example is bridge inspection. Yeah, since they
have these crazy trucks called snooper trucks or they like
they're on top of the bridge, but then the crane
like put someone in a bucket under the bridge to
be like looking at the underside bridge, which of course
takes days and it's super dangerous and expensive. So if
(20:33):
you can have a drone that does this can make.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The other great benefit we have from using vision to
fly is that you know, typically if you fly a
drone under a bridge, it's going to lose GPS, so
then you can really get into trouble. I like, you're
under a bridge and you press like fly home and
it doesn't know where it's So with our reliance on
vision to navigate, we don't need GPS.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So we can you know, put the camera up and
do our inspection under the.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Bridge and then also fly out of their yeah, into
those hard to reach places. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, so my and then to get your question about
the role. So the amazing thing and why I love
being at sku IDEO is it is really like the
combination of all three. So we have a prototyping lab,
a small machine shop, and yeah, a rapidly growing number
of engineers who use the space. So when I started,
it was maybe twenty of us on the hardware team,
(21:27):
and now it's like triple that side sixty.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Or so, oh what time periods, like that's been three
years okay, w Yeah, so yeah, lots of like dozens
of engineers using this space doing yeah, three D printing, machining, yeah, electronics, prototyping, antennas,
like all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Because the drums are all custom. Yeah, so that's been
great to like figure out where stuff goes, Like machines
help design and fabricate things myself typically one offs, yeah,
and then educating people how to use the tools.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And so do you find in spaces like that as
far as the education point, what's the average would you
say people coming in or is there a big range?
Because I feel like, as we were even just discussing
earlier in the interview, like a lot of engineers tend
to like have this desire to have the hands on experience,
and they might have, you know, bought a three D
(22:21):
printer at home or had experience in their university shops
or something like that. But have you found are there
engineers that'll come in with like very little experience on
any of the tools yea, and really need like start
from the beginning kind of introduction.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah. I think a lot of it does depend on
their personal interest too, because if I'm thinking about the
engineers who have come in into like a product design
role where the most of their job is going to
be doing cat workd Yeah, we have had some people
start who, yeah, tons of hands on experience, but maybe
they have a million machine in their garage and just
have done this out of passion. Yeah, and then yeah,
(22:57):
for junior engineers it also rains, which is widely i'd
say these days. Like some knowledge of three D printing
is very common and sort of table stakes, but once
you get beyond that into more and like laser cutters,
a lot of people know and understand, But once you
get into more of the subtractive stuff like droll press
is maybe like half of people are like comfortable on
(23:19):
a droll press, but then as you get past that
into like million or turning much more rare.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah. What's kind of the culture or is there a
culture within the company of how much people should rely
on you or I don't know, if there's other people,
you know, managing the shop to or have that kind
of expertise versus like they should be doing parts themselves.
What do you feel like, also, is the advantage for
someone to do the part themselves versus however it might
(23:44):
be produced, versus like pass it off to the prototyping person.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, it's a big question and something we think about
a lot, and it really depends on the situation and
how the company is growing and our priorities. We're definitely
not at the point yet or I don't know if
we will ever be where we sort of have an
internal job shop. I know that's how a lot of
bigger companies operate, where people do the design and then
(24:09):
sort of throw it over the wall and it gets
made in a certain number of days. One one disadvantage
of that is speed, like if and one reason to
teach people how to use the tool is speed and
just self reliance.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, and they're going to prioritize their own part more
than if it goes into this long list of Then
you have to figure out how are you guys prioritizing And.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, it's a huge challenge to do that. Like internal
job shop model, it's really just a judgment call. When
someone comes to us and say, hey, I need this
part made. If it's you know, it depends on the person,
depends on the part. We might just say like, okay, yeah,
I can do that for each today. Or if like
a lot of stuff requests we get on my team
are trivial to me, but maybe to someone else seem
(24:50):
like a big ask. I think, can you please just
like cut this thing on the vands Like sure, that
will take me, Like thirty Yeah. Yeah, so that's it,
that's what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
It just a kind of a fine line of like,
that's also something you should be able to do seconds.
