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AMT Tech Trends: Robo Illuminati

Ben and Steve share their business life struggles and stressors with travel. Benjamin thinks augmented reality is back and won’t go out without a fight! Stephen announced a new CT scanner on the market but hasn’t yet determined the price point ...
May 26, 2023

Episode 95: Ben and Steve share their business life struggles and stressors with travel. Benjamin thinks augmented reality is back and won’t go out without a fight! Stephen announced a new CT scanner on the market but hasn’t yet determined the price point. Will it be a top-of-the-line model or on the more accessible side? Speaking of accessibility, Ben and Steve debate the existence of accessible automation.

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Produced by Ramia Lloyd

Transcript

Benjamin Moses:          Hello everyone. Welcome to the AMT Tech Trends podcast where we discuss the latest manufacturing technology, research and news. I am the Senior Director of Technology, Benjamin Moses. I was about to say Stephen, but I'm here with Stephen.

Stephen LaMarca:         Technology Analyst Stephen.

Benjamin Moses:          We also have our executive producer.

Stephen LaMarca:         Ramia Lloyd, hi.

Ramia Lloyd:                 Hello, tech friends.

Benjamin Moses:          We'll work on that transition.

Ramia Lloyd:                 Yes.

Stephen LaMarca:         We'll figure it out.

Benjamin Moses:          Steve, I've got a trip coming up next week. I'm excited. We're traveling together, and I've been thinking about the past couple years. And for seven years since I joined AMT, maybe eight years, who knows? I've been traveling at least once a month. Last year was hectic. But I've been thinking about what causes stress in your life, and I think travel, for me, it's still a stressor.

Stephen LaMarca:         Travel is still definitely a stressor for me, and it certainly was back in the day.

Number one, I guess I started flying the most... Not the most, but I really started flying somewhat regularly on an annual basis when I went to college in Vermont. And my mom and dad, bless their hearts, would fly me back for Christmas break and Thanksgiving break. So I'd bum a ride from somebody that lived in Burlington, Vermont. They'd take me to the Burlington International Airport, which is the smallest international airport ever. It's really cute, and they share the runway, the airstrip with the Burlington Air Force.

Benjamin Moses:          Oh, that's fun.

Stephen LaMarca:         So the Green Mountain Boys, in between commercial flights taking off, an F16 would take off. It was really cool.

Benjamin Moses:          Which is the cutest fighter ever.

Stephen LaMarca:         Yeah, it is the cutest fighter ever. And the other cute thing about the Burlington International Airport and the Green Mountain Boys, of which I wouldn't be surprised if their name was changed. It's 2023, man, that's not inclusive.

Benjamin Moses:          Let's call them Green Mountains.

Stephen LaMarca:         The Green Mountain people. The mountain people. There were bumper stickers that people put on all over their Subaru Outbacks in Vermont that say, "The Green Mountain Boys, the first with the F-35." And they were. I remember it was so cool, I was actually at the airport waiting for a flight when an F-35 was wheeled out of the hangar. I went through security and there wasn't a person in sight, and they were all glued to the glass because an F-35 was wheeled out of the hangar. And everybody there thought, no, they're going to take off. We're going to see an F-35 take off. This was in late 2000s, early 2010s. That's the time period this is. So the F-35 was like, still, is this thing going to exist or not back then? And this thing was wheeled out, and then for whatever reason, it was wheeled back in.

Benjamin Moses:          That's a tease.

Stephen LaMarca:         It's like the most US military thing ever. Hurry up and wait. Oh, it's not going to happen.

Anyway, so I started flying the most, at least on an annual basis, in college. And it always used to stress me out. And I think the thing that stressed me out the most was I had a super high value for the dollar back in college. So the fact that my old man was spending $150 to fly, which is not a lot of money today, $150 to fly me home for a break and fly me back, I was like, dude, my grades aren't $150 flight grades. I don't deserve this. There was a lot of guilt to that.

