Hello and good day to you from episode 27 of our podcast series Project Gridlock. I'm metaphorical and a literal time of the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the back shop. We come and share with our listeners what we're doing, how we're doing it, what it takes to do it, our ideas, our innovative success stories, and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles, composite manufacturing, out of the box design, or even curiosities beyond, I encourage you to stick with us. Pedal in and learn a little. I'm Courtney B, co-owner and project manager of Predator Cycling. I'm here with my partner Arm Goan, the other co-owner, CEO, lead designer and engineer and video star. Hey Arm. Hey, how are you? Yeah, I'm good. Um, so I mentioned video star because today we're inviting our first repeat guest. Uh, Kurt Chan, way back when, episode 10, we had Kurt Chan from Ansis. Come to discuss very broadly, uh, who and what Ansis is. Um, and how we use their software for our product design. And we had a quick discussion about discovery and topology optimization. Um, but I think we're going to talk more narrowly about it today. So welcome back, Kurt. Awesome. Thank you for having me. A repeat customer, man. The first one. Oh. That's this is great. Yeah. The first one. We'll be all good, right? Yes. You're an episode, what is this? 27. I was episode 10. All this means is you guys are scaling and people are loving what you're doing. So continue doing what you're doing. Which is fantastic. Yeah, you do. Thank you. Yeah, so, um, as I said, we want to discuss today more narrowly um, about discover and discovery because that's what Arm's been using. Yep. Um, and then to also mention that you and your uh camera dude so graciously came back uh to Nashville in May. It's May. Was it May? Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was a while ago. And you released the I think this past Monday uh customer highlight video along with the your uh in conjunction with the R two release. Yes. So, uh, yeah. Let's discuss that. Yeah, it was it was cool. It was a cool video. It's uh talking a lot about the how we use topology optimization. Which is I guess super relevant to uh to today's podcast. Yeah. You guys actually had a lot of cool updates in R two. I'm excited to play with. I haven't messed with it too much yet. But um, yeah, you guys have the replace body uh feature. So you can replace your your update your bodies for your uh parts. Um, I'm excited to play with that. So before we get into like the the nerdy nerdy. Um, I want to just break down topology optimization quickly for people. me and your mom who I know is the first person to listen. Yeah. So, uh, topology as defined by Wikipedia, and you guys interrupt if you know something more than Wikipedia does. Love it. Wikipedia. Yeah. Uh, the uh geometric properties and spatial relations unaffected by the continuous change of shape, size or figures. So basically, uh, geometric properties that are preserved under continuous strains from external sources. So in in our case, like uh, a bike frame. Yep. Uh, is bent, twists, you hit a pot hole, it constricts, expands. Um, so you use the software to basically learn from those. continuous streams on the chips. Can you expand upon that definition? Well, I'll give it, I'll give it my take and then correct everything I say wrong. But um, I mean, the basic idea is like with topology optimization is you're starting with a structure and you're going through uh, using simulation to find the optimal structure based on your loads and constraints. Um, and it's a really helpful tool. I mean, it's we've been using it for a while. We've just in the last year really been learning how to turn it into like production parts. Um, utilizing it. But um, it really opens up your mind and what you can do. Because it's, it's not just the engineer, you know, sitting there going, well, I think this, this and this, building it and then simulating it. Or even, you know, in discovery, you can almost essentially live simulate all of those properties and update it. But with topology optimization, you're letting Ansis solvers do that for you. Agreed. I think you couldn't say any better than that. When you do look at and just to add to it, it's, the live portion you brought up. Like what's our value? Right? Uh, yes. You know the brand Ansis. People are aware. But it's how fast we can execute on solving the problem. And, it's about time. Like, we all know what we're trying to solve here is speed up the time so then you can iterate faster to then get to that next phase within your product development cycle. The live thing is a game changer. I mean, that really changes the game. Because I think I was talking. I think was it GTC or simulation world last year? It's all a blur. I don't know. It's a lot of. One of those conferences. One of the conferences I was talking about and I was really talking about how you it's it's essentially a companion. It becomes a companion. It's not. You're not like you historically always like did your file, set it all up, sent it to simulation, waited. Small one, maybe 10 minutes, five minutes. A big one, an hour, two