Hardware Roundup: January 2017

Time to read: 3 min

Remember our good old Hardware Weekly, which we used to send out once a week? Well, based on your feedback, we’ve revamped the Hardware Weekly into a monthly blog post, where we’ll share interesting news, education, events, and opportunities from the hardware ecosystem. I’m excited to share the first edition of the Fictiv Hardware Roundup with you!

Want to contribute? Have feedback? Shoot me an email at [email protected], and let’s talk.

Industry News

• Bad news for camera drone startup Lily; after delaying shipping several times over the last year, they are unable to fund production and will be shutting their doors and refunding $34 million in preorders. [via TechCrunch]
• Project Ara was an innovative experiment from Motorola’s Advanced Technology in extreme customization. This in-depth article surfaces the myriad of trials and tribulations faced by the Ara team and surfaces key learnings for anyone in cutting-edge product development. [via VentureBeat]
• Nima, the world’s first pocket-sized gluten detector, launched their product this month. Simply put a small piece of food into the capsule, and Nima will alert you to any gluten in three minutes. [visit Nima]
• In other product news, the Podo team has released their second product, Jack, on Kickstarter, which can easily make any headphones wireless with its sleek adapter. [via Kickstarter]

Hardware Knowledge

• A group of engineers at Stanford have created the clearest picture to date of the wake left by a flying animal by outfitting a Parrotlet named Obi with custom goggles and flying him through a laser sheet to generate a detailed record of the vortices created by flight. This experiment is not only cool to watch, it’s has debunked all previous models of aerodynamic lift in animal flight. [via Stanford]
• Product Design and Development Magazine’s excellent two-part series on using design analysis to prevent the failure of wear bands in rotating equipment delves into the mechanics/physics calculations in part one. In part two, the author uses FEA (Finite Element Analysis) to perform a more detailed study to enhance predictability. [via Product Design and Development, part 1 and part 2]
• Ben Joffe, a partner at HAX accelerator, has written a fantastic post about the important considerations for hardware startups, listed alphabetically from A-Z. [via Medium]

Events

• SolidWorks World is happening February 5-8 in Los Angeles. The event hosts 200 breakout sessions on topics including design automation, electrical design, and product data management for the Solidworks community. Our founders Dave and Nate Evans will be speaking on panels at the events. [tickets are available here]
• Concurrent to Solidworks World is Pacific Design & Manufacturing, the largest annual advanced design and manufacturing event for over 20,000 engineers, executives, and hundreds of leading manufacturing suppliers, February 7-9 at the Anaheim Convention Center. [register here]
• HAX is hosting the next in their series of panel events on February 22 from 6:30-9pm at their office in San Francisco. This one is focused on innovations in prototyping, manufacturing, and fabrication. Speakers are still TBD, but it’s sure to be a fantastic event. [register for free here]

Jobs

• Microsoft’s HoloLens team is seeking a Senior Mechanical Engineer in their Mountain View office. [via LinkedIn]
• Tesla is hiring a Mechanical Engineer for their Energy Controllers team. [via LinkedIn]
• Auris Surgical Robotics is hiring for several interesting positions in their San Carlos office, including Principal Mechanical Design Engineer and Director of Quality Assurance.

For the Love of Engineering

• Former NASA engineer Mark Rober has built the world’s largest Nerf Gun, which shoots modified pool noodles from a paintball canister capable of shooting 3,000 pounds per square inch. Yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds. [via Huffington Post]

Until next month!

Cheers,

Madelynn, Director of Community at Fictiv