Windshield Wiper Ice Scrapers, Interning Rotation, Peer-to-Peer 3D Printing, and Smart Toy Boxes
Ep. 20

Windshield Wiper Ice Scrapers, Interning Rotation, Peer-to-Peer 3D Printing, and Smart Toy Boxes

Episode description

Special thanks to Robbie for joining us on this episode!

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:55 - Guest Pitch by Josh Smalley
00:08:11 - Windshield Wiper Ice Scrapers
00:19:41 - Interning Rotation
00:30:35 - Peer-to-Peer 3D Printing
00:42:58 - Smart Toy Boxes
00:54:08 - Outro

Download transcript (.srt)
0:00

(upbeat music)

0:02

- I'm Scott.

0:05

- I'm Russell.

0:06

- And I'm Leo.

0:07

This is Spitball.

0:08

(upbeat music)

0:11

Welcome to Spitball

0:17

where three prototype profits,

0:19

that's us, and a guest to empty our heads

0:21

of our startup and tech product ideas

0:23

that we have stuck up in there

0:24

so you can all have them for free.

0:26

Anything that we say is yours to keep.

0:27

And Scott, I believe you brought our guest this week.

0:30

Is that right?

0:31

- I do.

0:32

I have brought Robbie.

0:34

Robbie and I work together.

0:35

We're at the same engineering company.

0:36

Robbie's a project manager

0:38

on the advanced product development team.

0:41

He's been the fearless leader

0:42

on many difficult engineering endeavors

0:45

and has probably brought more projects

0:47

from Napkin Sketch Life than anyone I know.

0:50

- Wonderful.

0:51

- Awesome.

0:52

Thanks guys for having me.

0:52

I appreciate it.

0:53

- This is gonna be a good time.

0:54

- Thanks for coming.

0:55

- I'm looking forward to it.

0:56

I think we're gonna be doing another guest pitch

0:57

like we have in the past.

0:59

I know this is many months after the series has ended,

1:02

but I'm still a little bit bitter that Josh Smalley,

1:05

well, can we do spoilers for Great British Breakoff?

1:07

Has it been long enough?

1:08

I don't know.

1:09

It's been about a year, like eight, nine months.

1:11

- Morning, spoilers, Great British Breakoff.

1:13

- Spoilers for season 14 or series 14

1:16

if you're a true fan of British weird words for things.

1:20

Josh Smalley, he was the runner up this year.

1:24

I mean, I think he should have won,

1:26

but he's a chemist and he is way smarter than all of us.

1:29

So we're gonna have to bring up

1:30

our intelligence level a bit.

1:32

- Hi, Scott, Russell and Leo.

1:34

Obviously coming from a scientific background,

1:36

I think one that I've thought about would be pretty cool

1:39

would be having like tailored medicines,

1:42

even on an app format,

1:43

so you'd have all of your data on your DNA

1:48

or taken from a blood sample, for example,

1:51

and then all of your sequence, your DNA sequence,

1:55

your allergens, your immunity,

1:57

histories of diseases and things that you've had

1:59

and they know everything about you,

2:01

that's all gonna be stored

2:02

so that if you were to have any illness

2:06

or anything or any disease coming in the future,

2:09

that they'd be able to have a tailored treatment,

2:14

drug, antibiotic that will be specific to you

2:17

or they would know how to make one to be tailored to you.

2:20

So that's one thing I could foresee happening

2:22

as a pretty cool tech thing, wouldn't it?

2:24

I think that's what my suggestion would be.

2:26

So yeah, thanks for the question and enjoy discussing it.

2:30

- So thanks, Josh.

2:32

You're way too smart for all of us.

2:34

- Whoa.

2:35

- You can imagine a world--

2:36

- Anything with a British accent is smart.

2:38

(laughing)

2:40

- So true.

2:41

- I think I got smarter just listening to him.

2:42

(laughing)

2:44

- You can imagine a world where you take your 23andMe

2:47

type kit, you ship it off and a couple of weeks later,

2:50

you get your pills in the mail that make you no longer

2:54

make cilantro taste like soap

2:56

because they've got CRISPR in them

2:58

and they just sort of edit you up.

2:59

I already don't trust 23andMe and I haven't done those.

3:02

So that's a whole new level.

3:05

- Now I want them to mail me pills

3:07

to modify my genetic code.

3:09

- It's a crazy idea.

3:10

- The part that I think he's onto it with is,

3:15

you know, when you think about like,

3:16

what is our generation's version

3:18

of crazy historic medical procedures,

3:21

like lobotomies and things like that.

3:22

When you tell your grandkids that we used to donate blood

3:26

to each other or that we used to donate organs,

3:28

they're gonna be like, what are you talking about, dude?

3:32

- Right.

3:32

- And he's kind of onto it.

3:33

He's like, there's a specific medicine

3:35

that you're gonna get that will fight.

3:37

- Did you know when you get a kidney donated,

3:38

you just get the third kidney?

3:40

They don't replace one?

3:42

- I just learned that.

3:42

- Isn't that crazy?

3:43

- I never knew.

3:44

They just shove another kidney up in there.

3:45

- I didn't know that.

3:46

- They just have a third kidney in their back.

3:47

- Yeah, having the-

3:49

- Kind of makes sense.

3:50

- Yeah, if we can, like you said,

3:52

maybe target drugs specifically for you.

3:57

Seems like maybe we could have less of that.

3:58

Exactly.

3:59

- This was a movie, wasn't it?

4:01

Gattaca.

4:02

- Was this Gattaca?

4:03

- No.

4:04

- Yeah.

4:05

- Yeah, I mean, a little bit.

4:06

A little bit.

4:07

- What happens in Gattaca?

4:08

I don't know, I haven't seen Gattaca.

4:09

- It's like a dystopian future eugenics world

4:13

where you can pick out all the traits that you want

4:16

in a baby genetically ahead of time.

4:18

- Designer babies.

4:19

- Designer babies all the way through.

4:21

- CRISPR.

4:22

What happens to the, can you spoil Gattaca for our audience?

4:25

- Oh, I don't remember.

4:26

This is 20 years ago.

4:27

- He goes to space.

4:28

That's the spoiler.

4:29

- A guy, a normal human.

4:29

- We're spoiling Rayburn's bake-off in Gattaca.

4:33

- 1997.

4:34

- The cornerstones of modern culture.

4:36

- Yeah, he goes to space.

4:40

- Interesting.

4:41

- That's the spoiler?

4:42

- Yeah, I feel like the CRISPR designer babies

4:44

like discussion has been really ramping up

4:46

in the last few years,

4:46

and I'm sure we wouldn't have a ton of new ground to tread

4:50

with saying, "Oh, what if everyone else

4:53

was making their babies smart in utero?"

4:55

Then you feel pressure to do it too,

4:57

'cause you don't want your kid to be the one left out.

5:00

Yeah, true, but also, I don't know,

5:03

what if you had a DNA dating app

5:06

where you mail in your thing,

5:11

and then they say, "Wow, you two are very compatible

5:15

over on the other sides of the state

5:17

that you live in," or something?

5:19

- Your DNA is compatible?

5:21

- I don't know. - Dang.

5:22

- Most people's DNA is compatible,

5:23

if you know what I mean, right?

5:26

- How closely related to you are you

5:28

to this other person, right?

5:29

It's more of, avoid the second cousin thing.

5:33

- It's anti-ancestry.com.

5:36

- That's right.

5:37

- Is there a sweet spot, though,

5:38

where it's like fourth and fifth cousins

5:40

is optimal for everything?

5:42

- You go, oh yeah, you go into the app,

5:44

and you say, "I pretty much want my kids

5:46

to have these traits," and then they match you up

5:48

with potential partners based off that.

5:50

- Whoa, I mean, I feel like if there was other crazy people

5:54

that were on that app, too,

5:55

that would be exactly what they're looking for.

5:57

It's like, optimize, I'm not here for money or love,

6:02

I'm here for optimal children.

6:04

That's not a love corner, that's a--

6:08

- Practicality.

6:09

- Your pay scale goes according to the level

6:13

of partner that you have for you.

6:15

- There you go. - Oh, there we go.

6:17

Robbie, you're good at this.

6:18

- That's dystopian.

6:19

- You've been thinking about this a little bit too much.

6:22

- You guys, yeah, oh, goodness.

6:25

- How many kids do you have?

