It is hard for me to put into words the different emotions that this event brought on. If you would have asked be prior to the event if I felt that this would be a “life changer” the answer would have been without a doubt no. While looking back on it I believe that is exactly what happened.

Before I go into my personal reflections a de-brief for those who weren’t there is probably the right way to start.

The event was a build challenge where we had to build something to move a person. We decided early on that we wanted to “go big or go home” The latter turned out to be true. For my robot Folks, we attempted to build a 6foot x 8foot, 1000lb swerve drive with a playground on top. The fact that we were able to build this in 72 hours is still shocking to me. Although we finished our plan and were able to build a cool device we were lacking those extra few hours of tweaking required to make it a show stopper. We literally finished the wiring and fabrication as the time hit zero in a what hopefully will be some dramatic TV. Immediately following the completion we had to put our creations on trucks to go over to the public part of Red Bull creation. During this event we did a public showing of our semi-functional device and then immediately following the event cut our creation into pieces. We were told information which turned out to be false about them trashing creations that were not dealt with immediately. The P^3 (play powered pod) is gone but the front and back modules are in storage so we could re-build it, still a week later we are deciding the fate of the remains of our creation.

From a build point of view what we did could (and probably should) be considered a failure. We didn’t win or place and with such high expectations that we set for ourselves going into the event it is hard to look at it from any other perspective. On the flip side I got much more than a piece of hardware and some cash from the event. I learned that there are many communities beyond robotics that look at things the same way that we do. The cooperation and willingness to help between the teams was all there and many friends were made. Additionally the build allowed me to push myself in a way that I haven’t done in a long time (while FIRST robots are a challenge it is a different time period and different skill set). Josh from IEEE Spectrum Magazine was following us during the build and put together a nice video talking about the competition featuring us.

So as I eluded to I consider this event to be a life changer for me. For the longest time I have found myself to be stuck in a routine that doesn’t involve thinking creatively outside of work, or trying to personally improve myself. My whole life growing up I was constantly trying to push myself to be more than I am in many ways. I used to try to live outside of my comfort zone, because that is where you can explore your true potential. Too many people (myself included these past few years) are just satisfied with the status quo, accepting reality for what it is and not what it could be. This event was a wake up call, an eye opener, a kick in the pants, or whatever metaphor you would like, either way I am motivated now and feel great!

Christina and I have decided to try and continuously improve ourselves through learning new skills, working on new projects and making a conscious effort not to waste a moment of our lives. The first step for me was to cancel TV service to my house as I have wasted countless hours to mindless shows when I could have been building something or learning a new skill. Each month we are both going to try and teach each other something new though the completion of projects (which I will outline on this blog). I am truly excited for what the future holds, and I recommend everyone take a step back from their daily routine and evaluate if you are getting the most from your life and living up to your full potential.

Team innovation thirst was selected and is going to comepete at the Redbull Creation contest July 7-10th in Brooklyn, NY.

What is Redbull Creation? well…..this….

My team is on of the 16 teams competing for our share of $10,000 in cash and $10,000 in tools.  We qualified for the contest through the creation of our “Pour Master Pro”

If you are in town please come out and support us at the Free public event.

Date: July 10, 2011
Location: McCarren Park, Brooklyn
Time: 3-7pm

What technology do you think is overly awesome?

In continuance of my house searching, I put an offer in on a house. This home came out of the blue and the situation seems like it is the correct move. Right across the street from me there is an identical duplex unit for sale (includes both units) each one is 1200 sq-ft with an attached garage. There are atleast 2 offers for the house including mine, but if I get it the plan is to live in one side and rent the other one out, essentially living for free. This concept is really novel to me, because I keep the same quality of living that I have right now except i now save a considerable amount each year. We will see what they say tomorrow, as my offer expires Monday @ 5pm CST.

Tomorrow morning at 7 am I am getting in my car and will not return until Sunday late next week, at which point I will have the love of my life Christina in tow. I have been somewhat quite about my relationship but Christina and I have decided to move in together and she is relocating from Buffalo NY to Jackson. This is a really big step for us and we are optimistic as we begin our life journey together.

I am excited and not one bit nervous about the changes going on in my life, and know that this week’s results will hold a forever impact on my life.

Somehow this seems relevant. Change the word lease to “purchase offer”

Unless you have been living under a rock(in which case you won’t be reading this), you know that this past week has been very strange with the losses of 4 Celebrities. Ed McMahon known for star search and the tonight show, Farrah Fawcett for her work as an actress and model, Michael Jackson for numerous Pop Music hits and of course Billy Mays the ultimate Pitchman. While each of these people brought a different element of entertainment and contributions to the world I make the argument that the significance of the loss of Billy Mays is by far the worst.

In today’s society it is common place for us to put actors, musicians and sports stars in the spotlight, it is because culture likes to be entertained. While I am not bashing or saying that we don’t need entertainment we create such an importance on it due to the fact that we want to be distracted from our own lives. Many people get sucked into entertainment that they forget to live, watching endless sports games and movies; And while I indulge in this quite a bit, we as a culture should be focusing on the more important things in life.

People like Billy Mays and his “Pitchmen” counterpart Anthony Sullivan and their related direct response companies are one of the best encouragements to American society. I say this because many if not most of those products are the result of an individual entrepreneurs invention or efforts, just take a look at one list of products http://www.asseenontv.com/ . One of the driving forces which put the USA on top of the tech is our innovative products and inventive people. These days when people are concerned with the economy, shipping jobs overseas, and many issues to numerous to mention, we need to be encouraging people to go into their garages and workshops and try to invent something. While I don’t mean to downplay Billy’s personal life he stood as a public spokes person in an industry which promotes and celebrates innovation and invention. The American dream of coming up with an idea and bringing it to market in hopes of making money from your brain child is something I believe lives deep down within each one of us.

