ZombieTech.tv

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Prototype This was a show on Discovery that ran from Oct 2008 to February 2009 with 4 guys - Joe Grand, Zoz Brooks, Mike North, and Terry Sandin and reached ~1 million households per episode. The team had ~2 weeks to come up with a project, design/engineer, build, and test it.

We had the opportunity to talk to Joe Grand and Dr. Zoz Brooks about their time on Prototype This - the good, the bad, the ugly, and the zombie application. We go through their overall feelings about engineers being involved in show production, and what they had to go through as actors.

This week is 1 of 2 (!) and we go over the projects:

Mind Controlled Car
Boxing Robots
Traffic Busting Truck
Six Legged All Terrain Vehicle
Backyard Waterslide Simulator
Firefighter Future Tech

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/03/15/zom ... oz-brooks/

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Another Thursday, another ZT! This week we cover the second half of the projects

Prototype This was a show on Discovery that ran from Oct 2008 to February 2009 with 4 guys – Joe Grand, Zoz Brooks, Mike North, and Terry Sandin and reached ~1 million households per episode. The team had ~2 weeks to come up with a project, design/engineer, build, and test it.

We had the opportunity to talk to Joe Grand and Dr. Zoz Brooks about their time on Prototype This – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the zombie application. We go through their overall feelings about engineers being involved in show production, and what they had to go through as actors.

This week is 2 of 2 (!) and we go over the projects:
* Get Up and Go
* Automated Pizza Delivery
* Wearable Airbag
* Virtual Sea Adventure
* Flying Lifeguard
* Gecko Superhero Suit
* Robo Dog Sitter

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/03/22/zom ... continued/

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Zoz Brooks is back! We couldn't get enough of Zoz and he couldn't get enough of us, so he stuck around for a Zoz only ZombieTech! We discuss his love of pyrotechnics, robotics, and his work on Sony's Q-Rio robot as well as NASA's Robonaut.

We continue looking at some of his highly zombie-appropriate inventions such as the Spritzwaffen, Luftwerfer, and Funkenschnorkel (among others). We talk about his talk at Defcon, discuss sporks, and firework shows among others. Fun chat with a brilliant guy!

The most recent project he's working on? Blue Sky: http://www.blueskylightgrid.com <-- awesome.

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/03/29/zom ... oz-brooks/

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Ack! I'm a day late!

Scott Ennis is a trained biotechnologist and currently spends his time in an immunology lab at the Mayo Clinic analyzing/running samples to aid in primary genetic disorder diagnosis. We talk about the equipment used (flow cytometry) and how it works, and we also talk about whether or not zombies are even feasible given the immune system’s response.

He’s also a fellow electronics tinkerer with no prior experience, so we talk about the process of learning and the projects he’s worked on!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/04/04/zom ... ott-ennis/

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Maker Dino of HackaWeek fame is back! We talk to Dino again after his year long stint of doing one hack a week and talk about his favorites, what he’s been able to do as a result, and his inspirations for his projects. We talk about what he’s going to do now that he’s done with his year, and where his future projects may lead! We wish him the very best and know he’ll do amazing things!

Whisker and Dino also dive into some fun facts about the space program and space shuttles in anticipation for Dino’s Mars Flight Simulator!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/04/04/zom ... des-again/

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Whisker is our infamous guest this week! Roy Eltham has joined us as a guest host as well. We talk about Whisker’s projects ranging from his ZombieNet protocol to cigar box guitars, DIY violins, and diy audio stages such as preamplifiers/amplifiers. He gives advice to those starting out and offers suggestions for those interested in DIY.

We talk about Addie’s favorite project of Whisker’s, FAI – or familiar artificial intelligence and its history as well as evolution.

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/04/05/zom ... 3-whisker/

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Atdiy - 1/2 of the Tymkrs is the guest this week! Roy Eltham's our guest host again along with Whisker and Atdiy gets a break from thinking up questions to answer those from Whisker and Roy! We talk about her work with Toymakers and ZombieTech and the chances of survival!

We talk about her previous life as a behavioural neuroscientist and her transition to nursing. She talks about the projects she's worked on in her scientist days and how it can help in the post apocalypse! We finish by discussing a traditional education vs or in conjunction with self education.