6:26

No.

6:27

- Yeah, I have three kids.

6:29

That's probably the most unique perspective

6:31

I bring to the show tonight, is I have three children.

6:35

- No, I wonder if something, I don't know

6:37

if this is part of it, but let's say my vision, right?

6:40

Could I take a pill, could that help me cure my vision?

6:45

Laser eye surgery, sure, but maybe I just pop a pill

6:49

with some DNA, M CRISPR.

6:51

- Editing.

6:52

- My gut is a lot of it is about predictive medicine

6:56

versus what he's talking about,

6:57

which is specific medicine for you,

6:59

but it's being able to predict things

7:01

that people run into too late.

7:04

You guys hear about the lady that could smell dementia

7:07

or Parkinson's, that's right.

7:09

She could smell Parkinson's a year

7:11

before people were diagnosed.

7:13

It's gonna be about predictive medicine, I think,

7:15

and helping stop things before they happen.

7:18

- I would take a pill that would give me that superpower.

7:21

- Does it have to be pills?

7:22

Could he mail you a biscuit that he makes?

7:23

- You would take a pill to help you smell Parkinson's?

7:25

- Yeah.

7:25

- I could think of a lot of other pills I'd take

7:29

before I'd take that one.

7:31

- True.

7:35

- Thank you, whoever, what was his name?

7:37

(laughing)

7:39

Wow, genuine, thank you very much, Josh.

7:41

- Good thing we edited this.

7:42

- Josh Smalley, do you want me to say Josh Smalley?

7:44

There you go, you can say it.

7:45

- Thank you, Josh Smalley, eh?

7:48

Sorry.

7:49

Okay, we got it.

7:50

- So natural.

7:51

- Do a real one.

7:52

- Thank you, Josh, for sending that in.

7:54

It was really informative.

7:55

I can't, I can't.

7:58

- That was great.

7:59

- We'll be in season 15.

8:00

- Yeah, fix it in post, make Leo fix it.

8:02

- That's right, yeah, AI, just AI it.

8:04

- Just AI.

8:05

- His name is Leo, Russell.

8:07

- No, sorry.

8:08

- Al, our editor.

8:10

- Leo, let's hear your best idea ever, let's go.

8:15

- Robbie, we don't know each other super well,

8:17

but I've been told you are hardware engineer

8:19

first and foremost, so your job today

8:22

is to tell me why this can't exist.

8:24

So, soldering iron goes from zero degrees,

8:29

not zero degrees, room temperature

8:31

to hundreds and hundreds of degrees Celsius

8:34

pretty dang fast.

8:35

I would love to have a switch on my dashboard

8:38

to make my windshield wipers get several hundred degrees

8:41

Celsius right away so that I could ice scrape

8:43

in a couple of seconds.

8:45

Why is that not a thing that I can already do?

8:47

Other than, you know, the lawsuits and the danger

8:49

and the--

8:50

- The fire hazards.

8:52

- The bird that you solder and fry, you know,

8:55

because it landed on your windshield.

8:57

Isn't there like, why don't windshield wipers have heaters?

9:00

We live in the Midwest here where we get ice scraped on

9:02

and you either have to scrape it by hand

9:04

with a piece of plastic, which sucks,

9:06

or you spray it with de-icer and you sit

9:08

as you drag plastic and rubber across it

9:10

as it slowly chips away with your like car defroster on high.

9:15

Why can't my windshield wipers do this?

9:17

They are little scrapers.

9:18

- I actually don't hate that as an idea at the outset.

9:22

I mean, rubber is your first,

9:24

like that's standing in your way, right?

9:25

You wanna be gentle with your glass

9:27

and don't wanna scratch your glass.

9:29

And so you're replacing that rubber with something.

9:31

But I had a couple of times in college

9:33

where like I let my wipers get stuck

9:35

to the windshield with ice and then they snap off

9:38

and then you gotta stop at Panera Bread

9:40

and wrap a cardboard coffee thing

9:43

around the end of the melts.

9:45

- This is a very common thing.

9:46

- It's all been there.

9:47

- Have you guys been there?

9:49

Have you guys been there?

9:51

So I'm a buyer before I'm a seller on this idea.

9:55

I'm not gonna lie to you though.

9:56

I mean, there are some, you know,

9:58

when you talk about the electrical connection

10:00

and the atmosphere and environmental.

10:03

- Just throw another battery in the car, it'll be fine.

10:06

- Yeah, exactly, yeah.

10:08

In your passenger seat.

10:09

- Just for your--

10:09

- There are lots of ways to make things hot quickly

10:14

with electricity, but I don't know what things

10:18

you can do that moderately.

10:19

So like we don't need to get to hundreds

10:21

and hundreds of degrees Celsius,

10:22

obviously to just melt water.

10:23

What would it take to melt ice, right?

10:26

- Scott, you know this, the bag sealer,

10:29

the plastic bag sealers, okay.

10:31

- Oh yeah. - That's not a bad idea.

10:32

- How do those work?

10:33

- It's just a metal wire, I think,

10:35

that runs electricity through it.

10:37

And you can set the gauge, right?

10:39

It's like, it's really--

10:40

- Jank. - Like zero to one.

10:41

It's like janky.

10:42

But it's a long metal sponge thing that like kind of,

10:49

yeah, you press it down, it seals a bag and you lift it up.

10:52

They have this for vacuum sealers and all that other stuff.

10:54

Throw that in the end of the windshield,

10:56

plug it in your car battery.

10:57

- Yeah, they look like the paper cutter

11:01

that was in the back of the classroom

11:02

that you could behead a cow with.

11:04

And somehow they just left open

11:05

for all the kindergartners to play with.

11:07

- Now we just need to run electricity through it.

11:09

(laughing)

11:10

- I mean-- - Heat it up.

11:12

- And here's the thing, do you really need it?

11:14

You need the wiper to sit in the right spot.

11:16

And realistically, you need to like warm up

11:19

a three to four inch radius hole for you to see through.

11:23

If we're all honest.

11:24

If you haven't had your ice scraper

11:27

and you use the credit card in your wallet,

11:30

you don't do the whole windshield.

11:31

You do enough to see out of to start the driving process.

11:35

And I feel like we could accomplish that 100%.

11:37

- Very quickly.

11:38

And we already have the prototype, Scott.

11:40

It's right in your hands.

11:41

We just gotta figure out how to plug it

11:42

into your car battery, glue it to a windshield.

11:45

- It's crazy to me that we have

11:46

the rear windshield defroster

11:48

with the lines that are going through the glass

11:50

is so efficient and it works so well.

11:52

And then in the front, we just like blast it with cold air

11:55

that very slowly warms up.

11:56

- It's been a hope.

11:57

It seems so inefficient.

11:58

- For some reason, you're not willing

11:59

to sacrifice the black lines, right?

12:01

You remember Talladega Nights?

12:03

This is very distracting, but I do love Fig Newton.

12:05

- I personally probably would.

12:06

- You guys remember that?

12:07

(laughing)

12:08

- Yes.

12:10

I personally would take the lines on the front

12:12

if it was an option,

12:12

but I get that there's probably a hundred laws

12:15

and codes and regulations why that's not cool.

12:17

- Just make the lines clear, come on.

12:19

- If we can't heat the glass, heat a stick

12:21

and drag it along.

12:21

What if it's even just a separate thing

12:23

from the windshield wiper that is a similar motion?

12:25

- What if you could plug it in from the inside

12:27

and then you just like press it against the windshield

12:30

in the right spot?

12:30

- Transfer the heat through the glass.

12:32

- Yeah.

12:33

There's like a perfect line just sort of steaming off

12:37

from the outside.

12:39

I like that.

12:40

How hot can you get before the glass starts

12:41

to melt a little bit?

12:42

- Pretty high.

12:43

- Yeah?

12:44

- Yeah, yeah, you'd be good.

12:45

- What if you got like,

12:46

what are those electromagnetic stoves?

12:49

- Induction stoves.

12:49

- Induction?

12:50

Does water get heated by induction?

12:52

Could you just throw an induction,

12:54

like press it against the glass and just be like,

12:56

send it, heat this water up.

12:59

- There are videos of people throwing boiling water

13:01

on their icy car and it just shatters the glass windshield.

13:04

So there is like a rapid temperature change problem.

13:07

- Too fast, too fast is a bad thing.

