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August 6, 2024 30 mins
In this episode of the Bom: Engineering A Path Forward we’re at Chicago’s ideal fab lab, mHub with co-founder Bill Fienup. Most design labs in the US work off a basic subscription model and have access to tools that most start-ups don’t have. mHub is no different in that aspect but as Bill explains, the level of funding, mentorship, and expertise offered to the start-ups working with mHub sets the space apart. We’ll also hear about Bill’s time working in plasma research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and what access to tools can do for innovation. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think some of the biggest challenges that we have
is cost of energy, and you can really increase efficiency
and economic impact and even computing when you get into AI,
those are so energy intensive processes that if we can
lower the cost of energy and not depend on finite resources.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to the bomb engineering a path forward. I'm your host,
Magenta Strongheart. As you know, incubators, fab labs and makerspaces
are near and dear to our hearts. Here at Design Lab,
we're always excited to learn about different spaces supporting innovators
at all levels. Today, we're sitting down with co founder
Bill fine Up to talk about what sets m hub apart.
Bill is no stranger of the challenges that hard tech

(00:41):
prototyping brains constraints like budget, material and expertise can easily
turn what seems like a perfect solution into a pipe dream.
Bill will tell us about how m hub helps startups
build a solid foundation by not only providing access to
incredible facilities, but funding and mentorship opportunities as well. This
is my conversation with Bill fine Up, and this is
the We live in a time where design and technology

(01:09):
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. And every

(01:30):
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. Thank you
so much for taking the time to be on the
Bomb today. Bill. We're really excited to learn more about

(01:53):
m hub. Thank you for also hosting us here. It's
a beautiful space. Can't wait to learn more of kind
of the evolution of this. And we just talked with Jacob,
who you were telling me was one of the original
members of one of the earlier spaces, so maybe we
can kind of start there. What was the journey into
getting m hub off the ground?

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, first, thank you for having me on the podcast.
I mean, I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
The journey. I think it begins, you know, really in.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Part of the needs and struggles that I had as
an entrepreneur trying to build and manufacture physical products. And
it gets a little bit bit into my background. You know,
I graduated from MIT, I moved to Chicago to work
for IDEO, it's a product development firm, and did product
development consulting for about seven years and got the itch

(02:40):
to become an entrepreneur, and you know, I quit my
job and I took the plunge and it was a
big struggle to really create a product without the tools
and the resources that I had these consulting firms or
in college. And I had a couple of startups that failed,
and I noticed others or having similar struggles, and so

(03:02):
I wanted to create an ecosystem, you know, a hyper
resource ecosystem where you have the tools, really the resources,
the connections to people, the manufacturers, and the equipment and
the capital to develop ourt dech products and get the
manufactured and commercialized. So, you know, that journey really started
as a group of collective you know, as a club

(03:25):
that we had called Maker Biz and there were about
three hundred individuals that you know, were makers, but they
wanted to build a business. It wasn't just about you know,
it wasn't just a hobby of creating something and selling it.
It was it was more about creating a sustainable business
that was profitable.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And so and were these startups starting tintrap but where
these startups are also small businesses, Like.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think it was a mix.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
There were people that were dabbling, like do I want
to become an entrepreneur? They you know, we had a
meetup group that met once a month. We would rotate,
you know, all throughout Chicago. We go to you know, versities,
different different you know, companies would host us.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Some had a product, others were still.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Like they had an idea, you know, and so we
were thinking about trying to understand that journey of what
is what is it like to build a hard tech product?
And you know, we would meet up and there was
probably about forty or so people that would come every
every month. And and then there was like a forum
group that we exchange ideas and supply our networks and

(04:27):
just be a sounding board to help support the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
And this was right around when eighteen seventy one was starting,
and that was like a huge you know, inspiration in
terms of entrepreneurship here in Chicago, and their focus is
on you know, software and SaaS, and you know, I

(04:48):
thought there was a need for support around physical products
in the manufactured community, and so, you know, I went
back to that group and I was like, well, hey,
look what if we had a physical space where we
can share prototyping tools and equipment and you know, work
together and share tools to build you know, our businesses.

