Over the past year, several videos on TikTok went viral over how irritatingly bright headlamps in vehicles are becoming in the United States. One of those was from Spire Starter's own TikTok account (tiktok.com/@spirestarter) where Erin McDermott explained some of the many intricacies involved in solving this complex problem. Pointing a single finger, unfortunately, won't fix headlamp glare.
The public's response? A lot of anger and frustration! Many US residents didn't know how to influence the laws and regulations surrounding this issue and felt helpless. For some, the issue even keeps them off roadways at night, triggers migraines, or has caused them to lose control of their vehicles.
So, in response, in 2022, on Spire Starter's freelance engineering community site, OddEngineer.com, a survey was posted where anyone residing in the US could express their headlamp grievances. The results were compiled and sent in an emailed letter to NHTSA, the federal administration that creates regulations around headlamp glare, on January 2, 2023 which follows here. If you missed out on taking the survey and have comments you'd like to share with NHTSA, please add them below, and we will direct the agency to them!
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Spire Starter's project, the hardware engineering community, Odd Engineer is adding on a new forum! Engineers and those in search of freelance hardware engineers can now even more freely reach out for assistance from each other. On the forum you'll be able to:
It officially launches during the Meetup where we'll go over all the features together online on December 15, 2022 at 10AM Pacific. Come to the Online Meetup to Learn About the Forum!Save your spot at this specific meetup event by registering here. The meetup group can be found at: Meetup.com/OddEngineer
To build your profile and snoop around the forum before December 15th, use this invitation link to join! JUST ANNOUNCED: Spire Starter is one of 13 new additions to companies that will now be allowed to bid on a multitude of upcoming contracts with NASA! These tasks may be for prize competitions related to engineering or even small engineering contracts that individual freelance engineers or teams can complete. Maybe you! For a deeper explanation see this video: Spire Starter would advertise and facilitate/manage any of these smaller contracts that we might win, while the engineering or scientific work itself would be completed by other freelance pros. That $175 million limit would then cover all the many smaller contracts and would include payment to the tech pros.
So, if you're interested in getting paid to use your engineer or scientist brain to help out NASA and get paid for it, and without having to be a fulltime NASA employee, follow Spire Starter or Odd Engineer on LinkedIn, or join the mailing lists. We'll publish news you may want to take action on as it happens! On Episode 5 of the Odd Engineer Podcast, we sat down with Greg Fisher, founder of HardwareMassive and HardwareCon. Greg has over 17 years of experience bouncing between China and other parts of the globe to facilitate hardware development. We discussed his journey from ice cream store entrepreneur to leader in the hardware startup economy. He also shared some #proTips on how to successfully take your big idea to a real, mass-produced product. HardwareCon this year will be online - 100% virtual. That means you can attend, too, even if Silicon Valley was too far away in the past! It's happening June 8th, 2021 from 10AM-6PM PDT. BTW: If you're looking to pick up a paid ticket version, be sure to use code ODDENG15 when you register for 15% off! Let’s look at some of what you can experience this year! Fan-tab-ulous SpeakersGreg is stoked about this talk because, as he says, the wildly lucrative sale of Oculus Rift was a turning point for hardware startups everywhere. It was proof to investors that huge gains could be possible in this arena despite how hard hardware is. This talk is the keynote that comes with the free ticket. Come see Chris Anderson, of 3D Robotics talk on the judiciously named, “WHAT THE %^*& HAPPENED TO THE MAKER MOVEMENT” panel. Also taking the stage will be Dale Dougherty, the beloved MakerFaire founder who leads new initiatives at Make Community. You can hear from Carl Bass, too, the guy who has a lot to do with CAD being a thing when it became a thing. If you’re an AutoDesk/AutoCAD fan or if you’re a fan of not having to draw prints with a real pencil anymore, you can thank Bass in person after the talk in the Speaker Room session. Yours truly, Erin McDermott, will be moderating “the Art of Prototyping” panel where I’ll grill Darragh Hudson, of KD Product Development, Robert Brakeman of Amphibian Global and Elementary Robotics, and David Schroeder of RelianceCM. (Oops, sorry you were left off the class photo, David!) There’s a lot more to prototyping than using duct tape and chewing gum to prove a concept, and I intend to use the sage words from these gentlemen as a big, fat “I TOLD YOU SO”. Can’t wait. Hudson also created this sweet, informative article on prototyping, if, for some silly reason, you miss our spectacular talk. (P.S. How dare you.) For Vendors – the Seller Matchmaking TicketVendors who have products or services for hardware startups or other product development teams should look into this ticket option. I’ll be using this matchmaking feature for Odd Engineer/Spire Starter LLC to talk directly with teams at the conference needing niche hardware engineering guidance from one of our many nerds. This part of the conference uses a brand new software service called Pairakeet. It works by automatically matching your company with those who need you and alerting prospective clients. They can then choose to book a 10-minute virtual meeting with you during the conference. So, it’s a lot like a real booth but without the foot blisters and exhausting, drunken teardowns after the show. For Hardware Startups – Hardware Blvd TicketHere’s what this ticket gets you during the conference:
Click here to book these tickets with the 15% discount promo code applied (ODDENG15). Schmoozing + BYOBoozing Networking HourAt the end of the show, there will be an hour of virtual networking. Make sure to take advantage of this session! Want to Learn More?
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