I liked the part where they were looking for someone to manufacture the handles, and the Japanese machinist said "If he could make it, I can make it!".
Indeed, having gone down the rabbit hole of machining (both to see if it would be a viable hobby and if it could even be a career), this was the attitude of the shop teacher: "if you can think it, you can probably make it". I am far more surprised that neither the American nor the Taiwanese manufacturers said this. Then again, perhaps it was because management didn't talk to the guys who made things!
(Now that I think of it, had they done that, perhaps they would have gotten the answer "We can do it, but the fins will wear down the tool too fast, at least until we can figure out a better material for the tools!" instead of "Nope, we can't do that!")
Could you go more into detail on the actual process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing? Like how would an average person, given enough motivation, do what you were able to accomplish?
A good first step is to learn some form of CAD and buy a cheap 3D printer. With that, you can rapidly test mechanisms and ergonomics on a daily basis for pennies. With both products, I went through maybe 5-ish entirely 3d printed prototypes. This will save you a ton of money iterating parts that don't need to be made from the final materials. With some products, you can make something functional here, but in my case, plastic isn't stable enough to make gear pumps and grinding burrs with.
If you intend to use casting or injection molding, you need to start thinking about that now rather than later, and designing parts that fit those processes even if you aren't using them yet.
So now it's time to start working with final materials. The best way to save money doing this is to only make the most critical parts from final materials until everything is nailed down. PCBWay has reasonably cheap machining/metal 3d printing services but you can also reach out to CNC shops directly and build some relationships for later. For me, this meant making the burrs, pump, and group head from metal, and testing them inside an otherwise 3D printed machine. I could iterate on just those parts and not worry if they required downstream changes because I could just print the secondary parts at home. I also cast my own silicone to save money.
Then once you're happy, you can go ahead and have everything made from final materials, (even if those materials are, say, CNCed instead of injection molded) and you have your MVP. Production engineering is a whole different beast, but that is for another time.
As a disclaimer, I wouldn't recommend starting with coffee machines, coffee grinders, or anything like them if you want to make a physical product. Hydraulics (especially at a small scale) and material processing are difficult, non-intuitive, and will be impossible if you are learning the other core skills at the same time.
I don’t agree. It’s obviously not a “real” wake, just something for friends to hang out and show support. And switching careers often means moving to a different city, so it would be nice to say goodbye to friends who won’t be seen for years (or forever).
I’ve been to a couple “deportation parties” for friends who couldn’t get their visas renewed, and it’s sort of the same thing. Mostly lighthearted but a slight somber undertone.
Ok, think about it like this. It's your anniversary with your partner so you decide to commission a drawing from an artist as a gift. However, when you receive it, it's clearly an AI-generated image that was printed out.
It is the same. Pages and pages of generated content so that 1) they end up higher in Google and 2) when you end up on their page they're able to show you ads / try to sell you stuff.