13:09

- Yeah, yeah.

13:10

- Man, they should fix windshields then.

13:13

That's not my problem.

13:13

That's a, I sell the product that fixes the problem,

13:17

the ice.

13:18

- I wonder if you could like heat your de-icer though,

13:21

liquid, like just make it scalding hot

13:24

and then just spray boiling anti-freeze

13:27

all across your windshield.

13:29

- You just unlocked a core memory for me.

13:31

My dad had a car that had that.

13:33

It was a heated reservoir,

13:35

a small little bit that would do that.

13:37

And after a year there was a recall

13:39

and he took it in to get the recall fixed

13:40

and they disabled it permanently.

13:43

- Yeah, because that's a crazy idea.

13:46

Those parts are all plastic.

13:48

My thought was, my thought was you run

13:50

what you're talking about.

13:51

You run it through the A pillar

13:53

that is like the metal part

13:55

that goes on the side of your windshield, that's metal.

13:57

And so you do have some leeway there

13:59

to run some hot water or hot material if you want to.

14:03

That's like the edge of your windshield,

14:04

but it gives you some leeway to, again,

14:06

to be able to like look in the right way,

14:07

in the right area and drive.

14:09

- I would love to watch dribbling, boiling hot de-icer

14:12

go through ice.

14:14

That would be just art every morning.

14:16

- If you do it cool enough,

14:17

people are gonna sit and watch it anyways, right?

14:20

And then some idiots laying on the windshield

14:22

in their high school parking lot and saying,

14:24

"Hit it, hit it, hit it."

14:25

And then the lawsuit comes.

14:26

(laughing)

14:28

- Outside of a Panera.

14:30

- Okay, this is a throwback.

14:32

What if we did like salt, just like a little salt?

14:36

Or chemical, is there like chemical-

14:39

- I think that's some corrosion issues, yeah.

14:40

- That you could throw at it?

14:42

- Anti-freeze?

14:43

- That's not anti-freeze.

14:45

Anti-freeze doesn't work, I think, that well, right?

14:47

Like something that melts fast.

14:49

- It's called anti-freeze.

14:50

It makes the ice stop being so frozen.

14:53

- Oh, I thought it's like-

14:55

- No, you're probably right.

14:56

- Anti-freeze prevents the freeze versus melting, right?

15:00

I guess I'm wondering.

15:02

Like, I like your heated water idea, Leo.

15:05

I wonder if you could like really salty water.

15:08

Very, you know, boom.

15:10

- You do have rust issues there.

15:12

- What if you could, this is the crazy idea.

15:14

I'm left field now,

15:15

but what if you could create like a whole,

15:18

like a pool that you fill up with hot water.

15:21

You like build a barrier that you fill up with hot water

15:24

and then you let that quickly melt the ice

15:26

and then you just dump all the water out over your car.

15:28

So it's not so much about applying hot water to your car,

15:31

but it's about creating like a little bathtub

15:34

that melts the ice really quickly

15:35

and then you get rid of all the water.

15:36

- Wait, like your entire car is enclosed

15:39

or just around the windshield?

15:40

- No, like you-

15:41

- Just dunk underwater?

15:42

- Like what if you could just bring,

15:43

like what if you could bring up,

15:44

you could bring up some walls around your windshield

15:46

that make like a little pocket of hot water

15:49

and then you just fill that with water

15:51

and once the ice is gone and you release it all.

15:53

- Like those old timey hot water bags

15:55

that you put at the foot of the bed, but.

15:57

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it.

15:58

- Put on the windshield, that's fun.

16:01

- The walls can't come up 'cause there's so much ice.

16:03

- That's true, yeah, ice always gets in the way.

16:06

- If cars can have airbags,

16:07

they can have hot water bags built in.

16:09

You just press the button and it,

16:11

you know, sprays all over it.

16:12

- That's great.

16:13

- Ooh, okay.

16:14

(laughing)

16:15

I don't know why I got, I'm just thinking.

16:17

- This is called Spitball.

16:18

- Could you shake, could you vibrate your windshield

16:22

so rapidly that would make all the ice fall off

16:25

without it like-

16:26

- Like break apart in chunks.

16:27

- Super sonic.

16:28

- Just place some AC/DC into the windshield

16:30

and just find the right frequency.

16:32

- What if Northern cars have a Northern like layer

16:37

on their windshield and you can just hit, I'm over ice,

16:40

you hit a button on your dash

16:42

and the top layer of your windshield just like,

16:45

like peels off and you're like,

16:49

hey, I've got another layer below this.

16:51

- You buy disposable.

16:51

- Like a screen protector.

16:53

- You buy 20 disposable windshield layers.

16:56

- One pack, get through the winter.

16:57

- And you just have an Ontario screen protector

17:00

on your windshield.

17:01

- That's fun, I like that a lot.

17:02

- I think that would, I would buy a 10 pack,

17:04

stick it on my windshield in the beginning of winter

17:07

and just whatever, right?

17:09

- Or even, you know, the ice storm is overnight tonight,

17:11

so I'll just do it.

17:12

- Yeah.

17:13

- Or you buy a garage, but we're all in the city here.

17:17

(laughing)

17:18

- Can't afford garages.

17:19

- That's a whole building.

17:20

(laughing)

17:23

- Wow.

17:25

- Someday I hope I have a garage instead of a podcast.

17:27

- A garage.

17:28

(laughing)

17:29

The modern day solution.

17:31

No, this doesn't solve for the parking lot,

17:35

the car, the, you're at work, you know?

17:37

Like, I guess I'm wondering if I could like crack open

17:40

like a can of salt water.

17:42

I just like have 10 in my car, crack it open.

17:45

- Fire extinguisher, just.

17:47

- Oh, that's not a bad idea.

17:48

- Sure, something like that, you know?

17:50

- The high pressure one time use.

17:53

- Little gasoline, I guess.

17:54

- A little, you think.

17:55

- And then you have your recurring revenue

17:57

because they're disposable.

17:58

So you've got your under pressure salt water canister

18:01

that you crack open one time use,

18:03

recycle the aluminum cans.

18:04

- There are absolutely days that I would go out there

18:07

and I'm in a hurry and I have to de-ice the whole car.

18:10

And if I could just crack something,

18:12

even if it costs me to just make it a fraction of the work,

18:15

I would absolutely use that.

18:16

- Well, you've seen those things

18:17

that they use to de-ice planes, right?

18:19

They got those giant blasters that they're raising

18:22

and lowering and shooting all over them.

18:23

I want one of those really, yeah.

18:25

- What about like hand warmers?

18:26

Like what is the chemical in there?

18:28

- The reusable ones?

18:29

- Could I just like crack it open

18:31

and then dump it all over the car and then just,

18:34

all right, in three minutes I'll be whatever,

18:36

I'm just driving.

18:39

- There's the ones that are like the one time use

18:41

like sand silicate stuff.

18:43

And then there's ones that are crystal

18:44

that you like flip a coin, you break a coin in there

18:47

and you can reuse them.

18:48

- It's so true though.

18:49

It's like the three times you need it in the winter.

18:51

It's like the time when you're under the gun

18:53

from a timing perspective

18:54

and there's a bunch of ice in your windshield.

18:57

- Yep.

18:58

- I'd pay for that.

18:59

- I'm gonna put, I'm gonna buy, let's try this out Leo.

19:01

We're gonna buy some heating pads.

19:03

- I love it.

19:04

- A heated blanket.

19:05

iPad screen protectors.

19:07

- You get like a pack of 30 for like $10,

19:10

stick them on the windshield and just.

19:12

- Big old layer.

19:13

- Needs a pull tab at the end.

19:18

- Yes, every one, right?

19:20

- Yeah.

19:21

- What is the name of your idea, Leo?

19:22

What did we come up with?

19:24

- Well, it started with soldering iron windshield wipers

19:26

and ended with a lot of different not that ideas.

19:29

So I guess the aircraft de-icer, but home edition.

19:34

That's what I really want.

19:35

I want a little ride on aircraft de-icer

19:38

that I'm just spraying my car with,

19:39

like a little lawnmower thing.

19:41

(upbeat music)

19:43

All right, Scott, what do you got for us this week?

19:47

- All right, so current company I'm working at right now

19:50

has a program where they take engineers in the program

19:54

and they spread them all over the company.