As someone who works for a big company that does product development I have become aware of how hard it is to bring something to market, and can further appreciate how much of enablers Mays and the direct response industry is. While there are many different programs which encourage the same ideals loosing a public figure can hurt this effort. I hope that people keep inventing and keep pushing themselves so that we as a country can stay prominent. I for one have lots of ideas which I would love to see products and I am sorry that Billy Mays can’t be my pitchman, but am hopeful that when I am ready there will be people who can help the little guy, like myself.

you can click here  to see the full gigapan in a larger view

Here are a beginning list of things I AM going to work on.

• Coaxial Swerve drive – my team wants to build one and convert the robot for IRI. I am waiting for the kids to start being proactive about this;as I am going to guide them, not design it for them.
• Robotic lawn mower – Last year my boss gave me a black & decker electric lawn mower. Cutting my lawn is up there as a thing I don’t want to do so it makes sense. I will design and build a chassis for it and start by converting it to RC then add sensors and other goodness as time goes on.
• CNC router – I have been interested in CNC for some time now and no matter how many times I have had things made for me I still don’t have much experience with it myself. So the net is filled with plans and ideas on DIY cnc stuff so building one for my garage would be fun, IMO.
• Underwater ROV – I have never done an underwater robot before and think it could be fun. We have this sketchy pond infront of work which seems prime to stick a robot in and explore. Also the cost factor with this one is low which makes it ideal for my garage.

I think that’s a good start. Also with these projects I am going to start developing the robot webcast show Botcentric I started on last year, these 3 things seems to be a good idea for a few episodes.  As always I am going to post project updates to this site, twitter, facebook, and any other tool a stalker could use to find out what I am doing. So if you don’t see updates poke me because that means I have either gotten lazy about the projects or am sucking at documentation.

Greg

This video does a good job explaining some of the new features.

“Producers for a Science Channel Game show are looking for contestants. Contestants can be a gonzo engineer/scientist or just a high-energy, creative, fun, builder! They are looking for garage warriors (builders, scientists, inventors, engineers, carpenters, welders, mechanics, architects, etc…) who love to invent new gadgets, build robots, racing power tools, weld together bizarre machines that drive, fly, climb, shoot flames or launch projectiles. This Game Show is for thinkers, dreamers and doers, who are eager to let their inner MacGyvers be seen and ready to collaborate with a team of other builders.”

So the mechanism which the producers are using for a casting call is a website called www.gotcast.com The Basic premise of the site is that you post a profile for yourself and add the casting to your profile. Then other users vote for you and they rank you within the people applying for the show.  Being in the top spot on the site does not guarantee that you will be on the show, but it supposedly gives your profile to the casting director in the ranking order.  All and all it is a fairly simple concept and good in concept but unfortunatly this site is a sham.

I first realized this about 2 days after I joined the site and noticed that some people were getting an extreme amount of votes as compared to me. Now I can accept that people maybe more popular or better qualified but that didn’t seem to be the case, infact it is just the opposite. Many of the people in the top 10 do not even fit the criteria for what the producers are looking for or have nothing indicating they actually want to be on the show.  That is one of the two major flaws with the site. The second flaw is that since this is voting based people will do anything to pimp themselves out to get votes, the most common method is voting for others.  Similar to the concept on Twitter that the more people you follow the more people follow you, the more you vote the more people vote for you.   Having realized this flaw I started doing just that, voting for everyone on the site everyday ( you can vote once a day per person).  Quickly I saw myself starting to rise in the standings and at the point of this post I am ranked #2.

So the question I have is why in the world would any casting director use this site? because the “ranked order” of people which is prepared by this website for casting is only going to be a popularity contest.  Additionally there is even a “pro” membership you can buy for 30 bucks a month which will automatically put you above everyone who is in the voting cue, so you can essentially buy your way into the sight of the casting director.

In reaction to these revelations I wrote this  email to the founder of the site with a few suggestions, but overall I will just play the game as it goes, so please go vote for me.

http:www.gotcast.com/gneedel

Email to Will Schroder

Will,

I wanted to drop you a message to give you some feedback about your site, while I like the concept I am not sure it will be putting the best people up for consideration. There seems to be a huge skew in the people at the tops of each list for people who vote for everyone else on the site (I have taken to this strategy now also) I think it would be more justified if you were limited to voting for only maybe 10 people per day.

The other thing, is that there are lots of people on the site that are applying for every entry regardless if they fit the description. While I see that you have code in place to fix the problem of location, etc but maybe for each listing you can have more stringent requirements for applying, such as filling out a form specific to what casting you are going for.

While I understand that you want to make it easy for people to apply, and you guys need the volumes of people so that you can sell your service to production companies, it seems to me that if your recommendations are not accurate then it will affect your long term success.

Also have you considered offering “pro member” access on a cast by cast basis. For example I am confidant that I am good choice for the Discovery channel show, but it is not worth 60 (30 per month)to be a pro member just for this one casting. I might be willing to do it if it was a 1 time 10-15 dollar fee. You might even be able to get more revenue this way.

Anyway, I am pretty sure your message was an automated one sent out to all new members, but I figured that if by some chance you actually read this you might get some real feedback for your site.

Feel free to contact me with any questions,

Greg Needel