And then on top of that, there was the stress of you better not miss the flight. You better get a ride to the airport. But ever since working at AMT and getting in the habit of flying regularly, it's not as bad. But I think you and I both agree, there's still stress traveling, especially flying, but it's not as bad anymore. And all the stress per trip melts away once you're in your seat on the plane.

Benjamin Moses:          Yeah. Yeah. I do want to interrupt. So $150 now will get you a meal of four at Arby's. So when you point $150 is good for.

Stephen LaMarca:         That's wild to me. Arby's?

Benjamin Moses:          I'm just kidding.

Stephen LaMarca:         Okay. It doesn't surprise me though. That's how sad that is.

Benjamin Moses:          It's very expensive.

So I have two different scenarios where I get stressed out in the process. So for business travel, booking travel is fairly stressful for me because I'm managing my personal Google account calendar and then my work calendar, make sure I still have availability, not to interrupt any work stuff. But sometimes I'm traveling on the weekend. I'm traveling in June and I'll travel on a Sunday night, I got to check my personal calendar, make sure nothing's going on the weekend. You almost ran into a big conflict with your thing-

Stephen LaMarca:         I did. I didn't almost, I did. I thought I was on top of my travel this year and I triple booked. Not double booked, I triple booked. I had a personal event, a work event, and then I stacked another work event on top of it, canceling the one work event. And then I go to my family, I'm like, "Hey, guess who's doing a keynote speech at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab?" And then Melissa, my fiance's, like, "We have a very expensive dinner that we've already paid for to go to that night." And I'm like-

Benjamin Moses:          Oh really?

Stephen LaMarca:         "You're kidding me." And I get mad at her. "Why wasn't this on my calendar?" And she's on verge of tears. We're at a nice dinner. Now I'm a jerk. Which that's been known. There's a lot of apologies.

Travel's still really stressful. You're right. Who am I kidding?

Benjamin Moses:          Once I get everything booked in, I'm confident in the schedule. To your point, is the day of travel, I'm so nervous about missing a flight and making sure my bag is packed properly, make sure I get through security. Heaven forbid I accidentally carry a pocket knife anymore.

Stephen LaMarca:         Oh my God.

Benjamin Moses:          Or a bottle of water. We're funny. We're flying, and then the TSA agent came through. He was like, "Guys, remember water hasn't been allowed on a plane for 20 years, get used to this already." Airplane, TSA guy.

But once I get on the plane, then I know my bag is made it through. Because I always check a bag. My bag is made it into the airplane, supposedly. I'm comfortable enough to carry it on the trip. So I agree with you. So on the-

Stephen LaMarca:         Making it to the airport at a decent time, that's the first step.

Benjamin Moses:          Definitely.

Stephen LaMarca:         Actually, no, let's go back. Showered and groomed, first step. Second step being fully packed. Third step, making it to the airport at a Christian hour.

Benjamin Moses:          Okay. So a personal indicator for business trips is when I'm comfortable is when I order my first drink at the United Lounge. No matter what time of the day, there's always a drink at the United Lounge.

So for personal travel, it's a little bit different, but it's kind of similar. Getting the family, getting us supporting each other, get to the plane on time, that's probably the biggest step. And to be honest, the logistics of some of our family travel, because we do rent a house or something like that for a lot of our trips because three of us will make breakfast and stuff. So we'll get Airbnb or VRBO or something like that. So all the incremental of, okay, where's the airport in relation to the house? Do I need a car? And a lot of times we're exploring new trips too.

It's funny. Whenever we travel, we're never in super exotic locations. So if we missed something, we can always go to Target. If we're in Europe, there's a Target in Europe, we can buy something. For all of our trips, we've never needed to do that until Deep and I went on a weekend trip to Annapolis. We're like, "Oh, forgot our chargers." I was like, how did I forget my chargers? Until we had to go to CVS, buy the cables, buy our chargers. I was like, that was a hundred bucks and $10 worth of cables. I was so annoyed with myself that I almost thought about driving the hour and a half back from Annapolis to our house just to pick up the chargers and drive back another hour and a half.