hours. Now you're doing it essentially. I mean, it's almost live. I mean, it's I mean we have a pretty fancy workstation. But um, it does it pretty quick. But it's like, I mean, there's a couple second delay on half the simulations to get the simulation started. Um, and then you can see exactly what it's doing. And it's like for me, it actually helps me. Because then in topology optimization, I I can see how, you know, in my head. Ansis is my buddy here on my workstation and it's like showing me how Ansis is solving it and like the way it's approaching it. And then it's like, oh, that's interesting. Like it's going to it's taking material away here, it's adding material here. And then it tries it again a different way and it's like. You're watching it solve, which is really cool. And it allows you to think about it differently. And then like I'll literally let it run in one screen and then say, okay. Go back and make a a change to it, let it finish solving. And then I have like four more solves ready to go. Because I saw it running and I figured something out while it was running. And thought of a new way to do it. And it's it's really interesting. And then you can update it. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's sorry. And too, as you talk about like the speed. And people say, oh, well, is it GPU dependent? As we get into the details. And it's like, well, well, yes. But if you don't have a GPU. Well, we run in the cloud as well. So. Oh, right. Flip a coin on where you want to go. You don't have to feel like you're limited or we're limited in these areas. It's. You pick your cup of tea, I think today, as I talk to many engineers or people within the product development cycle. They have the type of workstations we have to execute on, right? You know, my previous. Yeah. No, but I was going to say like I have another my other workstation. I I didn't have, well, now I have a fancy GPU in it. But like I didn't have a super fancy GPU. I just had like an RTX 1060 with like six gigs of RAM. Like nothing fancy. Um, and it would, I mean, it didn't do it as fast as it does now. But I mean, it. It did it. I mean, it worked. It it's you don't need, I mean. It helps to have, you know, like I have an RTX A6000. I mean, that's awesome. Um. But you don't need it, like you can get away with smaller graphics cards. Um, and like consumer stuff, you can get away with quite a bit. Oh, yeah. I think. I don't know. It's cool. It's definitely cool and GPUs scale so fast that. You know. In six months, you know. Um, yeah, as long as Bitcoin stays low. Six months you can get a GPU, you know. Exactly. Uh. Um, yeah. So, it's cool. Yeah. And I think beyond the hardware. At least, I mean, I don't I don't use it. But I watch you use it. I think beyond the hardware that you do have. It's. And you said it's a companion. So you're not relying on your software to give you the answer. You're relying on it to basically start a conversation with you. Yeah. Yeah. And for arm, it's a literal conversation. Because he actually talks to it. Yeah. It's real time. We got to brand it, not Siri or Alexa. Let's give it a name. Right? What's the name? It needs a name. It needs a name. Yes. It needs a name. Look at this. You guys are giving me some great marketing ideas here. We're going to start calling it this. What did Microsoft bring back this? Oh, Clippy. Clippy. Clippy, like Ansis needs their like something. I don't know what it is. But like a little clippy thing on the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. We I think we did that. We did that for an April Fool's joke, I believe, like earlier this year. A little A pop up at the bottom, hey. Yeah. I don't even think it'd be a joke. Yeah. I think it'd be an asset. Yeah, like, what do you mean this is fake? Ah, come on, guys. You guys need beta testing, alpha testing. I'm here. I'm telling you what. Like, Yeah. Um, no, it's cool. Like, I it's it is. It's it's I this last year. My definitely I can say that especially with using all the tools that we're using. It's especially in discovery. It's it it is a companion. It's not it's not used as a tool anymore. It's used as a co-designer, co-developer. It's like work alongside you. Um, Yeah. You really work in parallel with your software now. It's just super cool. It's a cool experience. So, um, I think beyond optimizing shapes as we talked about. But, uh, specifically for us with our new product, we're actually optimizing material usage. Mhm. So, we obviously use metals and we've used it for our carbon fiber frames, but now we're doing 3D additive print with the um, genius water bottle cage. Mhm. So, um, let's discuss how we've propelled ourselves really in the last year. Because Yeah. And I I think that's where this type of technology really shines. Because um, I know we've had these conversations in the past. But like the the concept. Really. Of I mean, you can't design, I mean, I get you can design for 3D print. Like to make things easy to print. But when you're trying to optimize parts to 3D print, you really can't do it without. You. I'm I'm going to go ahead and say. You cannot do it without tools like um, topology optimization. It