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AMT Tech Trends: Hardware is Hard

Episode 114: Steve talks about jarred tomato sauce and hardware store struggles. Elissa reports on Boeing’s purchase of Spirit AeroSystems (not to be confused with the airlines). Stephen found out what the next milsurp machine tool is.
Mar 16, 2024

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Produced by Ramia Lloyd

Ramia Lloyd:

Welcome to the TechTrends podcast, where we discuss the latest manufacturing technology research and news. Today's episode is sponsored by Modern Machine Shop Made in the USA Podcast. I'm Ramia Lloyd and I'm here with-

Elissa Davis:

I'm Elissa Davis.

Stephen LaMarca:

Stephen LaMarca.

Ben Moses:

Senor Moses. What's up, everyone?

Ramia Lloyd:

Hi, friends.

Ben Moses:

Steve, tell me about tomato sauce and being fresh off the boat.

Stephen LaMarca:

I'm not fresh off the boat. My dad's not fresh off the boat. He was fully Italian, but his parents were fresh off the boat from Naples. But growing up, it was sacrilegious to have jarred tomato sauce, to use it or even possess it. It's a possession charge in Italian families. It was a big no-no. But some time in my teens, when I was in high school, my dad actually came home one day with a jar of tomato sauce. Rao's. It's pretty popular today. But this Rao's had his blessing, and it was like, "If you're ever in a pinch, and mom and dad aren't home, and you need to make something and you want to make spaghetti, this is the sauce to use."

Ben Moses:

[inaudible 00:01:16] sauce.

Stephen LaMarca:

This is the decent sauce. This is okay.

Ben Moses:

Cool.

Stephen LaMarca:

Definitely don't lean on it. We still make homemade sauce when we're not lazy, which is not very often. But this stuff is okay. And as I've shared this knowledge with other people, "Hey, this stuff has the Italian seal of approval," it's gotten really popular, and now you can find Rao's anywhere and people still buy it. And it's absurdly expensive. The small jar's $9, the big jar's $12 or $13.

Ben Moses:

That's a lot.

Stephen LaMarca:

It's an insanely expensive pasta sauce, but it's worth it. It has its value. And it's just it's there. There's no effort required to make a decent sauce. I'm depressed, and upset, and saddened by the fact that in August of last year... This is not the newest news. But in August, Rao's was bought Campbell Soup for $2.7 billion.

Ben Moses:

Chump change.

Stephen LaMarca:

That's a lot for sauce, but it's an expensive sauce.

Elissa Davis:

[inaudible 00:02:35] a lot of jars of it.

Ramia Lloyd:

Or they bought seven. It wasn't even a lot.

Stephen LaMarca:

But this is upsetting because, I mean, sure, it might not mean anything short-term, near-term. Right now, if you pick up a bottle of Rao's, it's probably still good stuff. But because the world is run on businesses and businesses don't care about quality sauce, they care about making money, I'm sure in three years or so, the quality's going to drop off. So if you really like Rao's like I do, buy your sauce now.

Ben Moses:

You got to stock up.

Stephen LaMarca:

I don't know if I'm going to stock up, but actually I'm not going to stock up.

Ramia Lloyd:

Doomsday prepper for pasta sauce.

Stephen LaMarca:

Even though I do have the final jar, it's labeled as the final jar [inaudible 00:03:26]. But I've started hunting for other backup brands.

Ben Moses:

Yeah, I was going to say that.

Stephen LaMarca:

And frankly, to expand on the don't use jarred pasta sauce, I really see jarred pasta sauce as a condiment to be served with other things that are not authentically Italian. I love mozzarella sticks, if you couldn't tell. I work really hard on this physique by eating a lot of mozzarella sticks. And I like spicy marinara, spicy marinade or arrabbiata sauce, and I have since found another brand that gets a green light on the ingredients list. It's called Mezzetta and Safeway has it currently on sale for $4 a jar. Normal price is $7. So it's still not cheap, but it's not as Rao's, but-

Ben Moses:

Steve, do you want to know my preference for tomato sauces?