Stephen LaMarca:         Best case scenario is you only forget something like underpants or whatever. Has happened.

Benjamin Moses:          That has happened.

Stephen LaMarca:         More than once at least for me. I've forgotten underpants. I've forgotten undershirt. No, Tim has forgotten undershirts and asked me to run out, get a Lyft out. I think at IMTS 2016. Grab him some undershirts at the near CVS or whatever.

Benjamin Moses:          That's amazing.

Stephen LaMarca:         And here's the insult to injury, because that's fine. That's an easy task that I can run for Tim. I expense that because Tim told me to and the person in finance at the time was like, "This is a personal expense. We're not going to pay for this." This is my boss. He's a direct report to the president.

Benjamin Moses:          That's fine.

Stephen LaMarca:         You're not going to let me expense this? This was for business stuff.

Benjamin Moses:          That was the first time you got slapped with a=

Stephen LaMarca:         That was the first time that happened. Yeah.

Benjamin Moses:          And that's a fair point. So we've talked about the logistics of travel, but the travel expense is a whole new stress point because-

Stephen LaMarca:         We're good at it though.

Benjamin Moses:          We know the rules.

Stephen LaMarca:         We're pros.

Benjamin Moses:          And we get it submitted on time. So there's a timeliness to it. And also are you following the rules properly? But every once in a while, you forgot this one thing. I feel like such a dummy when I forget the one thing.

Stephen LaMarca:         Dude, I feel like though, you and I could lead an hour long seminar on how to do your expenses and not sweat it because your expense report is done by the time you make it home.

Benjamin Moses:          100%.

Stephen LaMarca:         And I tell people this outside of our department-

Benjamin Moses:          They're dumbfounded.

Stephen LaMarca:         They're like, "How do you do that?" Because it's easier. It's literally easier. You're procrastinating just for the sake and fun of procrastinating.

Benjamin Moses:          Exactly.

Stephen LaMarca:         Do your expense report while it's happening, then there's no need to memorize stuff. There's no need to be one of those pores with a pocket full of receipts. What do you think you're doing, your taxes? Are you worried about the IRS? No, man, we got finance and HR. Just submit it.

Benjamin Moses:          If you're bringing back receipts from a business trip, that's so 1990s.

Stephen LaMarca:         You got to grow up. Act your wage.

Benjamin Moses:          Steve, tell us about today's sponsor.

Stephen LaMarca:         Today's sponsor, MT Forecast by phone. MT Forecast brings the latest economic news and industry trends straight to attendees. Industry leaders, executives and key decision makers will explore an agenda that provides a roadmap to better business strategies through customer industry insights, economic forecasting, and deep dives into market data.

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Benjamin Moses:          Thanks, Steve.

Stephen LaMarca:         Bet.

Benjamin Moses:          I'm looking forward to that trip in October. It's going to be great.

Stephen LaMarca:         Me too, actually.

Benjamin Moses:          And they'll have some great tours. I was talking to Chris Downs who's managing that, so hopefully we get some tours on site.

You need help getting your phone there?

Speaker 4:                    Got it.

Benjamin Moses:          Steve, I want to talk about augmented reality displays.

Stephen LaMarca:         AR.

Benjamin Moses:          AR won't die.

Stephen LaMarca:         AR, and not the controversial one. We're not talking about that one. We're talking about augmented reality.

Benjamin Moses:          That's right. So I found an article about new steps towards displays. So not just the screen where it's projected on. So in this one they're talking about actually 3D printing the display itself and the flexible technology around being able to 3D print it. So the prompt statement they're running into is... Well, let's do recap.

So this is from Australian Education Site.

Stephen LaMarca:         Oh, the Aussies.