can't. You can't optimize a structure. It's you. I mean, the human brain does not work in those ways. We're talking about earlier. Like, I mean, we um, engineers, product development people, we're really good at at at solving problems. Um, and finding ways to fix things. Um, but simulation, topology optimization, AI is really good at answering questions. Mhm. Um, it's kind of how I was breaking it down. And you know, with topology optimization, we can come in like for instance. The the genius bottle cage. You know, we knew that we need these entry points. We knew we had these mounting locations. We knew certain parameters that we had for our print constraints that we had based on how we were printing it. And to decrease cost of printing. We put all that into a model system and put those into some constraints within discovery. And then played around with material properties. And played around with different things. And let, you know, discovery start figuring out how to optimize it and how good we can make the part. And then based on that, we went back and refined it. Um, and let it run again. And then again. And again. And then. You know, every day we were making prototypes. Um, and, you know, that's how that's literally how the genius cage was born. Um, and I feel that that's the first time that we've been able to actually use the print, like use 3D print, additive manufacture, like additive technology to actually make a production part. Um, because I mean, I've tried for three years to come up with a cage. additive. And I couldn't do it because it would be too expensive, it would take too long to print. It wouldn't work. Um. This is the only way we're able to do it. It's also it's also a living product because of the software. I Yep. we've, yes, we've we've sold the cages, but it's not a finite. That's the cage. We've had customer feedback after the purchase of a cage. And we've literally made little Mhm. little changes. You probably wouldn't see it to the, you know, the eye. Yeah. But literally like the second batch had a little bit different properties. Mhm. Based on the print. Yeah. But we can just change like as we're manufacturing, we didn't send off a large order overseas and say, I need 200,000 bottle cages and I'm stuck selling them anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I we we optimized it here in house and now we're sending out a completely like different product. I mean, it's a software update. Yeah. But don't don't don't tell our first customers that. They're going to be like, I have a generation one. Actually, that's vintage. So it's Yeah. Exactly. The value has gone up. Exactly. But yeah, but like, I mean, but that's how things work. I mean, like you get every time you make something, you make it better. I mean, or at least you should. You shouldn't keep making it better. Um. So it helps us with that. And I Yeah. But like, and that's, you know, kind of the thing. It's like, you can't it's it's very it's I mean, also with topology optimization, what you start trying to think of something out of, which is kind of trippy, is like the more material you take away, the less it costs to make. And potentially the faster you can actually make it. Yeah. It's kind of trippy. Um. Yeah. And Yep. Yep. I mean, and in to to validate too, like, when you talk topology, right? I I it's it's I feel it's a sense of art. Because you guys deliver a consumer product, right? And I feel the end goal, a part of that is the aesthetic look that you want to go with to sell this consumer product, right? And you look at like the successes of some of these other companies, like the Apples and all those people that that leverage design, care about design. And to be very honest, when I when you look at this part, the first time I saw it, it was it was intriguing and attractive. It wasn't just a part where, and I've used other products out there, where here are 50 choices that you have. Um, whoa. Ten of those are ugly. I'm not going with those, right? Even though I could machine it this way. Like, Right. And that's that's the attractive piece to to what topology optimization helps you out with. And I I applaud you guys for for the detail and the care and like the story of how you talk. Yes, it's a water bottle cage. Yes, you save what, 40%? Yes, it's a consumer product. But the passion and the the why you did this, right? Yeah. Is what I care about the most. Like that's what makes me feel connected more to you guys. And why I want to purchase why I have purchased one is because of your why. you did this, right? Yeah. And don't, like, I don't want people to forget like, oh, it's just about technology. But it's, it's we're inspiring you to do something different. Yeah. And and that's the whole goal here, right? For sure. For sure. It's inspiration. Well, and it's also like, I mean, like, you guys talk about and it's like I listen, I go to, I mean, I try to almost weekly go to some of the Ansis webinars and stuff that you guys host. And it's always interesting because you're talking about tool sets and how tools are applied and how you can use them and like, and it's again, it comes back to the same thing about answering