Stephen LaMarca:

Say Ragu [inaudible 00:04:22].

Ben Moses:

I'm not brand-specific. I go buy what's the cheapest or two for whatever. Mezzetta is actually on there. They have some pretty good deals on-

Stephen LaMarca:

Mezzetta's really good. And I think they're good, especially their spicy marinara, because Mezzetta is known for... The family and their company is known for their Italian peppers.

Ben Moses:

Also, I end up seasoning all the tomato sauce myself [inaudible 00:04:47] I add capers, and garlic, salt-

Ramia Lloyd:

Yeah. Stephen, you have to share with us your homemade pasta sauce recipe.

Stephen LaMarca:

So you go into the canned vegetable section of the grocery store. Don't get fresh... You can do fresh, but use cherry tomatoes if you use fresh. Don't use beefsteak tomatoes. Those things have no flavor. And don't use a Roma because that's also... They're very good for salads-

Elissa Davis:

That sounds counterintuitive-

Ramia Lloyd:

I was just about to say that.

Elissa Davis:

... would not be used in an Italian sauce.

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah. That's used for bruschetta. But use cherry tomatoes because it's the closest to quality in terms of flavor. It's closest to a fresh San Marzano. But go to the canned tomatoes and buy the brands either Cento or Mutti, which is slowly making its way into the United States. M-U-T-T-I. Both of those are quality 100% Italian tomatoes. And if you can, definitely get the San Marzano-style, and then just use a ton of extra virgin olive oil, spice it as you like. I know Americans love garlic. You shouldn't put garlic in marinara. But if that's... I'm not going to tell anybody... I'm not going to yuck anybody's yum. So-

Elissa Davis:

Do you want to hear something that's going to make your Italian brain explode?

Stephen LaMarca:

I don't think it will. I don't think it will tell me.

Elissa Davis:

Probably your dad's.

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah, it would hurt him.

Elissa Davis:

So my grandfather is second, third-generation American or he was, then he was child of the the Great Depression, right? And so to make tomato soup, [inaudible 00:06:26]. My mom grew up in a house where no one cooked. They went out to eat every day. And his way of making tomato soup was ketchup and water.

Stephen LaMarca:

Wow. Okay. You said something I didn't think you were going to go this way. That's-

Ramia Lloyd:

That just hurts. Yeah, that just hurts my soul, actually.

Stephen LaMarca:

That sounds like Band of Brothers. Remember when he said, "This is Army noodles and ketchup"?

Elissa Davis:

Let me clarify that he went on to become very wealthy, and he's the grandfather who worked for Boeing. So he was not hurting in his later years.

Stephen LaMarca:

Oh, so what's happening today with Boeing is karma.

Elissa Davis:

I mean, in college, he would heat up ketchup and water, and he would eat that as soup. So-

Ben Moses:

Can we touch on something else that's hurting?

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah.

Ben Moses:

[inaudible 00:07:09].

Stephen LaMarca:

Oh, yeah. So the more tales of AMT as of late, I broke the ping-pong table because I sat on it.

Ben Moses:

He went straight through it.

Stephen LaMarca:

I was talking with Cameron-

Ramia Lloyd:

I'm so sad I missed this.

Stephen LaMarca:

... industry analyst. And he was showing me a 3D-printed part for a ping-pong ball holder over in the lunchroom. And it was very impressive. And we started talking about things with the test bed, next steps, how we could potentially invest in 3D printing for the AMT test bed, and he's very... Actually, they're very adamant that we should do Bambu Labs, and I would like to see Bambu Labs as a member first, but I cannot deny the quality of their machines, the ease of use of their machines, and more importantly, the quality of the parts that you get out of it.