Benjamin Moses:          So there's a bunch of universities working on the research side of it. So to be fair, it's not in production, it's early stage research. What they're developing is first flexible, transparent, augmented reality display and they use 3D printing and low cost materials to design this. It sets a new display screen to advance AR across a wide range of industries and applications.

And that raises a good point I want to tangent on is the environment that AR glasses are in, varies a lot. So you have normal gurus like you and I were just office, driving around. But then you have harsh environments like sports. You have offshore oil rigs where AR could be useful, things like that where having the flexible technology and embedding some safety protocols into it. That's an interesting use case.

So what they wanted to do was create a screen, one that is more affordable. I think if you look at the cost environment or cost structure for AR, it's fairly high because of the screen technology. So they're looking to reduce the cost and provide something that's more mainstream.

So it talks about some of the current challenges they have and that talks about actually making the current glass. So the substrates involved, they have to photo mask, laminate, cut.

Stephen LaMarca:         And did you say they are or they are not 3D printing the glass?

Benjamin Moses:          The new one, they're printing.

Stephen LaMarca:         They are.

Benjamin Moses:          Yep. It's flexible. And they'll-

Stephen LaMarca:         Like literally flexible?

Benjamin Moses:          Yeah.

Stephen LaMarca:         Wow.

Benjamin Moses:          In the picture, they got a little guy squeezing it. Or a normal size person squeezing it a little bit. And it's very similar to semicon production. And there's different yield rates. So what they want to do is increase the yield capability, but also reduce the manufacturing troubles that they're running into.

So it looks like they kind of solved their problem. So they want to get to something more mass produced and produce something that's cost effective. So I thought that was an interesting look at a new thing. But also one thing in the article they talk about, I wanted to get your thoughts on is yeah, they're focusing on the screen itself, but the information that they talk about on the screen, it still has a ways to go. So we've seen a couple of use cases on what is relevant based on different audiences and personas, but I wanted to get your thoughts on, in the article they talk about video games as a inspiration for some of their heads up displays that they potentially have. I want to get your thoughts on what's your favorite video game HUD?

Stephen LaMarca:         Okay, so this is very subjective. So it's not like we're going to come at this with any real data. But then again, there are some trends. One of the really culty games and game series that I follow because it's really in the news a lot lately, is Armored Core.

Benjamin Moses:          Oh, okay.

Stephen LaMarca:         Armored Core is a game that not a lot of people play.

Benjamin Moses:          No.

Stephen LaMarca:         It's bigger than Tarkov, that incel game that I really like playing. But it's not as big as it's sister game, The Soulsbourne series. It's by FromSoftware. Armored Core is a very sluggish, clunky, tanky feeling game. And it's supposed to feel that way on purpose because it's quite literally you're piloting a big metal robot with guns.

Benjamin Moses:          Yeah. It's like a mech warrior game.

Stephen LaMarca:         It is like a mech warrior game.

And I think Armored Core One, Two, and Three and all of the subish addition games between them have the best HUD because you've got a varying size targeting box on your screen that depends on the part that you've installed on your bohemoth. And the part that you install dictates the range of your radar box or your targeting box, the size of it across your field of view, whatnot. It's all variable, but it's one of the cleanest HUDs. It's very military feeling in terms of a HUD.

So I also like to play Ace Combat. Ace Combat's got a great HUD because, go figure, the one area in our world that has real HUDs in real life, not just augmented reality, but HUD technically is augmented reality in this sense, is fighter jets.

You've got a HUD, it's got your whiskey mark, which is the mark that tells you immediately where your jet plane is heading. It's where it's exactly pointing. It's a whiskey mark, and it's called a whiskey mark because it looks like a little W. Then there's a image that moves around based on telemetry and physics that is your plane's heading. And then there's a crosshair based on telemetry in physics, accounting for your planes heading and accounting for the velocity and performance of your plane's gun, where the gun's bullets are going to go for the air to air combat 20 millimeter cannon on the gun. That's really cool.

