“If you want to launch big ships, you have to go where the water is deep.”
– Conrad Hilton, the hotel guy
1. Robot Wings for Human Consumption
The saying goes, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well, you CAN teach a new bot new tricks! You know Miso Robotics’ Flippy, the industrial food grade cobot cell for flipping burgers? Well, Flippy just got back from culinary school, and now can fry up some chicken wings! You ever been sick from underdone chicken? Not fun! Worse yet, have you ever gone to your favorite wing spot only to be let down by burnt chicken? Well just like Minnie, Flippy don’t burn chicken! Cobot automation now means perfectly cooked and safe chicky nuggies and tendies!
2. Rent a Tesla from Hertz!
Dude, I rented the minivan featured in “Road Trippin’ With Steve” season one! I know I may have ragged on that sorry piece of American automotive engineering, but I’ll still take a nice van over any dumb SUV. Don’t @ me. What? You mean to tell me you actually overland in your Nissan Armada, Karen? You know the Armada sunk right? You don’t need the added ground clearance. You’ve never seen anything other than paved roads. Don’t lie to me. Save the gas guzzling for the sports cars. ANYWAY, looks like season three might be shot from a Tesla! We’ll make all the camera gear and luggage fit. I also say season three because we low-key just wrapped up filming season two so keep your eyes peeled for that!
3. Will 3D Printed Houses Stand the Test of Time?
I’ll be honest – I hope so! Listen, I don’t own a home. They’re expensive. You must sign over the birthright of your firstborn and go into indentured servitude for at least 25 years IF you don’t refinance (editor: Stephen knows nothing of homeownership)! All this means is that when the time comes to eventually buy my first home, IF I’m ever able to, it better be sturdy! Why do I say this? Have you seen a new home go up in your area? Like, from an empty lot, to foundation, to frame, and then something that resembles a house. You’ve seen one? They’re not even made of plywood anymore, forget brick and stone! They’re made from particle board, MDF, sawdust, and glue. You want to spend a fortune to live in a cardboard box? Because I don’t! At least printed houses are made of concrete with the precision craftsmanship of numeric controls. Where should I draw my blood?
4. NVIDIA Can Do So Much More Than Just Trace Rays and Mine Crypto!
A new collaboration between Open Robotics and NVIDIA will improve the way ROS and NVIDIA’s line of products such as Isaac SIM and the Jetson line of embedded boards operate together. “NVIDIA’s Isaac SIM lets developers build robust and scalable simulations. Dramatically reducing the costs of capturing real-world data and speeding up development time. Their Jetson line of embedded boards is core to many robotics architectures, leveraging hardware-optimized chips for machine learning, computer vision, video processing, and more.”
5. NFL Caps Helmet Innovation Challenge
Back in November of 2019, the National Football League kicked off (their joke, not mine, I promise) their challenge to help their players enjoy mentally stable retirements. Well, back in July of this year, the helmet prototypes were due, and we have some winners! One of which even utilizes, you guessed it (you know, since we’ve been talking about this on and off for the past two years), additive manufacturing! All three of the winners performed up to 13% safer than the current safest helmet in use by players today. So, what big prize did the winners get? Roughly half a million apiece. Or in NFL terms: chump change. Table scraps. You’re welcome.
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