19:57

They call it the RISE program

19:58

where it's essentially a version of cross training

20:00

where you take these engineers

20:02

and for the first six months,

20:03

you're gonna be working on the manufacturing line.

20:06

And then the next six months,

20:07

you're gonna be working on logistics.

20:09

And the next six months after that,

20:11

you're gonna be in the R&D department.

20:12

And they just keep moving these people around

20:14

to give them like this full breadth of knowledge

20:17

of the inner workings of the company.

20:18

And there's all these stats and things with it

20:20

about how they make just such good employees afterwards

20:24

and they really enjoy the program.

20:26

And it's just all around a good thing.

20:28

And I'm wondering, is it possible to create a program

20:31

like this for getting introed into real world jobs, I guess.

20:36

So like, instead of going to college,

20:38

you come right out of high school

20:40

and you go in this multi-industry job rotation program

20:44

that's gonna help you test out

20:46

all these different various career paths

20:48

so that you can kind of settle

20:49

into that long-term role eventually.

20:51

And I keep throwing this idea out in my mind.

20:53

There's a lot of little hurdles that you gotta get through.

20:55

But I feel like if I had an opportunity right out of school

20:59

to work as like in a restaurant

21:01

or and then work for six months

21:02

and then work as like a banker

21:04

for the next six months after that,

21:05

I would just have a much better perspective of the world

21:10

and whether the grass is greener or not in other places.

21:13

And so I'm thinking,

21:14

can we make some kind of umbrella company

21:15

that partners with a bunch of different industries?

21:18

You get paid a flat salary throughout the program.

21:21

And by the end of it,

21:21

you come out with a lot more real world experience.

21:24

And then you could add other things.

21:25

- Local businesses get interns.

21:27

- Yeah, exactly.

21:28

It could be through interns.

21:29

It could be, honestly,

21:30

interns would be a great thing for that.

21:32

- Wow.

21:33

Dude, that's really interesting, Scott.

21:35

I feel like a lot of post grads from high school too

21:38

would love to figure out that,

21:41

not like take a full gap year or two doing this.

21:45

They have, they live with their parents still probably.

21:48

They're not gonna invest in a bunch of credits

21:50

that they don't wanna use.

21:51

They'd go into college knowing what they want to do.

21:54

Like that would be huge.

21:55

- And you could tailor it to,

21:57

I wanna hit these eight rotations over the next year

22:00

or two years or something

22:01

that you think could be interesting.

22:02

And maybe if--

22:03

- My thought is before college

22:05

is when it makes the most sense.

22:07

It's like you think about like a red shirt athlete

22:10

in college as the person who takes a year off

22:12

and really like plays on the team but learns how to play.

22:15

And it's the same kind of thing here

22:16

where it's like I always tell people

22:18

I went into engineering

22:19

because I was good at math and science in high school.

22:22

And I figured, hey,

22:23

this seemed like an interesting thing to start.

22:25

And if I decide to do something different

22:27

along the way, I'll do it.

22:28

And I never really found an interesting enough a reason

22:30

not to do engineering.

22:32

But it was like I didn't opt out

22:35

when if you had a program like what you're describing,

22:38

I would have been able to opt in

22:39

to something more intriguing.

22:40

- Dang, you should, I mean, you throw this on in colleges,

22:45

like their first, your first year,

22:46

it's a five-year program, let's say,

22:48

or maybe it could be a four-year program

22:50

'cause you're saving all your,

22:52

you don't need to figure out your first year anymore,

22:54

which is just like figuring out life.

22:55

You just try things out.

22:57

Part of the college program,

22:58

it's what makes them different.

23:00

I think that would be awesome.

23:02

- The big thing with this program

23:03

and the company was all about,

23:05

they really vet the people ahead of time

23:07

and they make sure that they're go-getters

23:09

and willing to put in the work

23:10

and they're excited about new possibilities going through.

23:13

- My high school in the Genesee County

23:16

on the other side of the state

23:17

had an option what they called the Skills Center

23:20

where you could choose instead of,

23:22

I think it was one or two credits

23:24

in the middle of every other day,

23:26

you would go to another place,

23:28

like a 20, 25-minute drive away

23:30

where other area schools also sent some students

23:33

and it was like an on-the-job,

23:35

interni-apprenticeship type thing.

23:38

They had a few different programs

23:39

like car mechanic and cosmetology and a few other things.

23:42

Instead of taking classes, you just kinda--

23:45

- Mechanics is a good one.

23:46

- Yeah, it was a half-step above like woodshop

23:48

where you were actually doing something

23:49

a little more career-oriented.

23:51

It seems like even high schoolers

23:53

would benefit from what you're talking about

23:54

where you can opt in where instead of taking eight classes

23:59

or six classes, you take five or one or two less

24:03

and then every day, every other day, you go and do this.

24:07

You're just at the bank for three days a week

24:10

for a couple hours.

24:11

That's a great way to like,

24:12

yeah, it's sort of like the concept

24:14

of the 100-level classes at college

24:16

where you sort of, I'm gonna take intro to psychology

24:18

to see if I like the idea of psychology majors.

24:20

Oh, that wasn't for me at all.

24:22

I'm gonna take survey of engineering

24:25

to see if that's for me but like on the job.

24:27

That's super cool.

24:28

- But at college, it costs you thousands of dollars, right?

24:31

Where it's like if you can do it at a company

24:33

and still add value to the company,

24:35

you get paid a little bit for it, right?

24:36

So it's like, I don't know, if I run a bank

24:39

and I have somebody that's at least willing

24:40

to learn about banking,

24:42

even if they're changing light bulbs

24:43

where they're around the bankers,

24:45

they still get a chance to learn

24:46

and they're doing value-add work

24:48

and so it creates that win-win relationship.

24:50

- You could also time it for a different industry

24:53

seasonally like this restaurant happens to have,

24:56

gets crazy packed in the summertime

24:58

so we're gonna have our program rotation

25:00

during the summer or something.

25:01

So we have that extra staff.

25:03

- This seems like a feature that a temping agency

25:05

could just like tack on to what they already do.

25:08

- Oh yeah.

25:09

- Instead of me just sticking you in this place

25:11

for a five-year contract doing coding or whatever,

25:14

accounting, you are like rotated around.

25:18

They already have the connections,

25:19

they've got the supply of people to send around, win-win.

25:23

- Yeah.

25:24

- The companies are kind of knowing

25:25

they're getting someone short-term

25:26

so they plan a variety of things

25:28

as part of like the agreement with the agency.

25:30

- Yeah, I think the value-add though,

25:32

like would you want an engineering intern

25:35

that you have trying to doing work for you

25:38

every four weeks come in and you teach them everything

25:42

and then by the time they're ready to do something like--

25:45

- Yeah, the training aspect on that is

25:47

you don't wanna have to retrain every single time.

25:50

- But if the only goal is to get them to know

25:52

what's happening at the business,

25:54

it's like when I applied for my internship,

25:56

the company told me,

25:58

one of the questions I had in my interview was,

26:00

"Hey, would you be willing to change the light bulbs

26:02

"if you came here as an intern?"

26:04

And I was like, "Yeah, as long as I get to hang out

26:06

"next to the engineers and learn what they're doing

26:08

"in engineering, for sure."

26:10

And it's a little bit of that, right?

26:11

Where it's like, I'll take out the garbage,

26:13

as long as I get to hear what the guy is talking about

26:15

that does the thing,

26:16

then I'll hang out there for a while,

26:19

especially if you give me, whatever,

26:20

15 bucks an hour or whatever the case may be.

26:22

- It is so hard to get the day in the life

26:25

like summary of what some of these career paths are.

26:28

- When I was in high school, it was gonna be engineering

26:31

or the other thing my skills told me I would be good at

26:34

was sports statistician.

26:36

And I was like, "Well, I love sports."

26:37

I would totally be down to be a sports statistician

26:40

and then come to find out that the world of computers,

26:43

we're gonna take over sports stats

26:45

and that would have been a terrible decision by me.

26:48

- Yeah, or the jobs like five,

26:50

there's like 10 or 30 gurus and statisticians

26:53

that beat the computers or make the algorithms, right?

26:56

You gotta be one of those guys.

26:57

- Yeah, yeah.

26:59

Wasn't gonna be that guy.

27:00

- Sounds like you're well-poised to be the programmer

27:02

of the statistician software.

27:04

You are the engineer that builds the next great algorithm.