Benjamin Moses:          To distill it down, so I've been thinking about this a lot also. And I agree with you. I think the mech warrior type games, Armor Core and [inaudible 00:17:21], those have one of the best HUDs in terms of usefulness and even Ace Combat. So even if you're not in the cockpit, like the tail view, in the HUD related to that tail view is super useful. And I broke it down into three things where I think this is applicable to everything that we could look at in the future for AR.

One is direction. Direction's always super useful.

Stephen LaMarca:         You're vector.

Benjamin Moses:          You're vector. Well, okay, so direction and speed if you're including vector.

Equipment, what equipment do you have in some cases? If you're in a machine, when you add something to that machine.

Stephen LaMarca:         Oh of course.

Benjamin Moses:          And then also-

Stephen LaMarca:         What your load out is.

Benjamin Moses:          Load out, yeah. And the capability of that equipment. Like how far something can go or how much you can count.

Stephen LaMarca:         Or the inventory of ammunition.

Benjamin Moses:          Inventory, yeah, exactly. So I think those are three categories that I can lump anything useful for AR and break it down by the application.

Stephen LaMarca:         I also appreciate how HUDs and video games have gotten better over the years. Like Gran Turismo, it used to show you an analog tachometer.

Benjamin Moses:          Oh yeah.

Stephen LaMarca:         For whichever car you were on. And a big red line or small red line depending on the engine's performance for that particular car. But as the generations of Gran Turismo have come out, they've realized it's cool to know your RPM, but it's not necessary. And just like when you look at a Formula One car, Formula One cars don't have attack.

Benjamin Moses:          They tell you when to shift.

Stephen LaMarca:         They have a array of LEDs that only illuminate when the engine's RPM is in the power band.

Benjamin Moses:          Oh yeah, yeah.

Stephen LaMarca:         Maybe driving on the road you need your tachometer, but not really. It's fun to have. It makes you feel like a pilot. But when you're on a track, you just need to know when your engine is in the power band, when it's making the most output, when it's making the most efficient output. So if none of the LEDs are illuminated, you need to drop a gear. You need to be in a lower gear. If they are all illuminated and blinking red, you need to grab the next gear. That's exactly what you need. You don't need to know which gear you're in. Maybe you do. Yeah.

Benjamin Moses:          You memorize the track that way.

Stephen LaMarca:         The one thing my boomer parents always said, "You don't need a gear indicator. You should know which gear you're in by feeling the gear shift and by listening to the sound of the engine and correlating that with your road speed." And it's like you are talking about various sensory calculations that you need to make on the fly as opposed to looking down, glancing down, or in your periph, and be like, calculation's already been made and it's displaying that data for you. But yes, you should be able to do those calculations as a driver, as a competent driver, but your brain can now focus all of its energy and focus on staying alive instead of calculating or determining which gear you're in, instead of just doing quick tom glancey.

Benjamin Moses:          In my 2001 Volkswagen, I installed a boost controller and that little standalone unit told you what gear you're in, and that blew my mind. Because it was a manual car and that blew my mind the first time I saw that. To your point, I need both hands on the wheels sometimes. Figure out which gear I'm in, to touch it, that's nerve wrecking the way I drive.

Stephen LaMarca:         You don't realize how nice a gear indicator is until you have one.

Benjamin Moses:          Agreed.

Stephen LaMarca:         And the old people, they're giving you hell about needing a gear. You don't need it. But having it, it's like, dude, don't be jealous just because you've never had on.e drive with one-

Benjamin Moses:          And then tell me.

Stephen LaMarca:         It's like a backup camera. I don't need a backup camera. Also, my car doesn't have one. But my car has great visibility. I don't need one. With all of the safety regulations and standards today, cars are almost like tanks. You can barely see out of them today. You need a backup camera. In fact, I think the next standard that Biden's probably going to introduce in 2024 is probably now side view cameras are required next.

