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!

Greg 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.
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Come see Chris Anderson, of 3D Robotics talk on the judiciously named, “WHAT THE %^*& HAPPENED TO THE MAKER MOVEMENT” panel.

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!)
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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.)

Vendors 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. 

Here’s what this ticket gets you during the conference:

• Two (2) full conference passes
  
• One Private Booth in our Virtual Expo
  
• Logo placed in all sponsor event signage
  
• Pitch in our Pitch Contest (guaranteed feedback from accredited investors)
  
• Logo placement on HardwareCon website and promotions

​Click here to book these tickets with the 15% discount promo code applied (ODDENG15).

COVID restrictions mucked up the works for all sorts of businesses -- and especially those of us who provide engineering services related to real, physical widgets.

In an experiment to connect hardware engineers personally with more clients, we created Odd Engineer.

Erin McDermott is one of the engineers available on Odd Engineer. So, if you need optical engineering guidance but aren't at a stage where you can invest in a full optical engineering project, you can still get advice by the hour from Erin. You can check out her profile here.

If you're interested in this marketplace platform from the other side - as an engineer who offers services, we have stuff there for you, too!
Check out the Resources for Engineers page.
There, you'll find:

• A forum where you can meet other engineers and ask questions about engineering or small business ownership and freelancing
• Waiting List to become an Odd Engineer
• Survey to help us build Odd Engineer V2 even better!
• All important Nerd Swag

This experimental pilot program is slated to only last for 4 months - ending May 26, 2021. There are also a limited number of spots for engineers in this short run because we're building each profile out manually.

After that, if we prove that we can successfully connect more paying clients with engineers, we'll build a V2! It will be more automated, with fuller functionality and able to showcase way more engineers.

But for the pilot to be a success, lots of engineering teams - large and small - need to hear about this thing. So please spread the word! Let those engineers trying to do something outside their discipline know there are niche engineering pros that can make their lives a lot easier. And access to these nerds is as easy as can be!

Erin McDermott's talk at this year's Synopsys LightTools User Group meeting is hidden in the customer portal.

​So, when we got a request from non-Synopsys customers to see it, we created a new video!

Voilà:

Director of Engineering, Erin M. McDermott, will be presenting at the Synopsys LightTools User Group Meeting on September 17th, 2020.​

​Erin's talk will cover some of the neat features available in LightTools which have been proven to BLOW HARDWARE STARTUP MINDS at Spire Starter.

Providing optical engineering as a consultant to startups and larger manufacturers is a different ballgame compared to working in-house!

​For one thing, coming in with just weeks to find a rushed, emergency solution changes what is possible. When optical engineering exists in-house, or when outside consultants are involved in the development process earlier on, there's enough time to validate and measure materials, surface finishes, and sources, if needed. Still, with LightTools' powerful simulation capabilities, some hacks can be made here which still provide meaningful predictions that the other hardware engineers didn't know were possible.

For 2: a lot of companies that never interfaced with optical engineering before are surprised by things we optical engineers consider basic! One of those is stray light analysis. Imagine if you were a hardware engineer with a prototype emitting stray light, and you had no optical simulation software, and you were expected to find and eliminate the source. Seems next to impossible. But with optical simulations, finding sources of stray light appears to be MAGIC in comparison. And in LightTools, stray light analysis is a super-simplified process compared to doing this work in other software.

If you're a LightTools user, you can enroll in the webinar HERE.

Engineering dry electrodes, the surprising difficulties of working with real wood in mass production and millimeter-level ergonomics design were all discussed.

You can read the full article on SolidSmack here:
https://www.solidsmack.com/engineering/behind-the-design-cores-wellness-device/

Or watch the video interviews here:

Spire Starter's Director of Optical Engineering, Erin McDermott, will be attending CES 2020 to cover tech news for SolidSmack.com. Have optics-related tech to show off at the show? Please get in touch! She'll be especially interested to check out your development.

Have a great show, everyone, and happy new year!

We're in beautiful Colorado for all of September 2019! So exciting to learn about the many emerging startups and tech happenings here.

Right now, we're finishing up at Denver Startup Week. Our schedule is filling up fast for free, in-person preliminary optical engineering consultations with companies in and around Denver for September 23rd - 27th . (Longmont, Greeley, Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs, Golden, Boulder, etc.)

If your company is in this area and you'd like us to visit, drop us a line to catch us before we leave!

Nichia just announced their new LED technology, the 2-in-1 tunable white LED. It will allow a range of color temperatures to be emitted from a single, small, LED package. Ok, but who cares? Optical engineers care! This development will allow us to design lighting in a more controlled way than ever before which can go from warm to cool-colored white light.

We'll be in Seattle the last week of October to visit a few events and facilities and meet with people working on a HW projects involving optics. Spire Starter provides free preliminary optical engineering consultations to teach you what optical analysis and design can do for your specific project! Design, analysis, optimization, or system debugging if things all go wrong and you don't know where to turn: we can help with all of it!

Erin M. McDermott will be on hand at the Seattle VR: Demos & Experiences MeetUp October 25, 2018 to cover the event and Seattle VR community for SolidSmack.com

Here's the link to that MeetUp:
https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-VR-Demos-Experiences/events/255189659/

We received a request a while back to add some pretty weighty terms to our online glossary: MTF and OTF. Aka: modulation transfer function and optical transfer function.

After a lot of work trying to condense these definitions down into the most distilled, layman-friendly versions possible, we decided these guys needed their own articles, too!

For the quick glossary definition, you can find them alphabetically at:
http://www.spirestarter.com/education/glossary-of-optics-words

For a longer, detailed explanation with pictures and a graph and everything (!) see this link:
http://www.spirestarter.com/education/mtf-otf-explained