Rodney Brooks: Rethink Robotics

$9 billion and a million miles away: we get a special behind-the-scenes tour of NASA’s most ambitious and risky project ever. The James Webb Space Telescope will let us to look billions of years back in time and look at exoplanets in other galaxies. It’s pushing the boundaries of what is technologically possible.

When you think of manufacturing, you probably imagine mass production, but this project is one-of-a-kind. And because it’s headed a million miles away into orbit past the moon, if something breaks, it can’t be fixed. As the vice president and program manager of the whole project, Scott Willoughby has one shot at getting it right.

I was curious: how can you take risks and innovate when you’re working on something so high stakes and under such big scrutiny? So I went to Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, the prime contractor, to find out. We start with a special behind-the-scenes tour of the telescope from systems engineer Krystal Puga. And then, Scott joins us as we talk about the risks and rewards and what’s next for the program. We also learn about Scott and Krystal’s backgrounds, which will probably surprise you!

Links and social handles:

The James Webb Space Telescope home page: https://jwst.nasa.gov/

“Seeing Beyond” video (14:02): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=073GwPbyFxE

NASA’s FAQ: https://jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#howbig

Northrop Grumman’s site for the JWST: http://www.northropgrumman.com/MediaResources/MediaKits/JWST/Home.aspx

The JWST on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

Facebook

Instagram: @NASAWebb

Twitter: @NASAWebb

 

Northrop Grumman:

Facebook

Twitter: @northropgrumman

Instagram: @northropgrumman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/northrop-grumman-corporation/

 

#NorthropGrumman #Webb #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #nasa

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/jwst. 

An underwater roboticist is determined to map the 70% of our globe covered in water. Everyone’s talking about space these days, but the most promising uncharted frontier might be under the sea. And exploring our oceans is much harder than you think. 

Preeti Battacharyya is a 30-year-old entrepreneur who fought tradition back in India and moved to the US. She received a PhD from MIT before launching her company, HydroSwarm. They’re building a network of autonomous underwater vehicles that can map the oceans and communicate with each other.

I was curious what is holding back ocean exploration. What are the challenges of building robots that can work under the sea? It turns out its way harder than rocket science! We learn the difference between ROVs and AUVs, and why they matter. We also learn about Preeti’s path from small town girl in Kolkata to an underwater roboticist with experience with particle accelerators and nuclear reactors starting an ambitious venture.

 

Links and social handles:

Website: http://hydroswarm.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/hydroswarm

Video of a hydrone: https://youtu.be/EYkz5mRsuqg

More on cyberclones: https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/09/virtual-reality-and-a-parallel-universe-of-cyberclones/

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/hydroswarm. 

Comedy isn’t always easy: this entrepreneur has learned some tough lessons manufacturing irreverent gifts that don’t meet everyone’s tastes.

This week we’re speaking with Jen Bilik, the founder and CEO of Knock Knock. With a name like that, you might guess there is some humor involved—and you’d be right. Knock Knock is known for their funny and often blue gifts and books.

But she has to deal with risk-averse retailers and easily offended consumers. Not to mention the pot-smoking hippie manufacturing broker that bilked them out of millions of dollars in their early years. And crying employees. Jen started out as a “reluctant businesswoman” and she’s very candid about her mistakes. She shares some useful lessons about growing a company and bringing a little humor into your business.

 

Links and social handles:

Website for all three companies (Who’s There Group): http://thewhostheregroup.com/

This is [NOT] L.A. book: http://ThisIsNotLA.com/

Knock Knock on Instagram and Twitter: @knockknock

Also, follow Jen on Instagram @jenbilik (mostly pictures of her dog, Paco), on Twitter @JenBilik (to which she never posts), and on Facebook.

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/knockknock  

Packaging should be your secret weapon, and this serial entrepreneur will show you how. Some of you might remember our episode a year ago, with Jesse Genet from Lumi. They recently raised $9M, so we’re checking in with Jesse to get an update. We talk about how they’ve evolved their strategy and what she learned raising venture capital. We also get tips for finding suppliers, and the advantages of offering a platform that gives customers unprecedented control to tinker with their packaging.

We’re starting with the original interview. If you want to skip ahead to our more recent conversation, it starts at 1:07:30.

At age 15, Jesse started her first business printing t-shirts in Detroit. Over the next year she followed her curiosity, tracked down an obscure invention, and next thing she knew her new company Inkodye ended up on Shark Tank and participated in the prestigious incubator Y-Combinator. Through becoming a manufacturing entrepreneur, she learned how easy it was on the digital side to start a business, but on the physical side it was the complete opposite.

That’s when their big idea hit: why don’t they create a whole platform for startups to handle packaging and fulfillment? And Lumi was born. Jesse tells horror stories and practical advice about packaging and logistics. She gives insights into new ecommerce trends like direct-to-consumer retail and Vertical Commerce Brands that make your packaging more important than ever before. And she also shares her real-life experiences and perspectives on being an entrepreneur. (Her stories about stalking the original owner of the Inkodye technology, turning down Mark Cuban, and what happened as she was about to walk onto the set of Shark Tank are pretty hilarious.) She’s energetic, nerdy, and unapologetically quirky, and she has some great advice you won’t want to miss.