(05:09):
And so we launched a prototype. You know, like any business,
you build a product type, you see if there's product
market fit. You understand who your customers are, what their
needs are, you know, how you can serve them. And
you know, I was trying to you know, take the
hypothesis of like this is the struggles that I had
in my entrepreneurial journeys and vet those ideas and see

(05:31):
if they really provide value.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
You covered a lot of ground there, and you talked
about kind of a lot of these different pieces from
the support, the physical space, I think, kind of the community,
right and the mentors and kind of the expertise you
might learn from one another being in the space together,
and from this original kind of meetup group and that
sort of thing, to the actual the tools and that

(05:53):
you lose access to maybe when you leave school or
if you're not working with a big company that has,
you know, prototyping lab or something like that. And then
to the funding of course, and the actual the financial
support investment, and so how did you kind of grow?
Like what was the initial set of tools? I think
is really interesting to our audience too, because they might
have little spaces at home that they're using now or

(06:14):
they have their workbench, but then eventually there might be
starting their company and figuring out what's first for your
prototyping lab and obviously depends on the product. But where
did you guys start from? And now you have a
crazy huge space and tools? So what are some of
the top tools you have in your Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
You know, I think this is where I started in
my head as well as like what tools do entrepreneurs need?
And I'll definitely get into that that question. But what
I've seen is like the value of a community is
really about the people and the skill sets and the
knowledge having someone who knows how to use that tool,
or having someone who knows how to identify not just.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
The tools sitting there you can't use it because.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
You don't know how to yeah, and so you know,
the tools are really what bring people to m hub.
I think it's the it's the community that retains those people,
and I think it's our mentorship and education that makes
those businesses successful.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
But to dive in like the tool like I you know, I.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Get so excited when we're looking at new tools to purchase,
or you know, when someone comes to us in a
partnership looking to give us a tool. But I think,
you know, the evolution of tools has also changed. So
there's a lot in rapid prototyping. Like we've focused a
lot in product development and then use manufacturers to scale.

(07:31):
So a lot of the work we do is on
the development side. And so we're you know, three D printers,
laser cutters, C and C equipment. Those are the main
set of tools that entrepreneurs use here every day.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
The wood shop also gets a lot of use. But
you know, I would.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Say a lot of people are developing products, you know,
in the digital means right now. They're using CAD simulation tools,
simulation tools, and I've.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Seen that involve a lot in the last few years.
I would say as far as simulation tools, I think
they've really gotten better and better.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Obviously, I think they've gotten a lot better and much.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
They're much more affordable.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
A lot of them provide monthly you know, like a
monthly subscription model, and I think that has lowered the
barriers quite a bit, you know, because before, you know,
you'd have to pay thousands of dollars for a license
to one of these CAD programs, you know, and now
you can pay a monthly fee.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
You know.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
We offer a lot of CAD software here, and that's
to start in the design phase. So that's a tool
that's useful for the development, and then you can do
analysis on that. And then when you get into the
physical you're three D printing that or you're laser cutting
those files or your machining you know, blocks of liminium
or steel, you know, in our machining centers. We also

(08:48):
have tools, you know, for the wood shop. You don't
necessarily need cat to get in there. We also have
a welding lab, you know, a hot metals lab.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Where I'm super jealous of the hot tig meg, you
know plan when they try to justify it for design lab,
but we can't quite.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think a mid while there
would go a long way. That's like a you know,
a very basic welder, but then you get.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Into the more complex like tig welding.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, and so you know, we have all those tools
and then we have an electronics lab and a testing lab.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
I think that's where we're investing a lot more.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
As companies get further along and they're manufacturing, they need
to inspect those parts, make sure they need the talerance
and specifications that the part is designed.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, when you have something ready to test, which is
a little further away from the napkin sketch and so
incredible range of tools, and like you said, I'm sure
that's a big, you know thing that draws people to
the space. Could you give us just to give the
audience an idea of the kinds of members you have
and projects they're working on. I know there's a ton
of stuff you guys are supporting, so this is hard