27:11

- Scott, this is a really interesting, cool,

27:14

did you come up with this yourself?

27:16

- This is where I'm currently contracted out to right now.

27:19

They have this internally

27:20

and I just am watching these young engineers

27:23

go through this program and how happy they are

27:25

and excited to go to the next rotation

27:27

and what do I get this time?

27:29

But they still have a comfortable living.

27:31

They're still on salary through the whole time.

27:34

So there's no stress about job changes.

27:35

It's just learning and they love it

27:37

'cause they're just there to learn.

27:40

- Whoa.

27:40

- I wanna bring that into real life though.

27:43

Take away all the scariness of job changing

27:46

so you can actually experience that.

27:48

- Dude, this is great.

27:50

Like we should make this, Scott.

27:51

Or somebody needs to build this one.

27:55

Like if somebody already has the resources,

27:58

the capabilities, like this is just an add-on

28:01

to what they already do.

28:02

I think the market could be flooded for this

28:04

'cause you have your temp agencies,

28:06

you have your colleges, you have your high schools.

28:08

- Here's the deal.

28:09

Would colleges pay for this?

28:10

If you went through this program

28:11

between high school and college,

28:13

let's say there was a semester

28:14

where you go through this program,

28:15

it's like would colleges be willing to offer some payback

28:20

for you putting people through this program

28:22

and validating the fact

28:23

that they're gonna be a good college student?

28:25

- Great idea.

28:26

- It's almost like a study abroad program,

28:28

but just here, yeah.

28:29

Like an added on service.

28:31

- There's tons of grants that we use at our company too

28:34

for training and stuff that like the state of Michigan

28:36

will pay for you to take X classes and whatnot.

28:40

I'm sure that there's ways that you could finagle language

28:42

so the government could pay for chunks of this.

28:45

- Yeah, I think the Career Development Center

28:47

or whatever, the one responsible

28:49

for putting jobs in front of you, right?

28:52

I feel like that's part of the value add for colleges.

28:55

I think there might be like,

28:57

the more people that get into the front door,

28:59

when they leave a college, they're more likely to,

29:02

maybe there's some sign-on bonuses or something for that.

29:05

- These companies could recruit

29:06

right out of the program too.

29:07

Like, hey, you're good at this.

29:09

I think you'll be great.

29:10

I'll pay you this much salary.

29:11

Just ditch this program and come work for me right now.

29:14

It's like a way to interview people live

29:16

without any obligation.

29:18

- It's the internship to employee pipeline,

29:20

but you get the rotating buffet

29:23

like you're at a sushi restaurant

29:24

with the conveyor belts of employees coming by.

29:27

- I don't wanna get too high level,

29:28

but it's like it speaks to where the world's moving to,

29:31

where it's like you used to need the four-year degree

29:33

to get to the finish line,

29:34

but there's so many ways to gain knowledge nowadays

29:36

where if you had a program like this

29:38

and a company that's willing to help you

29:40

kind of along the way,

29:41

you're 90% of the way there

29:42

and knowing what you need to know.

29:44

- Yeah, and you have the relationships to talk to

29:46

as you're going through college.

29:48

I feel like the college academia bubbles bursting soon.

29:54

- Shrinking.

29:55

- Shrinking, yeah.

29:56

Like remote schooling is becoming more popular.

30:00

- Trade schools.

30:02

- Yeah, trade school.

30:03

This'll be interesting.

30:06

You may launch it and by the time you launch it,

30:09

just the college, the whole landscape changes.

30:12

- Disrupt the industry, guys.

30:14

Disrupt higher education, come on.

30:16

- Hey, Billy, do you wanna study abroad in Italy

30:19

or do you wanna work in the back of a restaurant

30:21

for the next 30 years?

30:22

- That's a pitch.

30:23

(laughing)

30:25

(upbeat music)

30:27

- All right, Russell, what do you got this week?

30:32

- All right, so a little about me.

30:34

I have a 3D printer

30:36

and it goes unused a significant amount of time, we'll say.

30:41

- So say we all.

30:42

- And it just, I mean, I feel like if you own a 3D printer,

30:45

you kinda have this like love it

30:47

and you use it all the time

30:48

and you pause and you kinda let it sit

30:50

and you're like, what do I print?

30:51

I don't know, the world's my oyster,

30:53

but I have no shells to oyster hooks.

30:58

Okay, that's not a,

30:59

world is my oyster,

31:01

but I just don't know what crackers to put on it.

31:04

(laughing)

31:07

Anyways, that's not the analogy I'm looking for.

31:08

Yeah, that's what they say.

31:09

Yeah, it's the 3D printer community.

31:11

- It's 3D printer lingo.

31:12

- I'm sure.

31:13

Yeah, everybody that is listening to this podcast

31:15

knows about the 3D printer community.

31:17

So basically they're really popular.

31:21

These new ones are really good

31:22

and really easy to work with.

31:24

And I guess now you have hundreds, maybe thousands,

31:29

maybe dozens of us out there that have 3D printers

31:33

or hundreds of thousands of us

31:34

that just let it sit, it sits around.

31:37

And I would love to, let's say,

31:39

be a part of a network that allowed me to use my 3D printer

31:43

for things that would contribute to something,

31:46

whether that's manufacturing products

31:48

for a nonprofit, a for-profit or whatever.

31:50

And there's some give and take sort of scenario for this.

31:54

- Oh, I see where you're going.

31:55

- If I dial in my printer

31:57

and maybe I work with this company and set the profile,

32:01

like there's a lot of ways to really automate this.

32:05

- You get some credits to like spend into the network

32:08

if you need extra parts.

32:10

- Yes, or they send me a spool of filaments,

32:14

maybe half a spool,

32:16

and I have to print a certain amount of parts

32:18

and it gets sent to some QA facility or whatever

32:22

to make it happen, right?

32:23

Now you have like really cool mass manufacturing

32:28

at prototype manufacturing, we'll say, at scale

32:32

to meet like a demand for a hundred pieces.

32:36

Like Scott, your IDLE-TC product, right?

32:39

Like you could post it to the network.

32:41

Anybody that has these filaments

32:43

and all these other things can send you,

32:47

or somebody might buy the filament

32:48

'cause I'm like, "I want that marble filament,

32:50

"but I don't have a reason to."

32:51

So I will print three IDLE-TCs, make half my money back.

32:55

And now I've got like-

32:56

- Make all your money back at that.

32:57

- Discounted spool, right?

33:00

Yeah, there's some shipping stuff and challenges,

33:02

but now it's kind of like tapping into this network

33:05

of builders wanting to support each other too

33:09

that can use their 3D printer for something else

33:11

than a piece of furniture.

33:13

- Yeah, I don't wanna pay for an injection mold tool,

33:16

but I also don't have the ability to print

33:20

a thousand of these at home.

33:21

I could just tap into this network,

33:23

have them print it all across the country,

33:25

they ship it to a central facility,

33:27

and then I get a box with my a thousand prints in it,

33:30

all for much less of the price than the injection mold tool.

33:33

- It's Uber for shapeways.

33:35

- Uber for shapeways.

33:36

- Yeah, I think the shipping logistics gets expensive.

33:40

- Maybe, I mean, a lot of plastic stuff's pretty lightweight.

33:43

Most of these places go by weight, it wouldn't be terrible.

33:46

- Yeah, you're probably shipping regardless, right?

33:47

So it's like you have the discount in shipping costs,

33:51

you also have the fact that 3D prints can do stuff

33:54

that like tool parts can't do.

33:56

You can print things that you can't do

33:58

with plastic injection mold,

34:00

and so that's like an extra value add.

34:02

I think it's a huge win.

34:03

- Oh, I didn't think about that.

34:05

Yeah, that's a good, nice.

34:08

- The print in place stuff that you can get

34:10

where like all the pieces are already snapped together

34:12

and stuff, yeah.

34:13

- Yeah, I had a meeting with a client recently actually,

34:16

and we were talking about doing,

34:17

it was actually, it was metal parts,

34:19

but we were talking about doing like metal castings

34:21

or how do you do forged parts,

34:24

and he goes, "What if we 3D printed it in metal?"

34:26

And I was like, "We haven't really worked

34:27

"in 3D printed metal."

34:28

And he goes, "Well, I'm partnered with a company

34:30

"that does 3D printed metal.

34:32

"Would you be willing to look into that?"