Benjamin Moses:          That's fine.

Stephen LaMarca:         That's going to be next. We're going to be driving tanks.

Benjamin Moses:          Steve.

Stephen LaMarca:         The windshields aren't going to exist anymore.

Benjamin Moses:          Let's transition to CT scanning.

Stephen LaMarca:         CT scanning. Okay. I have an article. We did not mean to go long .and I've got so many other things to say.

Anyway, I found an article on Metrology News last night. Waygate Technologies, it announces new flagship CT scanner. This tickled my fancy, because in the past, we've spoken a lot about, there's two big names for CT metrology on the market right now. For the longest time, and still even to this day, the industry standard, the CT scanner that made everybody want CT scanners, Siemens, multimillion dollar machine, find out everything you need to know about your part without breaking it. Then Luma Field came along and they're like, "Hey, what if I told you, you don't got to spend a million dollars or even close to that? And you don't need to hire million dollar staffers to tell you what your scan means."

And in fact, it was just a monthly payment and that monthly payment instead of a bulk sum that you've got to take out a triple mortgage on your plant for. Luma Field, they might not be the industry standard, but they made CT scanning accessible.

Benjamin Moses:          And shifting from CapEx spending to manufacturing of the service. So to your point, is not just the equipment, there's software, storing the information and the staff to support it. It's interesting to break it up that way. It's a different business model. But go ahead.

Stephen LaMarca:         So Waygate Technologies, which is a subsidiary of Baker Hughes, big company based in Delaware? Yeah, based in Delaware.

Benjamin Moses:          Who isn't based in Delaware? Come on.

Stephen LaMarca:         Yeah, that's right. That's how you avoid those sweet, sweet taxes. They're a subsidiary Baker Hughes. They just came out to the market with their new flagship CT scanner. Apparently it's super high performance, which the article talks about all of the stats and it sounds impressive if I knew what these stats were talking about.

My question is though, how accessible is it? Are we looking at something that is high performance enough that we care about the accessible side of it? Is it Luma Field, where, oh man, a small shop can finally afford CT scanning? Or is it on the side of Siemens, where are you a government contractor that needs to make sure you send the DOD good parts every time and they need to be within a micron? Is it on that side?

Benjamin Moses:          Yeah. That's interesting. This follows the trends in automation robotics that we're starting to see is that, you have a broader spectrum of providers.

There's two sides, that one is the equipment and the service, but also the application. Because you brought up the DOD and that potential space. Are they inspecting metal parts? Do they need super in-depth parts or large parts? There's a boundary box for each of those equipment. And it is interesting to see a shift in sacrificing certain aspects of it to get to something that is more specific and reduce the cost to get to that specificity. So I do like that.

Stephen LaMarca:         It's good to see a new challenger approaches.

Benjamin Moses:          Agreed.

Stephen LaMarca:         Capitalism only works if there's competition. And it's nice to see. Luma Field started the trend with an accessible option. I don't know how accessible this Waygate Technology CT scanner is. They say flagship, which means it's their top of the line, which means it's probably closer to competing with Siemens to me. I love Luma Field. Shout out to our boy Andrew Parrot. but the next step is, let's see accessible competitors.

Benjamin Moses:          That'd be cool.

Stephen LaMarca:         An accessible option is great. I want to see accessible options. Same with automation and robotics. I'd love to get on Matt, but that's a rant.

Benjamin Moses:          Do we want to talk about that now? Should we say that for now?

Stephen LaMarca:         Yeah, no, I do because-

Benjamin Moses:          Let's talk about that.

Stephen LaMarca:         You've already poked the bear. So my beef... We've talked about robots a lot. We still have technically, but it's in Mexico, a $10,000 seven joint collaborative robot, happens to be from China. I was having a very colorful conversation with Andra on Monday and colorful, not just because of her hair, but because of what we were talking about, and I mentioned to her, "Hey, what's the deal with a new industrial robot that's in the 10K range, plus or minus $5,000?" Because there's nothing industrial under $20,000 that is brand new. It doesn't exist. You can find a UR3 on eBay if you're that crazy for sub $5,000. But What's wrong with it? Who hurt it?