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/04/26/zom ... %93-atdiy/

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Nick McClanahan is a co-conspirator of Gadget Gangster, his company selling loads of kits, projects, breakout boards, and shields for the Parallax Propeller amongst many other items. They have tutorials, feature projects, a store, and even their own podcast called The Prototypers! But this week, we talked less electronics, more Zombie philosophy! Nick has put a lot of thought into the principles behind Zombies and whether or not we would actually survive an impending apocalypse. We talk about his name sake, philosophical posits on Zombies, survival, and societal ethics!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/05/03/zom ... -gangster/

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Rick Osgood is one of the founding members of HeatSync Labs in Arizona and is now one of the founding members of a hackerspace in Eugene, OR! We go through the history of HeatSync Labs and how it goes from being a group of guys who just want a place to hack, to one of the most well known hackerspaces in the U.S. We also go through the history of the Eugene Maker Space and how again, a few guys interested in hacking can create a space for the community to convene.

Rick also works on a lot of cool projects such as the Magomatic, Color “stealers”, Rubens Tubes, and of course potato launchers. There are MANY more on his website, all of which are loads of fun! So we cover some of his projects, white-hat goodness, and of course Zombies!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/05/10/zom ... ck-osgood/

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Toba or Eric Stein is CTO and Time Lord of Pumping Station One, thus far the largest (or only?) hackerspace in Chicago. We talk about the projects he’s been working on including his time machine for the hackerspace’s Tardis, a system for connecting hackerspaces from all over, and his philosophy behind hackerspaces.

We discuss the maintenance of projects and how he’s been using his programming skills to create a system for keeping track of projects, suggesting projects, and in general collaborative work on said projects. We talk about current systems in place and then, of course, devolve into discussing how these systems could help us survive a zombie apocalypse!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/05/17/zom ... tein-toba/

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Jacob Rosenthal is one of the co-founders of HeatSync Labs and also one of eight people to have gone on a trip to China with Mitch Altman for a month-long tour of the makerspaces there. We discuss a number of logistics involved in starting up and maintaining a hackerspace and segue into talking about his trip to China. We go through the different makerspaces seen there, how they were founded and are being maintained. We discuss some of the political influences on makerspaces but also the cultural and socioeconomic influences on the members. Very interesting to see what other makerspaces around the world are dealing with.

Jacob is also very interested in ubiquitous computing and how the body modification community can lead to progression in “embedded” systems. So we discuss cool things like magnets in fingers and lightable 3D implants!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/05/24/zom ... rosenthal/

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We talk to Mark VandeWettering of the Brainwagon blog and Roy Eltham of Sony Online Entertainment about their trips to Maker Faire! Since we couldn’t make it, they were kind enough to share with us what Maker Faire is, what they saw, what they thought about the projects, and even a sneak peek into the Bring-a-Hack dinner hosted by Jeri Ellsworth. We also talk about plans for a Tymkrs booth – maybe incorporating a zombie apocalypse bunker theme!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/05/31/zom ... ker-faire/

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Woops! Forgot to post the last few weeks:

All of these can be found on http://zombietech.tv

June 7th: Brad Walters (aka Nickelplate) and his wife Rut (aka Nobile) are a couple from Missouri who walk the talk of land conservation and restoration! We get to have a fascinating chat with them about how they have been restoring their 80 acre piece of the Ozark Mountains and the process of getting local and natural vegetation back onto the land. We also touch on the benefits of fireon forest restoration. They even have aspirations of building their own log cabin from complete scratch (trees > logs > hewn logs > ??? > cabin!) and have also gotten into blacksmithing and have a host of crops! Hardcore .

June 21st: Tom of the Medical State of Mind tumblr blog is our guest today and we are helping him celebrate 20,000 (!) followers! Tom is a third year medical student who has been blogging about being a medical student since even before day 1 of school offering a look into the rigors of his life! So we discuss the good and the bad of each year, and we talk about the role of blogging in his life, and what lessons he’s learned in 20/20 hindsight. We touch upon some neat concepts of being competitive, life balance, relationships, and even formaldehyde munchies!