And Cameron likes to describe Bambu's printers as Apple quality, Apple-grade quality. So that's high marks, because as much as I dislike Apple, I will not deny that the craftsmanship, or... Excuse me, 2024, the craftpersonship of their products are exquisite. They're very well-made. And so I'd consider Bambu. But while we were having this discussion, we're standing up next to the ping-pong table, looking at this part that he made, and I start leaning on it and we're having more discussion about metrology and maybe fixing a 3D scanner to the robot arm to use it as a metrology device. And then I sit down on the ping-pong table and it starts sitting down with me, and I went right through it.

So I'm okay. I broke my ego, that's for sure. But over the weekend, I went to the hardware store... Well, over the weekend on Sunday, I actually came here first, grabbed the Mitutoyo calipers off of the test bed, took some measurements, started drawing some diagrams on the whiteboard next to the ping-pong table. And it took about five minutes to think of the fix. And I went to the hardware store, got four nuts, 12 washers, and then came back and assembled the fix. And one of the legs wasn't broken, actually. One of the feet of the four legs of the table was not broken. But it looks really well, if you haven't seen the drawings and the fix that I've posted, the general chat bothering everybody on a Sunday afternoon, you should definitely go check it out.

Elissa Davis:

I feel like for context, people should understand that ping-pong is a big thing here at AMT, for anyone who doesn't know.

Stephen LaMarca:

And Doug was not here at the time that I sat on it and broke it, so I definitely took it upon myself to make sure that it was repaired, if not better than I left it before he returned.

Elissa Davis:

Did you tell him that it happened?

Stephen LaMarca:

Ed did. Because, of course, Ed did-

Ben Moses:

Also, I saw the pictures on Slack.

Ramia Lloyd:

Yeah, I was going to say, that was my favorite thing, is on Sunday, just following along with Steve's journey through Slack.

Stephen LaMarca:

The good news is he was very impressed by the fix. And I might be making this up in my own head, but I feel like he said, "Stephen, you should break stuff more often."

Ben Moses:

Ramia, can you tell us about today's sponsor?

Ramia Lloyd:

Yes. Tune in for Modern Machine Shop's Made in the USA Podcast to explore manufacturing issues faced by companies making an intentional choice to manufacture in the US. Featuring commentary from OEM leaders, Made in the USA blends its nearly century-long expertise with a unique audio storytelling experience to shine a spotlight on the past, present, and future of American manufacturing. Fine Made in the USA on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Follow Modern Machine Shop on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Ben Moses:

Awesome. Thanks, Ramia.

Ramia Lloyd:

Anytime.

Ben Moses:

Steve, before we pivot to some articles, I know we got some test bed updates. You and Chloe have been working hard.

Stephen LaMarca:

We've been working very hard and it's been mostly spinning wheels. Actually, Chloe's found some traction. I'll start with the positive. So we broke the last Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi 4B, which was I thought the latest Raspberry Pi at the time. And when we found out that it was unserviceable, I quickly went out to Micro Center, fortunately, we have one in the area, and got the new Raspberry Pi 5, which they had in stock, and is even more powerful than the 4. The 4 was very powerful. It was a great Raspberry Pi, used it for old-school gaming and emulation of PlayStation games. It was a great piece. But because it was just powerful enough to do some really fun things like light gaming and old-school gaming, it was also a little too powerful for its embedded heat and thermal management.

So this is the Raspberry Pi 5, and I'll pass this around, but what's really cool about this one, this one from the Raspberry Pi company, they sell it separately, because, of course they do. They're trying to keep them affordable, under $100, because at the end of the day, that's a desktop computer for less than $100. But they sell separately that nice heat sink, and fan, and cooling system on there, which I have also installed. And back to the test bed-related stuff, Chloe has since got Ubuntu, a Linux variation, running on that desktop, that computer, and it's now the holder for the MTConnect adapters that will be ran for the Pocket NC that we have on the test bed and our robot arm, because we want to stream MTConnect-formatted data from both of those devices. And there will be a adapter installed on the devices, but the agent needs to manage that data and make sure the semantics, that the language coming from the adapted data streaming from those devices is used in the right context so it translates properly, appropriately. And that needs to be done on a standalone computer.