I had an MIT article that I talked about in the tech report a couple weeks ago. Two MIT articles actually. And one was about a UK company. I can't remember their name, but I do remember the name of their industrial robot arm model that they came out with in 2001, recently, called the IVA, Industrial Robot Arm, potentially collaborative, may have been AI enabled, whatever buzzword that means right now. And this was really promising because they were like, "Hey, we're non-Chinese, and we're around 10K, so we're kind of a big deal."

There was a lot of people putting in orders for them. I check, I want to put in an order for them because you've still tasked me with buying a robot in January of this year for our budget, right around 10K. So I'm like, oh, this is great. And it was a new one. This is in 2021, this is post pandemic. Let's see if we can order one. Go to the website. It's like, "Hey, sorry to inform everybody, but it's been a great run, but IVA's discontinued."

Benjamin Moses:          Oh no.

Stephen LaMarca:         It was on the market for two years.

Benjamin Moses:          And it's gone.

Stephen LaMarca:         And then the other company we've been talking to, Fruit Core Robotics in Germany, non-Chinese, they've got an industrial solution for really between 10 and 15K. And they're like, "Hey, this is an industrial robot, but we won't sell them outside of Germany." And I'm like, come on. What is going on here? And here's me putting my tinfoil hat on. I think the big robot industry, big robot, like big pharma is whenever one of these non-Chinese, because they can't touch Chinese companies, those unnamed robot companies that we love so much because they're our members and they probably give us a lot of money, they probably see these companies come out with their sub 20K robot arms that are really promising and amazing. And they're like, "Hey, you guys want money, right? Here's this money. Delete all your IP. Throw it away, and don't you ever come back here again."

Benjamin Moses:          Let's make this a problem.

Stephen LaMarca:         This is your hush money. I'm telling you there's the robo Illuminati out there and they are getting rid of these. the truth is, industrial robotics is getting more accessible, but not enough. It's not getting accessible enough and it's not getting accessible fast enough. And I'm offended.

Benjamin Moses:          You're offended. Big robo.

Stephen LaMarca:         It was 2018 when I saw all of these robot arms in the student summit of IMTS that were unplugged, just sitting on the ground working as coat hangers. I'm like, that's an $80,000 coat hanger. Why can't I have one?

Benjamin Moses:          Just walk away with one right now.

Stephen LaMarca:         Next time I'm at IMT, that's our show, man. I'm taking one. So you want to come back? You're letting me take this. I'll figure out some way to get it on the plane.

Benjamin Moses:          Can we make those t-shirts? Robo Illuminati?

Stephen LaMarca:         It's a delta arm. With an eye in the middle.

Benjamin Moses:          Where can people find more info about us? They'll complain about the big robo industry.

Stephen LaMarca:         AMTOnline.org/resources. Like, share, subscribe.

Benjamin Moses:          Bye everyone.

Ramia Lloyd:                 Bing bong.

Stephen LaMarca:         You took my job. Talk about the robots. We don't need robots to take people's job.

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Technology
By Stephen LaMarca | Mar 22, 2024

High-performance manufacturing. AI chatbot with robotic arm control. Lost & found: Lead in Stanley cups. Common methods for finishing metal parts. ROS development alliance.

6 min
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Technology
By Bonnie Gurney | Mar 18, 2024

While additive manufacturing has significantly matured, further development depends on the current market evolving, which will require developing opportunities to showcase it as well as changing how we think of it – that it's more than 3D printing a part.

6 min
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Technology
By Stephen LaMarca | Mar 15, 2024

A new bot has joined the chat. Versatile robotics control. Advances in multi-material AM. Everybody works better in denim.

6 min