(09:53):
probably to do, but if you could pick like three
project products or projects that folks are working on kind
of demonstrate the range of of like even from scale
where it's like maybe a consumer product product all the
way up to some sort of industrial level manufacturing tool
or something like that, but also as far as like

(10:14):
industry or vertical that people are working with it. I
know you guys have a medtech program, You're focused on
environmental kind of sustainability solutions as well, and I'm sure
a million other things.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah tell yeah, So I think our big swim lanes
are definitely medtech. You know about twenty five percent of
the companies here are in that industry definitely climbing and
energy smart, sustainable manufacturing, and those are all the kind
of the themes that are accelerator programs are based off of,
and in those problems, we actually give capital two companies

(10:48):
that you know and put them through a six month
really intensive program. So those themes are mostly made up
of like what our base membership is, what industry trees
they are in, and so we do have a lot
of you know, medtech products here. You know, one I'll
give you an example is Wave Therapeutics. So the problem
that they're solving is all sorts in bed source. So

(11:12):
if you're sitting in a wheelchair or in a hospital
bed for a long time, you get this pressure sore
that builds up because your body is not moving and
you don't have blood circulation and They've developed a cushion
that basically moves those pressure points and increases circulation with
a wave motion that.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Pushes the blood back you know.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
There, they've gone through the development, they're in that commercial
commercialization stage right now. So it's very exciting to see
impact products that really impact you know. So that's really like,
that's really amazing. I've also spent in my career, you know,
working in in energy. So I had the opportunity to

(11:56):
spend some time at loss Almost National Lab and I
was working on plasma fusion.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah. I saw that when I was doing a little
bit of LinkedIn stocking on your background, and I was like,
that's not something everybody can say. I worked, you know
in plasmaa labs. I'd love to hear more about that experience.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
I'll tell you a little bit more of that.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
But I'm also interested in, like the energy companies out
of m Hub and solving some of this because I
think some of the biggest challenges we have is you know,
cost of energy, and you can really increase like efficiency
and economic impact and like even computing when you get
into AI, those are so energy intensive cocesses that if

(12:33):
we could lower the cost of energy and not depend
you know, on on finite resources.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
You can really improve the quality of fuels lives.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
And so there's a couple of companies you know, in
our portfolio and here at Mhub that that are focusing
you know, and carbon capture or clean energy generation, battery storage,
bedrock materials you know, recently moved here and they're working
on a sodium ion battery. So it's a lower cost

(13:05):
battery technology and to help.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
You know, kind of reduce reduce the price of with
the m ion technology.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
And then there's also some more you know, more tangible
technologies that.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Are being developed are more consumer related.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
So Gnance has a product that it's it's basically a
smart watch, but for any watch. So they put this
little thin device underneath and you watch you un away
oh wow, and it attracts your fitness and you know,
it uses acceleration data and can generate you know, stats
on in.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Your own unique style. That's awesome, very cool. If people
aren't into the Apple watch style or something like that,
they can now apply it to any of their favorite
watches or maybe like their grandpa's watch or something that
they want to keep amusing. That's really cool. Thank you
for helping us understand a little bit more in detail
about what kind of members you're serving and projects you're
helping kind of get off the ground and really scale

(13:58):
and get them able to be testing with their customers
and actually getting beyond the early stages of maybe the
models or the concept stage. And so I know that
you've managed a lot of the kind of innovation programs,
and also part of that is the medtech Incubator, if
I'm not mistaken, And could you tell us more about

(14:20):
kind of your investment in this space and a little
bit more about the funding model as far as m
hub does some investment. I think you guys also work
with helping founders find other investors as well, and kind
of how that all balances out and what people might
want to keep in mind if they're interested in applying
to a program like this, what you all are looking for.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
So, and maybe I'll back up a little bit.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I think one of the biggest barriers, as you know,
we've noticed that entrepreneurs are struggling and is access to capital, right,
and we think with them hub we've solved a lot
of the other barriers like access talent, access to equipment, manufacturing,
network education, mentorship. And one of the barriers that we
weighed a little bit on was access to capital, and