It doesn't actually have to be, but it's best if there's something with some computational muscle to do it. The Raspberry Pi 5 is going to be great for it. In the past, we've had a standalone Raspberry Pi for each device to act as the agent for each device. We are going to experiment with the power of the 5 to see if this can do multiple devices instead of just one. So that's cooked up for us and it's ready to go, and we're looking forward to move forward. What I'm not looking forward to moving forward on is... So we've got a gripper that needs to be installed on the robot arm. Sounds simple enough. When we bought the gripper with the robot, they threw in the prescribed mounting hardware. The model number on the gripper matches the model number on the mounting hardware and the bracket that shipped with everything, but the hardware, which, in the gripper's documentation, which is supposed to be an M3 screw of 45 millimeters in length, is actually an M4, and it does not go through.

And finding an M3, a pretty small metric screw, that is 45 millimeters long, has proven to be impossible at brick-and-mortar stores. So I've been to four hardware stores now and even made one improper order from Grainger. I ordered the wrong screws from them. But fortunately, Grainger's cool in that you don't have to pay until you pick them up. And when I was picking them up, I did a test fit and they're wrong. So [inaudible 00:15:43] hardware, both... The customer service agents that I'm supposed to be working with are not answering my phone calls. They are not answering my voicemail. Actually, I can't leave a voicemail because their mailboxes are full. I wonder why, I'm probably not the only customer with problems, and you're just not going to get anywhere with emails. So hardware is hard.

Ben Moses:

Yeah. Well, you're also trying to buy small quantity hardware. It's not like we need a pack of 500. Right? We just need four bolts.

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah. And the nuclear option is going through McMaster-Carr. Fortunately, the last hardware store I went to, the fourth one, ACE Hardware, it was very helpful, the associate there, [inaudible 00:16:34] which I did not realize was the direct competitor to McMaster-Carr. They've got a few warehouses in the area where one in Chantilly allows for [inaudible 00:16:50]. So that'll be the fifth and final place that I go before I just go on to McMaster-Carr and like, "Give us a pack of 50."

Ben Moses:

You can also... What I've seen on eBay are original packs of 50 or 43. They're reselling those [inaudible 00:17:07] eBay if you can get a small quantity also.

Stephen LaMarca:

That's amazing. Is eBay the new hardware store?

Ben Moses:

eBay's my jam. Elissa?

Elissa Davis:

Mm-hmm?

Ben Moses:

Spirit, Boeing?

Elissa Davis:

Yeah.

Ben Moses:

How things are going?

Elissa Davis:

So speaking of Boeing as I was earlier, so they're considering buying their supplier, AeroSystems, not to be confused with Spirit Airlines. I understand the confusion. The first time I read the headline of Boeing's considering buying Spirit, I was like, "The airline? That's interesting." No, it's Spirit-

Stephen LaMarca:

[inaudible 00:17:38].

Elissa Davis:

So actually, I have an article here from Reuters, and it actually says that Spirit was a Boeing subsidiary until it spun off in 2005. I did not know that. So basically, they'd be buying it back.

Ben Moses:

One interesting trend with aerospace, about, I would say 12 years, there's a big cycle of outsourcing everything and insourcing everything. And I think Spirit is the representation of, "Hey, let's get everything out underneath us," to manage their cash flow or look good for the revenue. But that is a very indicative cycle of aerospaces. Either they ramp up their own factories or they acquire companies or subsidiaries, and then 10 years from now, they're probably going to liquidate them back into a separate entity.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah. And the Reuter article says that it could also be forcing the hand of Airbus to buy a location in Northern Ireland where Airbus's wings are made, and that buying Spirit AeroSystems, not Airlines, could also help solve some of Boeing's supply chain issues.

Ben Moses:

Yep. It makes sense. To be fair, Spirit AeroSystem is massive, right? So it's not like-

Stephen LaMarca:

It's like Eaton? Is that as big as Eaton?