June 28th: Michael Dougherty is a producer, director, writer, and founder of Big Damn Fan Films, a non-profit company that first started with Browncoats: Redemption who is now working on a Kickstarter funded movie called Z*Con. We’re especially excited about this project because proceeds of the movies generated go to audience chosen charities! The movie they’re working on this time is about 4 podcasters who get stuck at a sci-fi convention during a zombie outbreak – also an awesome premise for a movie. We thumbs up this endeavor and hope you’ll take a listen (a lot of laughs in this one) and help support their movie!

As of this posting, their Kickstarter has 173 backers, $23, 574, and eventual goal of 250,000! Only two more weeks!!

If you guys have any ideas for guests, let me know!!

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Dr. Cranquis is our guest again and this time we're celebrating not only 20,000 followers but also his 2nd Tumblr
birthday! Happy birthday Dr. Cranquis! We talk about what it takes to be an urgent care clinic doctor, stories from his resident days and even code situations. We cover a bit of discussion on the latest "zombie" news as well. And for those who sent in questions, you got the fast-track, real-time, live-answering from the Doc himself!

Oh and if you've ever been interested in what kind of interviewer Dr. Cranquis would be, we tackle that too .

Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/07/05/zom ... eanimated/

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Alan Yates, otherwise known as vk2zay is an extremely proliferative hacker/tinkerer of anything cool like high voltage, fireworks, circuits, radioactivity (!), and even home-brew ham radio equipment! We discuss the motivations behind his projects as well as what he's worked on and where his interests lie. We discuss what makes certain projects difficult, and talk a bit about how people can get started doing their own projects. Lots of this and more on this week's episode!!

By the way, we'd like to welcome Alan to the US and congratulate him on his new job at Valve - can't wait to see what crazy new inventions he comes up with next!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/07/12/zom ... lan-yates/

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We go a slightly different direction this week and talk to “Dirty Bob” Grundman who is Zombie Tech’s resident firearm expert and enthusiast! He is former Navy, has earned the Expert Pistol Shot medal, and has experience with firearm instruction, rifle shooting and archery. He’s been shooting for almost 40 years and used to write for the magazine “American Survival Guide.” He’s also fought for several years in the Society for Creative Anachronism and was an armorer — building helms, gauntlets, articulated limbs and body armor. And if that’s not enough, he’s even practiced a form of Filipino martial arts! We talk about weapons, the use of guns, and even about what zombie movies they got it right in! LOTS of neat information and not enough time!

Some of his recommended books/sites:

Kathy Jackson – The Cornered Cat (http://www.corneredcat.com/Contents/)
John Farnham - http://www.defense-training.com/
Oleg Volk - http://www.olegvolk.net/
Paxton Quigley – Armed and Female (http://www.paxtonquigley.com/)
Chris Bird – The Concealed Handgun Manual (http://www.privateerpublications.com/book-chm.html)
Tiger McKee – Book of Two Guns (http://www.shootrite.org/book/book.html)

Episode Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/07/19/zom ... -grundman/

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Thomas Talbot, MD, is Chief Scientist in the Armed Forces Simulation Institute for Medicine at the Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), Portfolio Manager in Medical Simulation and Training at TATRC and former Chief of Academic Computing at the Chemical Casualty Care Division at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. He is also a pediatrician and molecular biologist who has medical expertise in cyanide and nerve agents(!). We talk about the development of his career and how he came to be an expert in such dangerous compounds. We talk about the training he sets up as well as how the system would handle something like a zombie apocalypse. A very interesting ZombieTech this week, with lots of hair-raising discussion!

Episode Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/07/26/zom ... as-talbot/

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Jeremy Blum is back again from the dead! One of our favorite "zombie" guests is here to catch us up on all of the cool projects he's been working on! We get updates on his work at Cornell's Sustainability Research Team, The Pop Shop, Makerbot, just to name a few! We even go into the feasibility of using solar panel trackers in an eventual zombie apocalypse bunker! Always great to hear from one of our favorite engineers . Be sure to check out his blog for MORE projects!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/08/02/zom ... eports-in/

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This week on ZombieTech we have Peter the Thinker again live and in studio! We get updates on the projects he's been working on such as his propane electric hybrid golf cart, his battery-powered bike/scooter, solar powered boat, and plans for a diy segway as well as many other projects we talked about in our last interview with him! He's also notorious for all of his last-minute hardware hacking such as getting an electric car to its destination when its battery died, jump-starting cars with unlikely items, and many more!