 

Links and social handles: (note if the embedded hyperlinks don’t work, scroll down for explicit ones)

Lumi Home Page
Lumi Twitter
Lumi Instagram
Lumi Facebook
Jesse’s Twitter
Jesse’s Instagram

Lumi on Fast Company
Jesse Genet’s MAKE IT talk on YouTube
“Digitally-Native Vertical Commerce Brands,” by Andy Dunn
Marshall Goldsmith: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There on Audible
Marshall Goldsmith: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There on Amazon 

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/lumi. 

Meet the 3D printing company that might totally change how we manufacture, design, and even develop products.

When you hear the words 3D printing, what do you imagine? Do you think about those cheesy, plastic parts? Desktop Metal has raised $270M to change all that. Unlike other metal 3D printers, which are ridiculously expensive, incredibly dangerous, and slow, their first product is a machine that will print metal parts on the desktop. And they’re about to launch a new production-level machine that will pump out parts as fast as using traditional manufacturing processes like casting and machining.

The CEO Ric Fulop is an old buddy of mine from my days at MIT, so when I was visiting Boston a few weeks ago, I went to go visit and get a tour. And I sat down with Ric and two of his executives, Chief Technology Officer Jonah Meyerberg and Senior Software Engineer Andy Roberts, to learn more.

We nerd out on their technology and what it means for the future of manufacturing. But what I was especially curious about is how metal 3D printing will change the game around what we make, and the way we design and innovate in the future. If you’ve been skeptical about additive manufacturing until now, this episode will change your mind.

Links and social handles:

Website: http://desktopmetal.com

On Twitter: @DesktopMetal, @ricfulop

Video of Live Parts growth example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38yW6D4MtFg

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/desktopmetal. 

Amazon is eating the world! A wellness entrepreneur shares her secrets to launching a consumer product in today’s complex retail environment.

This week we’re going to the vault to play one of our favorite past episodes. We’re speaking with Courtney Nichols Gould, the co-founder and CEO of SmartyPants Vitamins. She had a really successful career in tech before launching a consumer packaged goods company. Before this venture, she was the Chief Operating Officer of a very complex business called Clear, the first fast pass for airport security.

I was curious what her path has been like, from tech entrepreneur to a maker of things, and what we can learn from the process. What surprised me most was the importance of getting the product launch process right, and how hard it is to succeed in today’s complex retail environment. But they’re kicking butt, and she has tons of war stories and tips for the rest of us. Everything from protecting IP to picking your manufacturing partners, cultivating your first customers to thriving on Amazon, negotiating with brick and mortar to being pioneers in the early wellness industry. She’s mission-driven but doesn’t flaunt it. At one point, she goes deep about her awkward early years, before she finally discovered her identity as a successful CEO, and we broach the touchy subject of starting a business and then falling in love with your co-founder. We hear about that and a whole lot more on this week’s episode of the Art of Manufacturing.

A year ago, when I spoke with Courtney, I was really curious how they could be so successful launching their products in a time when Amazon seemed to be eating the world. And the episode is as relevant as ever. Since the episode first dropped, Amazon acquired Whole Foods, nine massive retailers disappeared in the “great retail meltdown of 2017,” and they now have a foothold in every corner of your home, too, with Echo Dot and Ring. There’s no doubt Amazon is a bigger force than ever to be reckoned with.

Earlier this year, I wrote a Forbes column that the biggest tech trend of the year wasn’t going to be a technology per se, but it was Amazon as a company. They’ll have a vast impact on so many other aspects of how we live, and how we work and collaborate, and even how our cities might be designed in the future. This goes beyond their more obvious impacts on the retail industry. Just the new expectation of on-demand has transformed business models across the board. With their 100,000+ industrial robots, they are pioneering new leadership approaches in an environment where humans must collaborate with robots. The purpose of shopping malls is getting totally reimagined, and in an age of on-demand delivery, warehouses are playing a more integral role in our cities. Yet I wondered when on-demand delivery would turn to custom, on-demand, local manufacturing.

But I digress. Whether your entrepreneurial dreams start with launching on Amazon or end on brick and mortar retail shelves, listen to this episode first.

 

Links and social handles:

Website: http://smartypantsvitamins.com

Forbes article on Amazon: https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisztinaholly/2018/01/26/tech-trends-2018-amazon

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smartypants/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/smartyhealth

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/smartypants.  

Digitizing the factory isn’t always easy. A former counter-intelligence officer and former reality TV star talk about how they hope to bring modern data tools, IoT, and Lean Manufacturing to every factory floor. 

Manufacturing technologies have been changing fast. And it’s amazing what you can make custom and on-demand, and how you can iterate in the physical world. But transforming a factory to digital manufacturing is not so easy. And that’s where this week’s guests come in. 

