Viewing profile — swighton

It's definitely my favorite

I made a baseball bat that uses explosives to add a bunch of energy to your swing and hit a baseball really far. It uses the explosive blanks normally used to shoot nails into conc…

I definitely have a sense of only having one shot so I want to make the best video that I can. Though it’s not so much related to the numbers as it is to: 1) I spend a ton of time …

I used to be a full time dev / R&D engineer. Now I basically do the same thing on YouTube (youtube.com/stuffmadehere). The difference now is my R&D-ing is directed at early stage p…

I've found the opposite of this sentiment to be true, at least in my case as youtube engineer / maker. If you can find a way to monetize your hobby it is: 1. A great motivator to a…

What I find amazing is that one thousandth of an inch is not particularly precise when it comes to machining. You can easily make parts to that accuracy with common mills and lathe…

I have both MechE and CS degrees. The big difference I see is that MechE is one course that builds on top of another on and on. Quite a rigorous progression that is hardcore on mat…

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that …

Building and maintaining commercial properties is absurdly expensive. A landlord takes on the cost, risk, and time of building and maintaining that property in exchange for busines…

I’m not all that interested in advancing my personal prominence. This is why I originally didn’t even show myself in the videos

Interesting design. I made a lock a couple years ago that is quite similar in principle (though this design is different and has a couple nice improvements). https://youtu.be/_7vPN…

You can inexpensively (~$10) check if your calipers have been whacked out of calibration as frequently as you want with a gauge block or other calibration standard. If they have, y…

I feel like calling these photos "taken by a chicken" is fairly misleading. The photos are taken automatically when a chicken wanders in front of a motion detector. To test the cla…

I wonder if people who are willing to pay extra for consoles from a scalper are more likely to spend more on games / digital downloads / etc. If that is true it would be an incenti…

Glad you enjoy my locks :) Making locks is very interesting, but it reminds me of why they say you shouldn't write your own encryption. Even if the theory is sound, it just takes o…

I think that his performance on the TransAm bike race is more impressive. He rode 440km every day for 16 days straight across the USA. Aside from all the elevation change and weath…

I’ve coined a term that describes a new form of inflation that I call “crapflation.” If you buy things on Amazon you often now pay the same (or even more) for the cheapest import g…

We do Software (embedded, desktop, web), mechanical, electrical, process, systems, optics, and manufacturing engineering. It's a pretty fun mix. Since you asked, I personally work …

Reminds me of a an anecdote about the F-117 Nighthawk which was the first stealth airplane nearly invisible to radar. Apparently the engineers working on it would come into the air…

My current company - Formlabs. I get to build really good hardware (3D printers), working with ~seven different engineering disciplines. Smart people, high levels of autonomy, and …

If there's a team of demonstrably awesome people, we already have a word for incorporating them wholesale into a company - acquisition. If a team is truly great they are indeed mor…