So maybe it's not worthy for me to do a
million of these thirty second jobs.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, so if they're coming a lot, yeah, actually, let
me teach you how to this tool. So yeah, it
depends on a lot of factors, but it's something I
mean we're constantly thinking about. Yeah, but speed is a
big one.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Just like allowing to optimize, especially if you're a smaller
growing team and you know, you really have to figure out, yeah,
what's what's the highest priority and what makes the most
take the advantage of each person's time where they need
to be putting their time most.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I think I said that the same thing like that
every just moving on. Do you have a favorite tool
in your shop?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, this is I mean constantly evolving. I think these
days probably the ultrasonic cutter. Okay, yeah, there are these
handheld cutters that I.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Don't think I've ever worked with an ultrasonic character.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Tell us, especially for plastics. Okay, cool, So, like if
you do a lot of three D printing and then
need to modify the three D printed part like the
whole bigger or cut out a little slot for some clearance.
Ultrasonic knives are amazing because they just they vibrated the
ultrasonic frequency and just like cut through plastic like butter.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Wow, we got to get one for design put in
a request.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah it has been I will say, like they can
you can find yeah, like pretty affordable ones on Amazon
that just have a pack this big and then the
knife just looks like a fat exact.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Of Okay, it's almost like an exactly. That's what I
was wondering. Is it like that or is it kind
of maybe a smaller sauzle or something like that was
what I was imagining.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Cool, Yeah, that's I need to recommend. I mean, yeah,
there are some you can find on Amazon that are
like pretty cheap, but they they die really fast. So like, yeah,
we've had a struggle finding some high quality depends.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And we are getting close to time here, so I'll
wrap it up shortly. But I did want to kind
of hear from you what you think as far as
like working on the drone, working on a device that's
heavily you know, involving autonomy and kind of machine learning
and AI, and how do you feel about kind of
the responsibility that comes with that. I think that obviously
(27:16):
just anybody at these days, like in and out of tech,
we're talking about this, you know, so it's kind of
on everybody's mind, and especially when it's at the forefront
of like what you're working on on a daily basis.
How do you feel like you guys kind of balance
that and where do you kind of see the future
of that going as far as even like I'm interested
in like legislation and like, you know, I feel like,
(27:39):
not to get off topic, but even with like copyright
and things, it's almost like the parameters around it can't
keep up with how fast it's moving, you know, and
I feel like something similar is happening with AI of course,
So how do you guys kind of navigate that? And
I know it's a big question. You can respond to
whichever you feel, you know, whatever point you kind of
(27:59):
feel most passionate, But yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It is, yeah, definitely something worth thinking about for people
working in technology, especially with a product that touches AI
or for us, Yeah, a product that has cameras on it.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, privacy the.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Product certainly, Yeah, the privacy thing is something I think
about a lot. Yeah, I mean, I guess, so there's
like the two prongs of the AI and privacy which
could certainly come in together also in some way. But yeah,
I guess on the privacy thing first. Some things I
think about are like comparing a drone in the sky
(28:35):
with a camera on it to your typical CCTV camera
that's plastered to a wall. I guess one pro of
the drone is that it's not it's active, so it's
not the CCTV cameras just recording all the time and
like presumably someone's looking at that footage or it's recorded.
That kind of sucks. The drone you can just point
where you need it when you need it, which is nice.
(28:58):
One thing that also makes me feel better, or one
thing Scudio can do specifically and that we are doing
is being careful about Yeah, who gets these things. So
when I started, a big part of our business was consumers,
So we used to make drones for consumers like follow
me camera, like phone film me while I'm mountain biking.
These days, you cannot just go on skydio dot com
(29:20):
and buy a drone. So if you know anti privacy
LLC like reaches out to buy a drone or just
gonna say no. But yeah, certainly, when working with police departments,
what we try to do is just celebrate the ones
and sell to ones that are what we think doing
this the right way. And it is so new that
(29:42):
it's it's hard to know, but I think we have
a good sense that like transparency and communication are super
important around the privacy stuff specifically. So I think a
lot of police departments who are using drones to like
respond to nine one one calls similar to what they
do for the body worn camera is they like they
publish when they have flown and like filmed with the drone.