Rony Kubat and Erik Mirandette are from Tulip Interfaces, a company spun out of the MIT Media Lab. Through their work with lab sponsors, they realized how hard it was to digitize a factory. And so they set out to change that. A company can get started with no programming experience and as little as $3,500.

I was a little skeptical at whether some techies can just waltz in and transform a factory. So I was eager to see how it works and hear about what they learned along the way. We hear their lessons learned about implementing lean manufacturing and removing paper and pen from the factory floor. They also tell stories about riding motorcycles across Africa, surviving civil wars, counter-intelligence missions, and being on reality TV.

 

Links and social handles:

Website: http://tulip.co

Social Media: @tulipinterfaces
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tulip-interfaces/

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/tulip. 

A bioengineering startup tries to commercialize a new tool that might totally change the way we identify and treat disease.

We have tools to look inside the body without killing the patient, so why should we have to kill cells to understand disease? It’s hard to believe that only a hundred years ago, scientists mostly studied disease by dissecting cadavers. Doctors didn’t have tools like blood tests, imaging, molecular biology, and other diagnostics to see what was going on inside a body while a person was living. So our knowledge of anatomy and our ability to identify illness was limited to the dead body. That seems incredibly primitive today, but that’s what we’ve been doing at the cellular level until now.

David Charlot and his startup Charlot Biosciences is changing that. I was curious to learn more about their technology and what that means for the future of diagnosing and treating disease. Also, since I’m definitely not an expert in the life sciences, I wanted to learn about the existing techniques we hear a lot about, like flow cytometry, PCR, gene sequencing, immunotherapy, and the latest hot thing, CRISPR. It’s exciting to see him in action at the cusp of growing the business. We talk about commercializing university research, and he shares his lessons learned, which are transferrable to a broad range of businesses.

Links and social handles:

Website: http://cbio.io

Facebook: @cbiosciences

Twitter: @c_biosciences

LinkedIn: @cbiosciences

 

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/davidcharlot. 

A startup builds custom, on-demand 3D printed shoes and gives a glimpse of what innovation might look like in the future.

Recently, I took a little road trip to meet some manufacturers. And this week we’re visiting Wiivv, a startup shoe factory just north of San Diego that’s bringing modern digital manufacturing to the consumer. Imagine taking pictures of your feet with your smartphone, and getting custom-molded sandals delivered to your door within 10 days.

While I visited Wiivv’s factory in San Diego, I sat down with their co-founder and CEO Shamil Hargovan and their senior engineer Chris Bellamy. I wanted to hear what it’s like to start a company delivering custom, on-demand products. I was curious about their production process, which combines digital manufacturing (like 3D printing) with more traditional approaches. We start off the conversation with a story from Chris about how he ended up running the marathon in a pair of their flip-flops! And we get some really interesting insights into how the trend towards digital manufacturing might change the way we live, work, and play.

Links:

https://wiivv.com/
www.facebook.com/wiivvit/
Instagram: @wiivvit
Twitter: @wiivvit
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wiivv/

Twitter: @shamilhargovan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamilhargovan/

Twitter: @CWBellamy
Instagram: @c.w.bellamy
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherbellamy/

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/wiivv. 

Roller derby inspires a body-positive athletic fashion brand that’s just hitting a tipping point. Though finding a factory that will take her business has gotten easier, the real challenges have just begun!

Micki Krimmel is the founder of an emerging apparel brand called Superfit Hero. She has some serious startup chops, but if you had told her she’d have anything to do with athletics, fashion, or business a decade ago she would have laughed. She grew up a drama nerd who never did sports until she discovered roller derby. And then her whole life changed. I’ve gotten to know Micki’s new company, Superfit Hero, since she joined MAKE IT IN LA’s Catalyst program, which is building a diverse community of creatives that manufacture in LA.

It’s so hard to differentiate an apparel brand these days, but she’s doing it by being at the forefront of the new body positive movement. It’s exciting to watch Superfit Hero hit an inflection point. Her business is just taking off. But… ironically, her challenges are just beginning.

 

Links:

Superfit Hero website: http://superfithero.com

Social: @superfithero @mickipedia

For more information, bios, and links, check out the show notes at http://makeitinla.org/mickikrimmel. 

 

About Micki Krimmel

Micki Krimmel is a serial entreprenuer, athlete, and loud-mouthed feminist. Micki was inspired by her experience as a competitive roller derby player to create Superfit Hero, a body positive, size inclusive fitness brand with a mission to empower women. 

Micki has 15 years experience with technology and entertainment startups. Superfit Hero marks her first foray into manufacturing. With no fashion background, Micki was able to deliver a stellar fashion product by following the principles of customer discovery championed by the tech industry. With a tested and approved product sample, Micki funded her initial production with the help of her roller derby community via Kickstarter. Two and a half years later, Superfit Hero has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Buzzfeed, Refinery29, SHAPE, and many other publications. Micki's goal is to establish Superfit Hero as the go-to brand for the body positive fitness movement. 

In her spare time, Micki enjoys lifting weights and riding motorcycles. Her newest hobby is wrenching on her 2004 KTM dirtbike.