(15:03):
we wanted to make sure that we had a robust
ecosystem before you know, we raised a fund. So we
raised a fifteen million dollar fund that supported six cohorts
and you know, we have three themes in those co arts,
med Devices, Climate and Energy, and smart Sustainable Manufacturing. And

(15:24):
there were two cohorts in each team in each of
those themes.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
And each cohort is there a set number of people
or okay, so.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
There's about eight to ten startups in each cohort and
they go through a very rigorous six month program. It's
longer than most accelerator programs. And we pair them up
with a corporate partner who you know, issues challenge statements
for us to recruit those startups. And that's another key
piece because they can pilot with that corporate partner and

(15:52):
you know, they're a customer. They understand the market a
little bit more, they understand what needs are out there,
and that's that's a little bit different and an advantage in.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
This definitely does the corporate partner get to keep any
IP or anything.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Like that, or so the IP is always owned by
the startup.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Wow. Yeah, so that's an amazing opportunity. If they're literally
saying we need this, you know, like we need help
with this thing or something like that, but we want
someone else to come up with their own solution and
be able to scale that and then work with us.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
In the future.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
They're just hoping for the solution and to like understand,
you know, what entrepreneurs are bringing to this market, Understand
how they're solving these problems.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
And I mean it makes sense because I think also
sometimes there's certain things obviously there's some things in a
big company that's not worth them to be working on
or prototyping. It like might be a smaller part of
you know, the bigger product or system they're working on,
and so it's not worth it, and they recognize that
there's this small, lean team that can probably make this
happen much faster and be moving quicker. And so totally understand.

(16:52):
But it's amazing that you guys kind of made this
connection happen and you're making the platform for this opportunity
to take place.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
So we yeah, we take those statements from those corporate
partners and you know, and they made for for the medtech.
It might be like connected therapeutic devices or at home
monitoring or drug delivery solutions or you know, surgical tools
or hand pieces or you know, any any new breakthrough

(17:20):
med device. Right, we take we publish those challenge statements
and then we recruit startups and we get hundreds of applications,
so it's a very competitive program. We give those companies
about two hundred k in capital and in kind services,
so they get you know cash and and and budgets
for product development. And then they spend six months you

(17:41):
know here at m hub, and you know, we go
through customer discovery, you know, product feasibility, market access.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
You know, like with with.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Med devices, it's challenging with the regulatory hurdles they have
to go through and and f d A and you know,
reimbursement strategy and all that.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
And then you know, we.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
We focus on their their business you know, viability as
a module and then telling their story and then they pitch,
you know, in front of about five hundred investors that
come to demo day, and you know the goal is
to really accelerate their product development and increase the odds
of commercialization.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right, and all of that is over six months, you said, right, it.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Is, yeah, but they still have access to m hub
for another eighteen months, so they get two years of access.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, so it's a great program.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
There's about sixty or so mentors that come in that
you know that each start to sign a mentor one
on one, but then there's like a bench of you know,
subject matter experts in regulatory or you know, in reimbursement
or sales or you know, product development or manufacturing, and
we can put them in touch with the right.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Mentor at the right time.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
So it's a really well thought out program, and we'll
be opening up applications very shortly for our next medtech program.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back, Bill will tell us about his work around
plasma fusion at Los Almos and how access to tools
became a driving force at m hub. Welcome back to

(19:29):
the Bomb Engineering and Path Forward. When we left off,
Bill walked us through what a startup might expect to
experience once they're accepted into m hub and how an
innovator listening to this podcast could join the space. Okay, awesome,
we'll definitely have to include more information on that in
the show. Notes so people can learn more. I'm sure
a bunch of people, like you said, it's competitive, so

(19:50):
I'm sure others have already been planning to submit for
a long time. But we can put it out there
just in case anyone's ready with an idea and they
can know for the future as well. That sounds like
an incredible opportunity and extensive kind of support system. You
guys really provide from all angles. And so I'm going
to rewind a little bit and I want to get
more into your background and experience with engineering. And we
did promise that we'd talked circle back to the plasma lab. Yeah,