Episode Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/08/09/zom ... in-studio/

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Jessica Uelmen is Engineering Manager at one of our favorite companies, Parallax Inc. We talk about how she got started in engineering and many many projects including Dweeb Den, Nerdy Show, Gazetteers, etextiles, and even about her getting her Masters in Engineering. Lots of fun tidbits!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/08/16/zom ... ca-uelmen/

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Jake Griebe is a paramedic, nurse to be, and former Marine who also has his own school! He founded and teaches at the School of Wilderness Medicine and Survival and has provided instruction for many groups such as the DNR. We talk about the information he covers, getting some hints for how to survive in the bitter cold of the northern midwest. And we even get to talk about a Zombie Survival Charity Project he will be running in the upcoming year! We cover priorities and and clarify misconceptions people tend to have when it comes to survival training. Lots of good information in this one!

http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/08/23/zom ... ke-griebe/

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We celebrate our ONE YEAR anniversary on ZombieTech with John Cohn of The Colony, IBM, and of all things awesome! Though there were a few technical hiccups, we manage to discuss patents, worldwide travel, and the role of open source in a corporate world. We also discuss the future of engineering and the culture of engineers worldwide. And of course, we encourage everyone to contact John for a Sam Stone - in remembrance of his middle son Sam, but also the importance of organ donation. We're so glad to get a chance to catch up with John, and hope his future travels continue to go well!

Do note - if you're in the Vermont area and want to check out a Maker Faire that John is helping with, here's the link! http://www.champlainmakerfaire.com/about/ - let us know if you go!

Episode Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/08/30/zom ... john-cohn/

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Episode Link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/09/13/zom ... arle-kyle/

Earle Kyle is an aerospace engineer and physicist who helped design hardware in the Apollo manned moon mission spacecraft, the SR-71 Blackbird, the Phantom II fighter plane, the C-5A Galaxy Start Lifter, the Thor-Delta missile, Skylab Space station, bio-medical systems for the Space Shuttle, and telemetry data systems for the Atlantic Missile Range – to name a few! You’ll want to check out the rest of his LinkedIn page for EVERYTHING he’s had his hand in. But we had the honor of getting a chance to hear about what it was like as an engineer during the space race, and about his current work as well! We talk about NASA/JPL’s Solar Ambassador program as well as STEM schools and how Earle gets kids fired up about discovery, creation, and Space! Definitely not an interview to miss!

Some Notes from Earle:

You may recall I mentioned working with the Perpich Center up in the Minneapolis area on the Harvard developed ArtScience program. They introduced me to the “STEAM” concept I mentioned on the show (STEM with the Arts added). As food for thought for your lab, you might want to read the two books by David Edwards (founder of ArtScience):

1. ArtScience by David Edwards, 2008, 194 pages.
2. The Lab: Creativity and Culture by David Edwards, 2010, 224 pages.

You can find out more about the international ArtScience program at this web site:

http://www.artscienceprize.org/asp/abou ... ience-labs

The group of students that Mayo High School Planetarium Director, Larry Mascotti, and I mentored at Perpich won the local competition with their portable Mars Simulator Planetarium Dome concept and went to Paris this spring for the international ArtScience competition. You can see more about that at their Facebook web site at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Perpic ... ndactivity

Some of the photos on that site show the Paris lab and how informal groups get together to brain storm on new project concepts or to do some informal experimentation.

For those interested in what it will take to set up a human colony on Mars. It’s for the book called:

“Martian Outpost: The Challenges of Establishing a Human Settlement on Mars”, by Erik Seedhouse, 2009, 304 pages.

This is the most complete of the three best recent books about colonizing the Red Planet.

The Amazon link for it with descriptive information is:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/038798 ... Vob06FAPAD

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Jeff Merrick of Doejo is the creator and maker of “Map of the Dead” an amazing map that uses Google’s map API to show you your resources come the dawn of undead legions. We talk through the conception of the map, what oddities come out of it, and then we talk about the game! It has been in the works for a few months and we were lucky enough to be the first to get a few sneak peeks into some of the game play that will be involved. We might have gone a little overboard with giving ideas, but a fun conversation nevertheless .

Episode link: http://www.zombietech.tv/2012/09/20/zom ... f-merrick/