Ben Moses:

Well, I mean, we have to look at that. But Spirit AeroSystem does subassembly for everything beneath Boeing. They do subassembly [inaudible 00:18:59] we're working with them to... Rolls Royce would send them their core, and then do all the accessories on top of an engine for Rolls Royce that would go into a Gulfstream aircraft.

Stephen LaMarca:

Okay.

Ben Moses:

So they do some very, very complex and very high-level assembly.

Stephen LaMarca:

That's cool.

Ben Moses:

So that acquisition's massive. And it makes sense that they were spun off from Boeing because they're probably doing all Boeing subassemblies, spun it off separate entity. Now, of course, aerospace has to bring them back in somehow.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Moses:

That's fascinating. And I guess it's good to look into what is driver for that. So if it's the turmoil that we're seeing on the assembly side or if it's something related to, to your point, pressuring the other companies, so to force their hand also.

Elissa Davis:

I think it's definitely a little bit of everything. I think Boeing's also just trying to consolidate as much of their assembly as they can to keep it internal. Right? Because if they're under internal contracts, they can't be talking to press and they can't be talking about that stuff. So that could also be part of it.

Stephen LaMarca:

They're doing a little bit of cleanup.

Elissa Davis:

I mean, I know that the-

Stephen LaMarca:

Under the guise, the cloak and dagger of, "We're trying to improve the supply chain."

Elissa Davis:

I think I read that the guy who was in charge of 737 MAXs has said he's been let go. So I think they are cleaning house a little bit right now. And part of that could be buying Spirit just to help consolidate and make things easier, plus make things quieter.

Ben Moses:

I understand. Steve, I heard you've got some info on mil surplus.

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah. So this is not a new article, but I was talking with Dr. Tom Kurfess during the last Tom & Lonnie Chat planning meeting for the next episode, and we were spitballing some ideas and... I got to stop using those words. It's such a dumb corporate word, spitballing. It's not the third grade anymore. But, no. We were brainstorming... Thank you, Ben.

We were brainstorming ideas and I was like, "Well, let's talk about the LeBlond lathe, for example. In the early 20th century, all US naval vessels had to have a machine shop on board. Should something fail when they were far from a friendly port, they've got to be able to make the fix there. So fast-forward to today, there's all these LeBlond lathes that used to be on naval vessels, and now they're not on the vessels anymore, but they're still perfectly good lathes, perfectly good... [inaudible 00:21:45] still semi-functional lathes that anybody could learn on or potentially hurt yourself. And there's so many in surplus... Hence, mil surplus, used by the military, and now they've got too many of them and they can't give them away. There's so many that if you want a lathe, anybody that has one of these lathes probably has a handful of them and they will probably give them to you as long as you're willing to pay shipping."

So I brought this up to Tom and the team, and I was like, "Maybe we should have an episode about in the next 100 years, what do we think the next mil-surp machine tool will be after World War III pops off? Everybody's talking about that all the time. Well, let's think about peace time afterwards. What do you think the next surplus machine tool is going to be? Maybe we can have a 30-minute episode on that." And Tom was like, "No, because I have the answer right now. It'll be the Haas TM-1 with a Meltio DED head on it." And-

Ben Moses:

That's very specific. That's very specific.

Stephen LaMarca:

And then he sent me this article. So it was like, "In 100 years, this will be the next military surplus machine tool. They won't be able to give this away."

Ben Moses:

[inaudible 00:23:08] from single... From a lathe-

Stephen LaMarca:

From a manual lathe to a hybrid CNC machine.

Ben Moses:

That's fascinating.

Stephen LaMarca:

That's cool.

Ben Moses:

That is very cool.

Elissa Davis:

I'm just contemplating how much shipping would be on a machine like that. It'd be a lot, right?

Ben Moses:

Freight's not so bad. I mean, getting free machine-

Stephen LaMarca:

What do you mean not so bad? You just have $1,500 in your bank-

Ben Moses:

If you're a company, it's not that bad.

Stephen LaMarca:

Okay, if you were a company. I mean as an enthusiast.