(30:05):
So I think that's super valuable and we got to
keep up with that. Those are some yeah things on
the privacy side. On the AI side, yeah, certainly, I'm
grateful that we don't work with weapons because I think
that that area is rife with yeah, terror of you know,
drones that are flying autonomously with munitions on board is
(30:29):
pretty terrifying. I think this is where like the legislative
bodies can help, Like when you're working with the FAA,
like we do so much, they really care about there
being a pilot in the loop currently and these things
are all evolving, so over the next five to ten years, well,
I'm sure they'll change a lot. But currently, like with
our drones, even if someone is sitting at a desk
flying one remotely from their computer, I mean that it
(30:52):
is required that they are watching. And in most places, yeah, exactly,
even if it's flying autonomously and moving all on its own,
someone's still keeping an eye on, which I think is
super important. Certainly, as like the FA evolves and flying
like multiple drones from a single person or a single
(31:13):
controller becomes more of a thing that will become more challenging.
It's like making sure this person whoever is watching to
make sure all the drones are doing what they're supposed
to do. But I think this is where Yeah, relying
on the FA some to like set the groundwork and
move move a little slowly, is is healthy, Which is
a tough thing because in some ways we also wish
(31:35):
the FA would move faster. Yeah, it's definitely a.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Tough Yeah, it's hard because it is heavy. It's like
it makes sense that they need to take time to
figure out what the best strategy moving forward is. But
I also think, yeah, the technology is just moving so
fast you can't ignore that there's kind of a desperate
need for yeah, like regulative bodies to kind of keep up.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, and I honestly don't know what they're you know,
what their top concerns are, like if they're thinking about
drones flying, Like are they thinking about you know, a
cop flying a drone in the street and like using
the camera to like peep in someone's window, or are
they more concerned about it just falling out of the
sky and hitting someone. Yeah, like probably the latter, huge concerns. Yeah,
(32:17):
we're much more certain about and confident in the second one.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Of like to drop out of the sky.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And yeah, at least in terms of my world of
like the hardware and building a thing, we're always getting
better and making them just super reliable. But yeah, big
huge questions.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, Second, we could, and like I said, we're gonna
invite you to La. We'll do a part two. We'll
do a demo of the drone, which would be awesome,
And I would also love to do I'm like a
part three, part four, No, but another part where maybe
we can tour the shop at some point if you
guys are opened up.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That'd be really fun.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
We're trying to do more of o Our detoured episodes.
We used to have this detoord series where we would
tour shops all over We did like the are do
we know manufacturing facility, which was super cool, and we
did different prototyping labs and across all kinds of disciplines
and industries. So it's fun. I selfishly just want to
bring it back because it was like one of my
(33:10):
favorite projects.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That is like my favorite category of YouTube video the
shop toy.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah totally. What is one thing outside of technology that's
inspiring you right now?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, the easy It's definitely my son. Yeah, the thing
that surprised me about being a parent and seeing the
way he or he as he has grown, the way
he's changed and or the way he interacts with toys
and like physical things has changed, and that's super fascinating
to watch.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Like have you made him any toys?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Have I? I've three D printed him some Brio tracks
nice you know for spares or like some fun custom ones,
but no, I wish I have made him more. But yeah,
the leven.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I feel like we could talk about all kinds of
projects that like you know, you've started and it's like
when you work in a space like that, you never
make as much stuff as you think you're going to
make or hope to make, because you're also doing it
all day for business exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, it's also like sort of the curse of things
like Amazon or like he had this yeah, really cute
little like switchbox, like a little a box of a
bunch of switches on and like LEDs turn on and
it broke. Yeah, Oh, I could make him really sweet one,
Like we've extra switches at work and LEDs and like
I can put in the time to make this. Oh,
or we could just buy like a new perfectly good
on Amazon for like nine yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I can save myself whatever yeah or whatever to make it. Yeah,
I know. I saw a cool toy that my friend's
kid had that was like basically all the fun hardware
from a hardware store that's like you know, door latches
and things like that, hinges whatever, And I was like, oh,