34:33

I was like, "Oh, that's the coolest thing ever."

34:36

Like if you had access to three of those organizations,

34:40

now all of a sudden you could hit your numbers

34:42

with 3D printed metal parts,

34:44

and now even metal parts are not off the table.

34:46

So I think the world is kind of at your fingertips

34:48

on this one.

34:49

- Is this on the blockchain then?

34:51

(laughing)

34:53

- Got my print coins. - Heck yeah.

34:55

- I earned some print coins by letting my printer

34:57

churn out whatever something sent to it,

34:58

and then now I can spend my print coins

35:00

to make someone else make stuff.

35:02

That's fun.

35:03

- And the thing is if people got paid for it,

35:05

if people got paid to utilize their printers,

35:07

now all of a sudden they're incentivized,

35:08

like you say, to purchase a printer

35:09

where they weren't before.

35:11

- Like how your Tesla's gonna make money

35:12

because it'll go around and be a robo-taxi

35:14

when you're not using it.

35:15

- Yes, yes.

35:16

- Any day now, Elon.

35:17

- Is that, you're saying blockchain,

35:22

and it reminds me, it makes me think

35:23

that it's kind of blockchain-y, right?

35:25

It's like, oh, there's a network of prints,

35:28

I buy, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna claim

35:30

three of these, print 'em, send it,

35:33

it's, you know, maybe the tokens

35:35

or the dollar amount or whatever's up in the air,

35:38

but yeah, maybe that's a thing.

35:42

- Minting the coin is something, yeah,

35:44

you only mine when your printer

35:46

is actually doing physical work.

35:48

- I don't know about the coin part, but yeah.

35:50

(laughing)

35:52

- It just screams crypto for some reason,

35:54

I don't know why. - Yeah, it does.

35:55

- Decentralized manufacturing, right?

35:59

That's our company title.

36:00

- What about maybe like farmer co-op,

36:02

but printing, maybe give it a little more

36:04

wholesome bent than blockchain crypto, bro.

36:07

- Yeah, we've kind of burned all those buzzwords

36:09

in the last couple years. - Or organic printing farms.

36:12

- Yeah. - Organic printing farms.

36:14

Made with real organic plastic.

36:16

- Free-range grass-fed.

36:18

This is a free-range 3D print.

36:20

(laughing)

36:22

- Well, PLA is made from corn, right?

36:23

I may be a simple man working on the printer farm.

36:28

It's not much, but it's honest work.

36:31

- Yeah, you know what's funny?

36:32

I think a lot of the 3D printing community too

36:34

is deep in the figuring out how to create models

36:38

to get cheap prints, filaments,

36:41

and there's just a lot of,

36:42

1% of people that have 3D printers

36:45

have 10 or 15 of them,

36:48

and so they're printing random stuff.

36:50

I think they would benefit the most

36:52

and also be the biggest earners, right?

36:55

I mean, like Scott-- - Print coin whales.

36:58

- Yeah, like, would you, or I guess in our day,

37:01

would we have used this, or would you use this now?

37:04

Like, if IdleTC could just produce 13 of them outsource.

37:08

- If I had the sales for that,

37:10

that I would need to get multiple printers,

37:13

then I would absolutely consider that.

37:15

- Well, in the Ringcam days, I remember going over

37:17

and you guys would just have that one printer

37:19

doing its four little special brackets that you needed

37:22

over and over and over. - Oh, that poor printer.

37:25

- Someone would walk by it and scrape off

37:27

whatever just finished and start the same job again

37:29

over and over.

37:30

If you could have that one part printed,

37:33

you know, 200 times across the nation

37:36

by everyone doing one job and sending it to you,

37:38

that'd be pretty cool. - That would be a lot faster

37:39

than one $200 printer bot printing straight

37:42

for four and a half years.

37:44

- I'll say too, like, my oldest son

37:48

is really into Pokemon right now,

37:49

and he's discovered the value of generative AI.

37:53

And so he's been making his own images

37:56

of his own creations of Pokemon,

37:58

and like writing in Microsoft Word

38:00

the descriptions of them.

38:01

And for his birthday, and I'm hoping this episode

38:02

doesn't air before his birthday comes,

38:04

because I've bought him his Pokemon cards,

38:07

like I had them custom made. - Genius.

38:08

- But if I could have like a 3D print

38:10

of his like Pokemon creations that I could just source,

38:13

I don't have a 3D printer at my house,

38:15

but if I could do that, even that like as a one-off

38:18

would be super intriguing to me.

38:20

And so if that's like so readily available

38:23

that you could just send an order and have a one-off print,

38:25

I think that's a whole new market

38:27

that opens up because of this.

38:28

- And yeah, Shapeways and a few others exist

38:30

where it's the business

38:32

that has the industrial machines for this,

38:34

but there's something wholesome about it

38:35

being like the guy down the street.

38:37

- Yeah, totally. - And you're kind of

38:38

peer-to-peer. - What is the closest

38:39

3D printer I could get access to?

38:41

- Oh, that's good. - Oh, it's a good house

38:42

is down for me. - Yeah.

38:44

- It saves on shipping costs,

38:45

you can just drop it off at some point or pick it up.

38:48

- That was something that I was,

38:49

yeah, the elephant in the room for me the whole time

38:51

was, oh man, there's so much more like carbon wasted

38:54

by making all this stuff jet across the country.

38:57

Like, can we somehow make, yeah, local, that's the sell.

39:00

You send it to the network and they say,

39:02

yep, down the street, I'll meet you downtown

39:04

on my lunch break or come on by my house,

39:06

it's on the porch.

39:07

Yeah, I love that. - That's so smart.

39:08

- Then you learn about your neighbors a little more too.

39:11

- This is like a real thing

39:12

with like just regular printers.

39:14

The print.me, do you know what I'm talking about?

39:16

- Send my boarding pass to my neighbor.

39:17

- I don't own a printer anymore.

39:19

When you desperately need a printer,

39:20

you go to Simpatico Coffee, okay,

39:24

and they have a booth called Print Me

39:27

and you pay $10 and you print.

39:30

Yeah, it's the minimum amount to print one piece of paper

39:34

so that I can get this thing signed, right?

39:36

- Wow. - Spin on that.

39:38

- They better notarize it too.

39:40

- Yeah, I mean, in a way it's validated

39:41

with this regular piece of paper printing.

39:45

You can kind of take that same aspect.

39:47

They got a map, you can see where the printers are

39:50

and you can go to a coworking space

39:51

or a coffee shop or whatever.

39:54

You can apply that, I love that.

39:55

The local idea of, yeah, there's 30 3D printers

39:59

in your area willing to print your print.

40:01

Here are the prices, here's their ratings, right?

40:04

Like you can do all that stuff.

40:06

What printer they have if you wanna get in details of it,

40:09

but I mean, shoot, like Scott would beat me every day

40:12

on that system because he's got the AMS

40:14

and he's got the killer 3D printer.

40:17

I got like the, I'll undercut him on price, but.

40:20

(laughing)

40:22

- He mints more coin than you,

40:24

more print coin on the blockchain.

40:26

- I guess too, it makes me think,

40:28

what if I could buy direct?

40:31

For example, you're going on these websites

40:32

and you're looking to get a 3D print model.

40:35

Rather than like trying to figure out

40:37

how to download and print, there's a button

40:39

that's just buy now.

40:40

You click it on every site that hosts

40:43

a bunch of these 3D prints.

40:44

- That's cool.

40:45

- Buy now, and then it lists it in the network

40:47

and somebody could claim it and then ship from my printer.

40:52

- And it's an auction system where like,

40:55

yeah, I love the claiming idea.

40:56

You put the thing out there, there's a 30 day or whatever.

40:59

You say how long you, how urgently you need it,

41:02

and then people can like wait for the price

41:04

to slowly go down and then they bid on it

41:07

and they get like however many coins

41:09

for printing that thing for you.

41:10

And then you get like a natural market.

41:12

Oh, that's fun.

41:13

- Yeah, I mean, something like that, right?

41:15

Like that would be cool.

41:17

- Not what you were thinking, but yeah.

41:18

- I love that though, Leo.

41:19

- That went way better than what I was originally thinking.

41:22

So I'm all about it.

41:23

- You know what I mean though?

41:24

Like you go and you say, I wanna do this job,

41:26

my maximum I'd pay is this much money.