Elissa Davis:

Because I'm thinking like, "Oh, when I get something for shipping on Etsy, it's $12," and it's like, "I don't think I can afford the $200 shipping."

Ben Moses:

Well, the problem with putting a several-thousand-pound device is more of a problem than the freight costs.

Stephen LaMarca:

You mention it's Next Day Air, $37,000.

Ramia Lloyd:

Amazon could get it to you in 12 hours.

Stephen LaMarca:

If you got Prime.

Elissa Davis:

[inaudible 00:23:56].

Ben Moses:

I need some feedback on... I found an article from this and I thought it was very interesting that they're talking about measurements in movies. So they list a couple of art movies and they talk about what unit of measure that they're talking about or how the context of what they're measuring is. So I'm going to list off a couple of movies and you guys can tell me what were they measuring. Let's start with Back to the Future. It's on the tip of your tongue. Doc Brown says it a lot. Gigawatt.

Elissa Davis:

[inaudible 00:24:27].

Ramia Lloyd:

Time. I was going to be like, "Time."

Elissa Davis:

I mean, you're not incorrect.

Stephen LaMarca:

[inaudible 00:24:38] have involvement?

Ben Moses:

No, no, no. They're talking about-

Stephen LaMarca:

Okay. They're talking about [inaudible 00:24:43] I'm sure NIST really has a problem like I do with the fact that there's a flux capacitor [inaudible 00:24:49] change in something, a delta, and you can't capacitate a change in anything.

Ben Moses:

But yet they do.

Elissa Davis:

Is that your major issue with the movie? About [inaudible 00:25:01]?

Ben Moses:

Moneyball.

Stephen LaMarca:

Huh?

Ben Moses:

Moneyball. That's the next-

Stephen LaMarca:

Moneyball?

Ben Moses:

This is a little bit of a stretch, but they talk about stats, statistics related to a measurement. So if the whole movie is about the statistics to predict whether or not they can win games, [inaudible 00:25:21]. Apollo 13, oxygen supply, so amount of quantity or pressure in this particular case. But I thought that was very interesting. And that's a whole crux of the movie, right? That's the danger point. This one's interesting because they apply it wrong. Star Wars.

Stephen LaMarca:

Noise in space?

Ben Moses:

Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Parsecs is a measure of distance, not time. So how do you apply that whenever you're trying to go fast? And the last one, they label Oppenheimer...

Stephen LaMarca:

I have things to say though. When you're traveling-

Ramia Lloyd:

[inaudible 00:25:58] everyone get comfortable.

Stephen LaMarca:

When you're traveling near or at the speed of light, distance does change. It's elastic. So you could say that you were going so fast, you did it in less distance than other people.

Elissa Davis:

Like The Flash.

Ben Moses:

Are you done [inaudible 00:26:15]? Speaking of blowing your head off, the next one is Oppenheimer.

Ramia Lloyd:

Oh, my God.

Ben Moses:

But they talk about hidden figures also.

Stephen LaMarca:

Okay. What do they do in Oppenheimer? Igniting of atmosphere?

Ben Moses:

No, no, it's related to the two because they talk about how calculations are the... They're using calculations to get to measurements.

Elissa Davis:

Well, and there's a whole sequence about how they're trying to get the hydrogen small enough to fit in the... I don't understand science, but the marbles, they're trying to fit that many into the bomb and they're trying... So with each marble they're able to drop in, they're able to fit more and more into there. Yeah, Oppenheimer's... It was a fascinating movie.

Ben Moses:

It's a movie that also should have an intermission.

Elissa Davis:

Oh, yes.

Ramia Lloyd:

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Ben Moses:

That's another thing we can about some other episode of how long movies are nowadays.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah, that's true.

Ben Moses:

So it was a good take on, and we've been talking about this, how manufacturing in science and technology has obviously come into movies, not only robotic arms for cameras on rides, but now we have science in movies that are the crux of movies nowadays.

Elissa Davis:

If you're interested in something with math beyond what I can understand, a movie Dumb Money relatively that came out recently. It's a really good movie. [inaudible 00:27:39] GameStop-

Stephen LaMarca:

Yeah, the Wall Street bets.