I could totally make a cute version of this. And
I was like, one day, maybe I'll make it as
(34:45):
a gift. Have I done that yet now? But maybe
one day. Still it's in the idea ethers. But okay,
And last but not least what's on your personal bill
of materials.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yes, so for me, I I just think about what
makes eric at work. I guess. I mean some of
these could carry over to home, but I think about
the things that I, yeah, carry with me or use
a lot. So it's a good pocket knife.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I actually haven't heard pocketknife in a while. I think
that is a solid, solid response.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Ten out of ten. Yeah, I'm a little bit ashamed
to say that like ninety nine percent of the use
is just opening packages.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah, but that's I.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Still think it's good to have, you know, there's somewhere.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah, pocket knife definitely on my person at all times
at work. The other two I highly recommend and carry
with me a lot or use a lot are prescription
safety glasses. Those are like incredible and way cheaper.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Than I to double up the glasses.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, doubly not is terrible. Yeah, that's as a classes where.
And then yeah, custom fit earplugs also, like it's way
cheaper than I thought they would and like highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I was just telling GEO my colleague that I really
want to get some of the over the ear ear
protection with built in like bluetooth, yeah, headphones, because I'm
always putting my air pods under the headphones and or
whatever you're hearing protection and like some of the time,
(36:11):
but like if it just shifts slightly, the air pod
pops up off, but then it's in there, but it's
not playing.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
And yeah, just buy the Bluetooth yeah productions.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
But yeah, nos, two custom things and highly recommend nice
and then a good notebook. And then last thing. Yeah,
a hand tool that I really love is a ceramic
de Burrn tool. We use these, yeah, so you know,
like the normal swiftly burning tool. This is just like
a handle with like a ceramic triangle on the end,
(36:44):
and they're just really great for like really light touch
ups on stuff, especially classics you can take. Really I
need to look into that.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I love these like funky tools, Like we could have
a whole like a whole video funky tools will hit
you up. We ever make that absolutely Yeah awesome, No,
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing. If
there's anything else you want to shout out before we
wrap it up, any exciting personal projects or anything you
wanted through out there, I'm going to say, like, follow
you on Instagram is your Instagram public my Instagram like
(37:14):
your Instagram always has cool projects that you're working on,
and you bump through some phases of like I love
you know. I don't know if exactly if it's like
one hundred days of this or thirty days of that,
but I love seriously.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah. It was every week for about three I think
it was three years, where every week for three years
I made some kind of art and posted online. Yeah,
and that was really fun and like a big challenge
and that was a good exercise and just sharing work
that you otherwise wouldn't have shared because I'm horrible at
sharing work. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. Yeah,
I haven't posted much recently, but yeah it's public, so
(37:43):
on my website. Yeah. And then if you're interested in
Skydio skydio dot com. We actually just yesterday May twenty ninth,
we posted a job for a prototyping lab specialist.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Okay, yeah with me in the lab.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, slash career.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It's a great person. You want to work with him
work at this space. Very cool. Well, we'll put it
out there. We'll find the link and post it as
well on the show. And yeah, thank you so much
for the time. Eric. It was so cool to catch
up and hear about everything that's happened since last time,
and we have to not let so much time pass
between the next one and definitely looking forward to part
two one day.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Thanks. Yeah, it was great to be here. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That was Eric Weinhoffer's senior hardware development specialist at Skuydio.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and this is the Bomb.
If you like the Bomb, don't forget to subscribe, rate
and share the show wherever you get your podcasts. You
can follow supply Frame and Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube,
(38:51):
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 Mac
Ebols and edited by Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by
Anna Hogben. Show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to
Giovanni Selinaz, Bruce Dimingez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark,
the entire supply From team, and you are wonderful listeners.
(39:14):
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week. What
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