41:28

And then it slowly like lowers until someone claims it

41:31

and then that's how much it's worth to them, you know?

41:33

That's cool.

41:33

- Dude.

41:34

- Like a reverse auction.

41:36

I would use something peer to peer co-op

41:38

that benefits my neighbor instead of,

41:40

once in a while I do ship off.

41:41

Like I designed dog tags for my dogs years ago

41:44

and 3D printed a couple of prototypes.

41:46

I liked how they looked, sent it to Shapeways

41:48

to get it printed in metal.

41:50

And it was, you know, 30 or 40 bucks to get each one of them.

41:53

So not the cheapest option, but it's kind of wholesome

41:56

to have like the thing that I know that I made, right?

41:58

And I totally would send that to the business

42:01

that lives in my town that just happens to have

42:03

one of those that they're not using right now.

42:05

- That's really cool.

42:06

- So during the height of COVID,

42:07

I got on a web call with a friend of mine

42:11

and he was helping my son experience 3D printing

42:15

was like this kind of experiential

42:17

because we're all locked in our houses, can't experience it.

42:20

So he said, I'm going back to the Pokemon thing.

42:22

He said, "Hey, draw a Pokemon and I'll 3D print it for you."

42:26

And he drew a Pokemon and he was like maybe six at the time.

42:29

And it was a poor, poor drawing.

42:32

And he got 3D printed and my son saw the 3D print.

42:37

And it was that moment where you're like,

42:38

this is incredible.

42:39

Like he gets to see his creation be turned into reality.

42:42

And he looked at me and he said,

42:45

"Hey dad, why are my drawings so bad?"

42:47

(laughing)

42:50

- There's a lot of revelations in that day.

42:52

Childhood innocence shattered.

42:57

- Yeah.

42:58

(upbeat music)

43:01

- Robbie, let's hear it.

43:04

Let's hear your best idea ever.

43:06

- Yeah, man.

43:07

I've got a few of them, but I'm a physical product guy.

43:10

So I'm gonna hit you guys the physical product idea

43:12

that you can riff on a little bit.

43:14

- Excellent.

43:14

- A couple of Genesis stories here.

43:15

So one is my kids, I have three of them.

43:19

I mentioned that maybe earlier.

43:20

Always, they get really into kind of the pop culture

43:25

and social media and the YouTube personalities.

43:29

And I don't wanna like,

43:31

I don't wanna hurt the viewership of Spitball here,

43:34

but if there's any popular YouTubers watching right now,

43:37

I'm sorry.

43:38

They all put out total crap when it comes to like,

43:41

Christmas gifts and things like that.

43:44

You can buy like a mystery ball and it's a big plastic ball

43:48

and it has plastic bags inside.

43:50

And the plastic bags inside have crappy plastic toys

43:54

and they sell it for $50 and it's like $5 worth of stuff.

43:59

And they ask for it.

44:00

It's like, I'm trying to be a good dad.

44:02

So I'm gonna buy it, but you know, ahead of time,

44:04

it's not gonna be worth its weight, right?

44:06

And so that's one moment.

44:07

And then the second moment is I've done this a number

44:09

of times and my kids get Christmas gifts.

44:11

And then we clean out the toy room in order to make room

44:15

for the new crap that we just bought for Christmas.

44:18

And in cleaning out the toy room,

44:20

they discover a toy that they had two or three years ago.

44:23

They haven't touched.

44:25

And that turns into the toy they play with

44:27

for the next two or three weeks.

44:28

And it's like, come on, man.

44:30

Like I just bought hundreds of dollars

44:33

worth of new Christmas toys.

44:34

Now we have the old one.

44:35

So my idea is this, a large toy box

44:38

that's holds all the kids toys over the past X amount

44:41

of time and when you hit a button on the toy box,

44:45

it presents you with one toy from the past

44:48

and you can pick it up and play with it.

44:50

You can vote on it and say, I like this toy

44:53

or I don't like this toy.

44:55

And if you vote that you don't like it,

44:57

it puts it in a recycle bin.

44:59

And if you do like it, it puts it back in the,

45:02

I will play with this later bin.

45:03

And it actually sort--

45:04

- The trap door underneath it.

45:05

- It sorts your toy room for you.

45:07

I think the MVP for it is all downvoted toys go into a box,

45:12

all upvoted toys go into their own holding compartment

45:15

and then it presents it for you.

45:17

I think there could be nuanced ways to deal with it

45:19

in terms of the amount of times things get downvoted.

45:22

You could do like the Pandora system

45:24

where you get a certain amount of downvotes at a time.

45:26

- Or it's how long it spent out like this one.

45:29

Wow, you guys got like four weeks out of this one

45:31

where that one was only,

45:32

you got bored out of it after two days.

45:33

- Totally. - Yeah.

45:34

- But the bottom line is I want a toy box

45:36

that separates out the bad toys I need to get rid of

45:39

and upvotes the good toys so we pull them out

45:41

at the right time so they don't have to buy junk

45:43

from my kids every Christmas.

45:45

- Robbie, this rules.

45:47

I have a four and two year old also.

45:49

And we have a thing where about every week,

45:52

maybe every two weeks, we do a toy rotation, quote unquote.

45:56

We're getting rid of all the trains.

45:57

They're going away for many months.

45:59

We're gonna get new stuff out of the closet

46:01

and we have like a subset of stuff out at any given time.

46:04

The kids feel less overwhelmed

46:05

and we get that effect you're talking about often.

46:08

When we're about to like, oh God,

46:10

I'm gonna be gone at a conference for four days

46:11

or oh man, the kids are sick or whatever it is,

46:14

we just, let's just do a rotation

46:16

and we'll get that like immediate hit of a new thing

46:19

they haven't seen in a while and it always works.

46:22

Productizing that is genius.

46:22

- I was picturing a toy bin with a kid sitting in front of it

46:25

swiping left or right like Tinder.

46:28

- Slapping into a Power Rangers, yes train.

46:30

- On the iPad.

46:31

- Are we training the kids for Russ's left corner?

46:36

- That's right.

46:36

Do you love this toy or do you not?

46:38

- This Marble Run set is three and a half stars, yeah.

46:44

I think the ideal version of it though

46:46

is some version of, you know, the useless mechanism

46:49

where it's like you put something on top of the box

46:51

and then you hit the button

46:52

and like a hand comes out and grabs it

46:53

or like the finger comes out and like hits the off button.

46:56

Yeah, it's like, it is kind of that thing

46:57

where it's like you put something on the toy box

47:00

and then you hit a button

47:01

and then it grabs it and pulls it away

47:03

and based on how you vote on it,

47:04

it like sorts it in different areas.

47:06

- A reverse vending machine, that's genius.

47:08

- Yeah, exactly.

47:10

- I love that.

47:11

- And then when they hit the button

47:12

and they're like, I want a new toy,

47:13

then it does, it kind of does what you say, Leo,

47:15

or it like gives them something new and interesting

47:17

maybe they haven't seen for a year or six months.

47:20

- It's doing the sorting algorithm of like,

47:22

here's one that I know you haven't touched in a long time.

47:24

Let's see how well it works.

47:26

What do you rate it?

47:27

Yes or no thumbs up.

47:28

How long do you actually keep it out?

47:29

Yes, that's great.

47:30

It's kind of like the book idea.

47:32

So a couple of episodes ago,

47:32

I pitched a smarter bookshelf

47:35

where like it would keep track of what books,

47:39

where I know they get put away

47:41

and how often I've taken them out to read them and stuff.

47:44

I also want this with my closet.

47:45

I haven't mentioned this as a pitch,

47:47

but this is something that's been on my list.

47:48

I want exactly what you're describing,

47:50

but every shirt, pants, sweatshirt that I own

47:53

has like an NFC tag on it or something.

47:55

And I know how long it's been since I've worn it.

47:58

And I don't wear that shirt very often

48:00

so I can get rid of it.

48:00

I want the toy bin,

48:02

but for knowing I actually don't wear that shirt.

48:04

- Yeah, scan yourself as you walk out each day.

48:08

I like that.

48:09

(laughing)

48:10

- You wear that sweatshirt every three days.

48:12

- So you don't like NFC tags or barcodes on a toy, right?

48:15

And every time they take it,

48:16

they just scan upvote, the upvote scanner,

48:19

the downvote scanner, right?