Elissa Davis:

... shorting the... Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca:

I like [inaudible 00:27:47].

Elissa Davis:

... followers, but he's not really a bad guy. He's just a guy who really doesn't know what he's doing.

Ben Moses:

Elissa, I think the art of the last article that you brought to the table is really good, and I definitely want to end on that. Can you tell me more about this?

Elissa Davis:

Yes. So there is a FIRST Robotics team in Princeton, New Jersey, and they are creating sustainable, plush animal robots to help preserve a vulnerable mind language that's spoken in Guatemala.

Ben Moses:

Interesting.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah. So they want to expand this to other dying languages or endangered languages. So there are 7,000 languages spoken today, and it's predicted that 90% of them will be dead by the end of the century.

Ben Moses:

Wow, that's a heavy prediction.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah. So that roughly translates to a language dying every two weeks, which is absolutely bonkers. So these students, it's part of their entry for Samsung Electric Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition. They're building an AI-powered robot in the form of a stuffed animal that can practice and that kids can have a conversation with and practice with to keep the language alive. Because a language is only considered dead once the last native speaker is dead. And so as long as there's a native speaker who is still out there, the language stays alive. So, yeah. But they're specifically working with this Mayan... It's called Mam or Mam, spoken by about 500,000 people in the Western Highlands of Guatemala-

Ben Moses:

That's fascinating. And not only does it help preserve it, but also helps preserve the integrity of the language itself. Because India itself, where my background is, is tons and tons of languages, and you'll see blending, or... I wouldn't say degradation, but changes of that language over time. So not only do we try to preserve it, but maintain the initial integrity of the language itself.

Elissa Davis:

Yeah.

Ben Moses:

That's a fascinating article, definitely. That's a good use [inaudible 00:29:35] lot of applications. I want to learn Spanish. That's probably a great way for me to learn Spanish too.

Elissa Davis:

It's one of those things where I wish I was as smart as those kids when I was in high school. I could have been trying to solve the world's problems. So they have won already $13,000 in prizes at this point in the competition, but the grand prize is $100,000 grant for their school, for their team. So they're working to win that, which obviously I think that's a... I don't know what the other entries are, but that one is pretty great. So I think it's definitely solving a problem of tomorrow, in my opinion. Just letting you know, GE or Samsung.

Ben Moses:

Ramia, where can people find more info about us?

Ramia Lloyd:

amtonline.org/resources. Resources. Like, share, subscribe.

Elissa Davis:

Bing-bong.

Ramia Lloyd:

Bye.

PicturePicture
Author
Benjamin Moses
Director, Technology
Recent technology News
Episode 123: The Tech Friends start with a lively discussion over EVs versus hybrids and battery alternatives such as capacitors, flywheels, and hydrogen. Elissa says NASA is sending gardeners to space. Ben thinks mobile robots need more computers.
Episode 122: The Tech Friends are ready for IMTS 2024 and can’t wait to be back in Chicago. Stephen has evolved into a roboticist, at least he thinks he has. Benjamin and Steve discuss the full speed ahead popularity in humanoid robotics.
Episode 121: The Tech Friends are wrapping up their pre-IMTS vacations. Stephen announces a few testbed updates before handing it off to Ben who emphasizes the importance of data architecture in manufacturing.
Episode 119: The Tech Friends miss bread garages and want them back! Elissa reports on some metal 3D printing IN SPACE aboard the ISS. Stephen closes with an announcement that he’s got word on a manufacturing domain-specific LLM on the way!
Episode 118: Ramia is back from her travels in Japan, and the tech friends pick her brain about the trip and her culinary experience. Stephen didn’t appreciate a clickbaity title from a NASA article. Elissa reports that NASA has a new Chief AI Officer.
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Intelligence
By Christopher Chidzik | Oct 01, 2024

The country that sent the first man to the moon turned to private companies and foreign governments to send people and projects into orbit.

4 min