Co-Founder, CEO @DrafterInc | building the go-to-manufacturing platform | design intent enthusiast | surfer, crossworder, baller
Los Angeles, CA
Joined October 2023
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Seems normalized through habituation, but totally insane from the outside. I had it explained to me by 5 different mechEs before I believed that’s just how everyone does it. Once you reach “acceptance” you start asking why…
25 years ago today was my first day of first grade in uptown Manhattan. My mom came to pick me up before lunch and I remember thinking "wow, school gets shorter as you get older." She took me to the park and told me that something bad was happening. My dad was overseas in London. She was having trouble reaching him and didn't know when he'd be able to get home. We lived uptown and that night we had a slumber party at my home, with several of my classmates who lived downtown close to the towers and couldn't go back. Some of them had lost family and friends. Many of the parents struggled with how to explain all this to a first grader.
These memories are mostly a haze of images and emotions for me now. As we get further from '01, it gets easier to forget. Each year on 9/11 I try to reinforce them.
Today, when people ask how I feel about many of our customers being defense companies, I go back to these memories. Not because they give me a simple answer, but because they ground me in a reality I faced very early. That some people are willing to do terrible things. That safety and freedom are not automatic, they need to be protected.
It's easy to take the charmed life we live for granted. Today is a good day not to. Let's roll
25 years ago today I was sitting in AP Bio when our Principal came over the PA to tell the teachers to turn on their TVs. All schoolwork stopped through the whole building as we watched the day unfold with nervous confusion and worry. We watched the towers fall live on screen in that classroom, and the school soon relocated us all to the cafeteria where they had setup a few TVs for the students to watch, the large room nearly whisper quiet aside from a few tears and sobs.
I grew up in suburban Philadelphia where many parents would ride the Amtrak or NJT into Manhattan daily. A few classmates saw the events and lost composure, including a classmate who's father worked in the WTC. Many rushed to the office to call home, seeking news about their parents. Among the nearly 3,000 victims that day, 9 were residents of my hometown... fathers, mothers, brothers, and neighbors.
The months and years that followed would show America at our best. Our nation rose to meet the moment - recovering, rebuilding, and volunteering in service of our community and our country. Many of my classmates enlisted in the ensuing years to bravely serve our country, knowing they'd surely be sent to war. The courage and bravery of the Flight 93 heroes still brings a swell of emotion.
On this day, I am reflecting on that day and offer the observation that despite our fraught, tense, and often hostile domestic politics, there is far more that unites us than divides us as Americans. I'm proud to be an American and 25 years later I'm thinking of the days when we were at our best, united in strength and resilience.
Never forget, and let's roll.
Peter Atkin retweeted
Look at them.
Obviously they're solving the gap between engineering and manufacturing.
These guys are crushers.
I'd be scared to be an engineering drawing about now...
Peter Atkin retweeted
I spent 60+ hrs making this GD&T cheat sheet
Why? b/c AI still can't make accurate GD&T visuals; trust me I've tried.
I'll DM it when you:
1) Like this post
2) Comment your favorite machining process
Everything you need on one page, symbols, tolerance zones, datum rules.
Peter Atkin retweeted
At a 3.84 payload ratio, that 29-pound drone is basically the gym rat ant of the aviation world. Carrying nearly four times its own weight is insane engineering, epic
BREAKING: Avidrone Aerospace has secured 1st place in the DARPA Lift Challenge.
Avidrone achieved a 3.84:1 payload-to-aircraft-weight ratio using a 29.3-pound drone. DARPA set the goal at a 4:1 ratio: a drone carrying four times its own weight, a level DARPA described as unprecedented.
Founded in 2007, Avidrone Aerospace is based in Ontario, Canada, with a U.S. presence in Columbia, Maryland. The company develops cargo drones for contested defense logistics and commercial applications including offshore oil and gas.
Second Place: MTech Operations, an MIT team, achieved a 3.64:1 ratio using a 32.1-pound drone.
Third Place: Xtreme Aerial Concepts achieved a 3.45:1 ratio using a 54.9-pound drone.
More than 120 teams were selected to compete in the heavy-lift drone challenge, with $6.5M in prize money.
Video Source: DARPA
Peter Atkin retweeted
AI is going to cause a cambrian explosion of industrial controls and automation capabilities here in the next twelve months. buckle in
best part: it's going to make mechanical engineering more fun because things that were a pain before are easy now
Love this POV -- what products do you use which would absolutely suck to switch to an alternative, besides apple products?
When I think about it, a couple of mundane examples come to mind. 3M post-it notes, and Expo whiteboard markers are unmatched. The alternatives are garbage
I think about this a lot — most products that I love have alternatives I would be ~just as happy to use instead.
If I couldn’t have my Subaru Outback, I’d be happy with a Honda CRV. If I couldn’t use my Andiem basketball shoes (the best) Nikes would do the trick. If I could no longer fly in a Boeing, an Airbus would be fine. If I couldn’t sleep on whatever mattress I currently have, there are plenty of others.
If I couldn’t use my MacBook or my iPhone or my AirPods anymore, it would totally and unequivocally suck. My life would be much worse. I spend a good portion of my life using these and the alternatives don’t hold a candle.
While the “do nothing, become most valuable meme” is funny, it’s because Apple is in a completely different league than the alternatives that they can sort of afford to do nothing. Because they’ve already put themselves on the pedestal.
Congrats on the 5 trilly @Apple well earned (I remember when I was a consultant there and they celebrated crossing 1T)
(FWIW, I love Apple TV and HomePod but they fall into the “fine alternatives” bucket)
(FWIW #2, I do not endorse getting this news from Kalshi I think they are a poison to humanity)
I think about this a lot — most products that I love have alternatives I would be ~just as happy to use instead.
If I couldn’t have my Subaru Outback, I’d be happy with a Honda CRV. If I couldn’t use my Andiem basketball shoes (the best) Nikes would do the trick. If I could no longer fly in a Boeing, an Airbus would be fine. If I couldn’t sleep on whatever mattress I currently have, there are plenty of others.
If I couldn’t use my MacBook or my iPhone or my AirPods anymore, it would totally and unequivocally suck. My life would be much worse. I spend a good portion of my life using these and the alternatives don’t hold a candle.
While the “do nothing, become most valuable meme” is funny, it’s because Apple is in a completely different league than the alternatives that they can sort of afford to do nothing. Because they’ve already put themselves on the pedestal.
Congrats on the 5 trilly @Apple well earned (I remember when I was a consultant there and they celebrated crossing 1T)
(FWIW, I love Apple TV and HomePod but they fall into the “fine alternatives” bucket)
(FWIW #2, I do not endorse getting this news from Kalshi I think they are a poison to humanity)
We're (fortunately and unfortunately) outgrowing piling into an Airbnb for our team offsites. How do mid-size teams do it? Looking for something more communal/creative than just getting hotel rooms..
Peter Atkin retweeted
Yet another example where DESIGN ISNT THE HARD PART. Manufacturing is.
The companies who win won’t have IP moats, those are easily assaulted. They’ll have process, data, and factory moats.
Peter Atkin retweeted
nvidia spent 25 years building chips so teenagers could see better explosions and it turned out to be the correct way to build god