(20:14):
so tell us a little bit about that and how
you know. I know that you were saying that, and
I can totally relate to this saying you were kind
of missing this access to tools and to the network
and this sort of thing when you left the different
consulting roles.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I loved working as Alamos National Lab and like the
So what I was working on there is they have
a lab called the P twenty four lab, and they
were doing the reverse field configuration plasma fusion and basically
they would create this plasma and reverse fuel configuration is
basically if you've seen like a smoke ring. Basically, they

(20:50):
set up a plasma in like a toroidal shape where
you have like this, it looks like a smoke ring.
And then you and then you pinch the plasma so
fast that it fuses together. And the way they set
this up is create the plasma and they would inject
it into an aluminum cylinder.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
At least, this was like, we're just trying to create.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
The plasma that would would last long enough to that
inject into this cylinder. But then they would send eleve
and trillion amps through the walls of the cylinder and
crush it and then you would get fusion. And and
my role there was like really understanding the plasma and

(21:30):
if it can sustain you know, can you create a
plasma that can last long enough in this configuration to
then you know, inject into.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
And where you were coming into this, you had no
experience with this right now, So no, it's.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Just mechanical jerony. The physics background. I loved physics.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, I can see the way. I don't know, you know,
if people are just listening not watching the video of this,
your base is like totally lighting up when you're explaining
this it's awesome. Yeah, So clearly you were in the
right place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
And so.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
When you're at less almost you have act to all
these amazing tools, like there were there was a room
that was just filled with capacity banks and like like
one capacity was as large as the room that we're
in now, and it would it would deliver so much current.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
So you had to like some of the engineering challenges.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
They would have these plates of aluminum that were you know,
an inch or too thick and that were like this,
why that would direct current into like such a small channel.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
And so we were in this room.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
You had to be in this like Faraday cage, and
all the equipments in this cage because when you release
that much energy, it creates so much electromatic interference that
all your equipment would would basically get strussed.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
And so when they do these experiences, we were like
hunkered down in this bunker like it was really tight,
and then they would send all the current and then
we'd see what happened.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, And my role.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Was like building these little what they call a bout probe,
which is just a coil of wire and you can
measure magnetic fields and we would move that probe within
this vacuum chamber and we would measure like the magnetic
fields and then try to determine what type of plasma
we had in that chamber.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Wow, that sounds like an incredible opportunity, Love, And it
doesn't sound like you ended up doing too much in
physics after that. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong. You
didn't quite get back there. But it's so cool that
you're able to say you did it and and be
involved in such an acting project.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
So to me, I think it's very research oriented project.
And like you know, fusion is always thirty years out,
although I think we're finally now getting closer. But it's
an on running joke that fusion is is always thirty
years away. But I think it is the most promising.
You know, if you look at all the energy sources,

(23:44):
most of it comes from our Sun. Some of it
comes from like the earth kinetic energy of the Earth
collapsing and informing, and like the Earth is warm mostly
because of that kinetic energy.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
When it formed.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
But other than thermal energy for the Earth, like all
the energy is coming from the Sun. So like photosynthesis,
all the oil that has been created on the Earth,
that all came from the energy from the Sun, which
is fusion. And so the most efficient source of energy
in my mind is fusion. And I think it's you know,
all you really need is is just hydrogen, and that's

(24:19):
the most abundant element in the universe. And you get helium,
you know, out of fusing two hydrogen atoms together, and
so it's like very abundant.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
It could be very cheap if we figure out how
how to I.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Only just little part, but we got it. We're close
to know for sure. I've been hearing a lot of
definitely interesting conversations going on in that space. So, like
you said, I think we are getting closer and clo
But you know, I hearing you talk about, you know,
working on these projects, and I imagine or I wonder,
you know, sometimes do you miss kind of some of