48:21

And now you have a log of all your barcodes

48:23

and your inventory tracker.

48:25

- I don't even know if you need like NFC tags on it.

48:28

I was just with Robbie the other day

48:30

and we were at like this little kiosk.

48:33

You could purchase food in this building

48:35

and there was no attendant there.

48:36

It was just like a platform

48:38

and you put whatever food you wanted to purchase on it

48:41

and it instantly rang it up with a camera system

48:43

and said, "Here's your total swipe here."

48:45

You can do this all with cameras.

48:47

- Oh, I guess that's true.

48:48

Just throw an old smartphone on it,

48:50

run the app and just maybe run that.

48:52

- Or like a self checkout

48:54

when you go to pick the produce.

48:55

T-R-A-O, train set, got it.

48:57

- And is there a way to do like an exchange

48:59

or something on the back end

49:01

where like all of our bad toys now just get put in boxes

49:03

and like, you know, given away for free or donated.

49:06

But it's like, if you have the same system

49:08

as other people, could you say,

49:09

"Hey, our kids think these toys are garbage.

49:11

Your kids think these toys are garbage."

49:13

But I think my kid would actually like to try that.

49:15

- Based on the data of what they like.

49:16

'Cause you have all that now, that's a great idea.

49:18

- Yeah.

49:19

- It's like Storazon, but for kids.

49:21

- Yeah, it's Storazon.

49:22

- A few episodes ago, Russell pitched an idea

49:24

that I haven't stopped thinking about

49:26

where you've got your own storage unit

49:28

but you don't know where it is.

49:30

And instead it's like things get whisked away

49:32

and inventoried and you can check them back out

49:34

from your own library of stuff

49:36

but they're just being stored away.

49:37

- Delivered to you by Prime.

49:38

- And delivered to you in two days shipping.

49:39

Yeah, you have Fisher Price is my first Storazon.

49:43

(laughing)

49:45

- Guys, I have on my ideas list, toy rotation shared.

49:50

A shared toy rotation where you literally,

49:52

I didn't want to say--

49:53

- There you go.

49:54

- Yeah.

49:55

- Clearly this is it.

49:55

- Yeah, it's it.

49:56

Like you just, you send it to the network

49:58

of share economy, right?

49:59

And it's like you have your toy library, right?

50:02

And you're giving donations to it

50:03

and you're pulling random toys to pull from.

50:06

But--

50:07

- You lice all the crap out of that thing

50:09

the second it comes out of the box.

50:11

You just gotta de-lice it.

50:13

Ugh.

50:13

(laughing)

50:16

That was in someone's mouth like an hour ago for sure.

50:19

- It makes me think though,

50:21

where do all the toys that go?

50:23

Like I feel like the amount of toys that I've gotten

50:26

and I must give them all away or like,

50:29

but like, or maybe I just throw them out.

50:31

But like there have been so many children before my kid

50:34

and I think how much crap they've generated.

50:38

Like why, like is this all living in Goodwill

50:41

or has Goodwill said any kid toy

50:43

would just send it right to the trash?

50:46

'Cause there must be hundreds of thousands of pounds

50:49

locally every day.

50:51

Just, it should just go to a toy library

50:53

or something, right?

50:54

- I think there's way more landfills than you're aware of.

50:58

And there's also way more children being born

51:01

than you're aware of that get secondhand toys, right?

51:04

Like there's a lot of kids living with secondhand toys.

51:06

My kids are playing with stuff that I played with

51:09

when I was a kid.

51:10

And I think that some of it is that, right?

51:12

- Us too.

51:13

- But yeah, a lot of it's garbage.

51:14

It's garbage.

51:15

There's, let's not walk around this topic

51:17

that it's all plastic waste.

51:19

- We should, what is it, break them down,

51:21

throw it into my 3D printer network

51:23

and now we got plastic, recycle, melted down into PLA.

51:27

- Turn it into spools of filament.

51:28

- We'll melt them really hot

51:29

and then we'll clean our windshields with it.

51:31

(laughing)

51:33

- In a circle.

51:34

(laughing)

51:36

- Yes, man, yes.

51:38

I wonder too, like what's cool about your idea, Robbie,

51:40

is that not only do they pull it off the shelf,

51:42

it sounds like they're also putting a toy away.

51:45

So like that is ingenious.

51:48

- It's a little bit of the monkey in the cage

51:50

learning to like press the button to get a reward.

51:52

Like if I want to play with a new toy,

51:54

I got to clean up this set and put it back away.

51:56

You're like conditioning them to keep things clean, you know?

51:59

- I didn't want to pitch it that way,

52:00

but it is totally a psychological pick up your toys.

52:05

You can use the awesome toy box if you pick up your toys.

52:10

- Give a toy, take a toy, right?

52:12

- Well, it's not my rule.

52:13

Yeah, that's how the box works.

52:15

You got to put the whole train set back into the box,

52:17

otherwise it won't spit out a new fun thing to play with.

52:19

- That's right.

52:20

- You're not the bad guy.

52:20

- That's just how it goes, sorry.

52:21

- Brilliant.

52:22

- It would also teach your kids how to hack the system

52:24

'cause they would like keep the good toys outside the box

52:28

and never put them away.

52:29

So you'd be teaching your children

52:31

probably nefarious activities, but.

52:33

- Fill it full of shoes and stuff,

52:36

trying to get it to spit out their toys.

52:36

- Just Indiana Jones-ing it with a different object

52:39

of similar weight.

52:40

- You go to grab the recycling box

52:42

and it's all your clothes that they've thrown in there.

52:45

- Who put a bag of pennies in here?

52:47

- There's my wallet.

52:47

(laughing)

52:50

- Yeah, right.

52:51

(laughing)

52:53

- They're looking for that one toy

52:54

and they just go through all of them at once

52:56

and they're just like, nope, nope, nope, nope.

52:58

Oh, the toy's not in this.

53:00

So I guess.

53:00

- Oh, that's true.

53:01

(laughing)

53:02

- Yeah.

53:03

(laughing)

53:04

- Throw off all the data.

53:05

- The algorithm could account for that.

53:05

- It's true, you can only do like three toys an hour.

53:08

Just, it locks, right?

53:10

- There's gotta be the like optimization algorithms

53:13

out there where it, I don't know.

53:16

How do you, it's sorting algorithms.

53:17

How do you take this list of things

53:19

and put them in order of most favorite to least favorite?

53:21

You gotta like throw some ones

53:23

that you think might be duds out there,

53:24

mix them in with the ones that are classics

53:26

that are always a big hit, you know?

53:27

- Yeah, there's gotta be a way to like force rank them too

53:29

if you like have two toys,

53:31

like put the one you don't want back.

53:33

Yeah, there's a lot.

53:34

I think there's a lot of ways to do it.

53:35

- How many times is something repeat dispensed

53:38

before it like loses its veneer and shelf life?

53:41

And yeah, there's so much interesting stats.

53:44

- I like the Pandora method of like,

53:46

you get three down votes, you know?

53:49

And then like you're stuck with this toy

53:50

if you don't like it.

53:52

Yeah, exactly.

53:53

Yeah.

53:54

But Russell, you're right.

53:55

I fear that if you open up the recycling piece,

53:58

it's gonna have like the Brussels sprouts

54:00

you tried to get your kids to eat a month ago

54:03

that they just shoved into a toy box.

54:05

(laughing)

54:06

- Gotta check it regularly, yeah.

54:08

Well, thank you very much for listening, everybody.

54:10

We hope you enjoyed yourself.

54:11

And thank you so much, Robbie.

54:12

Man, I'm gonna be thinking about that all week now.

54:15

- Thanks guys.

54:16

I appreciate you having me on.

54:17

It was a fun time.

54:17

- Dude, come back anytime.

54:18

I hear you have more ideas.

54:20

Our website is Spitball.show.

54:22

There you can find links to our YouTube channel,

54:24

all you recent Google podcast refugees.

54:27

We've got our shows on YouTube now.

54:28

All their social media, follow us there.

54:30

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54:32

Email us questions, feedback, ideas,

54:34

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54:35

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54:36

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54:39

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54:40

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54:42

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54:45

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54:47

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54:50

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54:51

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54:52

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54:54

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54:56

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54:58

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54:59

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55:01

That would really help other people find the show.

55:03

New episode is coming out in two weeks.

55:05

We will see you then.

55:06

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55:09

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