(24:53):
those hands on engineering side of things, or do you
get to do enough of that in your role here?
Time to do that outside of all the managing of
the produces that you're.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
You know, I think that's like the most rewarding part
is I see so many companies here and I get
to understand what challenges, what technical challenges they're you know,
they have and they're facing, and that's primarily my focus
is really understanding, you know, how I can advance their
t r L levels, their technology rightness levels, and you know,

(25:24):
figure out what what challenges are having and point them
to the right resources here at m HOB to solve
those challenges. And we also do this for external clients
you know that that aren't in Chicago that want access
to you know, R and D or product development efforts.
We can build a team you know o our members
here and execute a specific scope of work and that

(25:45):
that's that also funds some of the entrepreneurs here if
they can provide engineering services to others, so they can
you know, do part time engineering contracting and then jump
back to their startup.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah that's great to be able to switch between those
and still have it all in one place.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
But I think I can scratch that engineering it just
by mentoring the startups here and building scopes will work
with external clients.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
So there's enough of that that, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Enough to keep your wheels turning. Yeah, good, good, And
so I want to be conscientious of our time here.
We're almost you know, want to wrap up shortly. So
what's something outside of technology that's inspiring you these days?

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, well I have two children that are under the
ages of three, so I know so as Will and
Henry the best time. Yeah, And it's really inspiring to
see them grow and just see them absorb information and
learn and just like when they figure something out, like
there's so much joy in that moment. And so sharing

(26:52):
those like moments and with them and teaching them, I
think it's really inspired.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Now, that's so fun. And do you find yourself making
the custom toys and things or I don't even know
if you have the time, but you have the history
of making.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Toys, right and yeah, yeah, and so we're just hacking.
I brought them to m Hub quite a bit and
they love coming here. I think Will loves the elevator
out of all of it.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
It's always it's always like the cardboard box or the remote.
It's not you're like there's a three D pinter, there's
like a robotic arm, but it's the elevators.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
My job with their toys is mainly fixing them, replacing batteries.
Like everything breaks and I'm like hot help milk gluing
things back together. So I think there will be a
point where, like when they get old enough, they'll appreciate
some of the effort that goes into building custom toys,
and you know, I think that would be a fun

(27:47):
thing to do together with them, is like create their
own toy or their own you know, electric vehicle or
big wheel or you.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Know, definitely that's awesome. And last, but not least, we
asked all of our guests, what's on your personal bill
of materials?

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, so I don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
I would say, like, what what am I made of?
I think it's really a passion, creativity, ingenuity, a bit
of humility and kindness, and you know, curiosity, like really
trying to understand how things work. I think those are
the pieces that really make me tick. You know, I

(28:26):
think I'm fueled by rebel. You know, I was telling you, Yeah, rebel.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Jacob said, coffee. So there's always something like that in there.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, there's a little caffeine that keeps you going. And
so that's that's that's what makes me awesome.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Well, thank you so much for sharing. It was really
awesome to get to know you. Finally, I forgot to
mention at the beginning that how we kind of first
came to meet each other. But back in twenty eighteen
I towards the original space, and I realized we also
forgot to talk about the move here, but we have
to do a part two maybe or when we hopefully
come back and do a shop tour, I'll give you
can talk more about that. But yeah, So it's awesome

(29:02):
to finally get to know you better after all these
years of kind of hearing the epic stories about m
hub and what you all are up to, and really
interesting to learn how you kind of bring all these
different worlds together to make such a supportive, amazing ecosystem
for your members and for your partners and everyone you
work with. So thank you so much for taking the
time to Gate today to speak with us.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
That was Bill fin Up, co founder of m hub,
sharing what he has done to set the space apart
from other incubators in the US and better support the
projects advancing the world. I'm your host, Mandenta Strongheart, and
this has been the Bomb, engineering a path forward. If
you like the Bomb, don't forget to subscribe, rate and

(29:51):
share the show wherever you get your podcasts. You 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 Hogben. Show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to

(30:13):
Giovanni Selinas, Bruce Dimingez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark,
the entire supply Frame team, and you are wonderful listeners.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. See you next week.
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