questions. Because like I have a lot of questions and I want to know how to. We know. We know it. I have a lot of questions. So like I want to know like, okay, like here's the problem, like the bottle, like one of the problems with the with the water bottle cages, not just weight, not just cost, but the water bottle ejecting. A bottle coming out and how difficult it is, what angle you have to get to get the bottle in. Then the other thing is impact and how impact affects it, like when you hit a bump on the road and how the bottle holds in so that it doesn't eject or break the cage. Um. I mean, these are all different types of questions and like we've actually been able to leverage different Ansis tools and I mean within discovery and then even some in in mechanical to answer the questions for us of like what actually happens and why does it happen and how can we fix it from happening and optimize it? Um. Yeah. And it's, you know, like Courtney said, it's a living product. It's a use case. It's a jumping off product. Yes, it's a small product, but it's going to. That the philosophy is learned in the design of that product are going to be used towards our much, you know, bigger products. Yes. Of course, once people want to buy those. Right. In the meantime, I'll just keep using my little product. Uh, well, yeah, but like also like. I kind of builds on the idea of like, I mean, well, I mean. Courtney know how long we've been doing for years. But like, we've been working together for a long time. But like. The the fundamentals of what we worked on a long time ago has building a a workflow and a design philosophy of how we can actually update and modify our parts and our assemblies. And how everything is connected. And having the closed loop on our manufacturing and testing so we can actually validate. Parts that we make and then simulate and then we can validate them and then go back and confirm that's what happened and do that in a closed loop scenario. It's taken us years to come up with all of these things and how it all works. Um. And then once we were able to like plug Ansis into it, I mean, that's like that changed everything because now we can simulate everything within Ansis. And it's like it's essentially digital twin. I mean. Essentially. Yeah. But it's at least a validation process. And so that it accelerates our workflow. And it's taken us, I don't know, eight years to get to this point where we can actually do it. And now plugging in topology optimization into that workflow. It just it's it's super cool. Because you can. Leverage it. Uh, which we couldn't have done, I mean, if we had topology optimization five years ago, I don't think we could have done what we're doing today. Yeah. Yeah. No. No, I didn't. are two people doing something in five years that probably takes 100 people in a corporation 25 years to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, so it's cool. It's been it's been a it's a fun process. It's been interesting. I'm excited to see where we where we're where we're going to take it next for other products. Because, um, the other thing too that's kind of cool about the the genius cage is that, I mean, you kind of forget, we talk about all this tech and all these like hardware and all this stuff. But it's like, I mean, it's a $40 water bottle cage. So it's it's actually, and you know, it's kind of it becomes price competitive. So, I mean, you can get, you know, injection molded, um, outsourced cages, you know, for higher end stuff in the high, you know, high 20s. Um, you know, you're looking at entry level water, you know, carbon cages, um, in in the in the 30s, 40s. All the way up to like, you know, 150 bucks. Um, and we're right at 40 and we're actually beating most of them. And almost all the specs. Um, and it's additive. And it's made in house. Like, it's cool. It's it's I I think it's for us at least, it's the first example I've seen in the bike industry where it's at least it's scalable. And it's like, it's actually a product that's not just hype. It's not a hyped product. It's it's a legit product and it's price competitive. So. Oh, I want, oh, sorry. Go for it. I was going to say real quick. It's it's an accessory. Like coming back to the the analogy with phones, right? The accessories that were like people spend a lot of money on. They love the accessory. And when you I think when you go look at I'm an avid mountain biker. I'm not a road biker. But like when I look at it, all the little accessories I see my friends have. That's like what they're proud of. Like, oh, where'd you get that? I didn't notice that. Oh, it's just it's cool. Why why not? Why not have it? Right? And so I love that aspect of it. Well, yeah. And but I think like the thing that I was I think I was I was trying to hit out is like the idea that it's like, it's not just cool because it's additive. If if if you take away the additive perspective and take away the manufacturing perspective and take away all the what I think is really interesting tech behind the scenes and you just take the product and you put it up against something else that's injection molded or a composite compression mold or even a hand laid bagged molded part. It's competitive. It's competitive on its own feet from a performance perspective, but also from a cost perspective. Like when you look at it from all those matrix. It it actually makes sense the product. Which I think historically has not been true for additive. And especially for in-house additive, um, processes that you could do. Like it just it wasn't possible. Um, so like I think that's a, I mean, one it's a testament to like workflows and whatnot, but also like, I mean, hardware and software is accessible now. Like it's we can actually do this stuff. So, um, anyways. This is kind of what I'm trying to get to on on on it now. It's like I think that's what makes it interesting to me. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to shift a little bit here. Uh-oh. Uh, no, I just wanted to uh shift and ask Kurt about Ansis uh discovery and then the future of um three additive print in different materials like PDM and metals. Yeah. Um, because you have to use the software to design around print restrictions, not just the restrictions of the material, but the restrictions of the printers themselves and the beds. And how it's designed. So. Yeah, and how how the printers work. Like the the principles of the printer make a big difference. Right. So what what are your thoughts? What's Ansis doing here in the future? Well, we're doing quite a bit, right? It's a big goal of ours is showcasing our technology with partners. Perfect example, I love is Velvo 3D. I'll give a shout out to them just because I've been doing so much with them. But you know, when you start getting into metal and I think you guys see when you print in ABS or any type of plastic, uh, it's, you know, it's it's flexible. But when you get into metal and you're printing titanium or stainless or aluminum, the material properties are completely different. Like, people don't think about like, yes, when you go print on your Ender, for example, 3D Pro, you can just rip that sucker right off the bed and there you go, right? Well, you can't do that same that same approach with metal. Like, do you go, you know, EDM it? Uh, what's the effect of distortion on it? And two, you know, what is the value of simulation? A part of the additive process, right? Because when you look at printing metal, think about the cost. So if you somehow warp it at the very end, taking it off the bed, that print's gone, right? And especially if you're working in aerospace or defense and that's the goal to then go get bolted onto the airplane. You can't you you you can't do that. So, uh, with our technology today, we have we have something called additive suite. That's available with workbench and, you know, our flagship products. And you have the prep, you have the post. You you have and you can look into all these details, right? And it's really interesting being a heavy subtractive guy, just like you. Like, right. Start of my my manufacturing career on subtractive manufacturing. You look at our direction now of, okay, additive. A lot of companies out there. But two, people think additive as it's just you hit print. And it and there it is. And it's not. Like what what we do here is at Ansis is additive simulation. So we fit within this process now of like design to manufacturing, we're right before for you hit go. Just make sure everything looks good. Because that's a lot of money you're printing right there. And people can trust us because of the brand, right? Like, brand Ansis, right? Like, look. Like, we know our stuff is right on par. Well, and the thing too is, I think when you start getting into, because we've looked at, um, we've, I mean, we haven't, we don't inhouse print in metal. Um, but we've looked at outsourcing. And looked at like, really, I've looked at printing. metal a lot. But there's a lot of the issue, I mean, the problems that we always face is one, you know, the simulation side of it. Well, we, I mean, we have access to some of the answer stuff. But it's a little cumbersome to use currently to just for the exploration stage to just explore it. Um, to see what it cost and do and set up. But also like, I mean, like one of the problems that I ran into right away when I started pricing it out. It was actually in like in the nesting. Because, um, when you're using some of the, um, the lasers, so for most people, so just to printing in metal. You're typically, you're talking about, um, Can you explain the printing in metal to me? Yeah, so the basic. The very basic, you have a cube, it's full of powdered metal. You have a laser that hits it and basically melts that metal into a structure. There's other types of it, that's the most common. Does it have the same properties of strength though when you 3D print? Because I see a lot of kitchy items where out of that printed. But is the function worth the cost? It can, they can, they can print. They print very well. It's it's essentially you're melting the part together. So you're you're. I'm not quite sure what the same as cast, I would assume it's similar to casting. The part would be similar, I would assume. But it it's very strong. It's very strong. Um, but when you have, for instance, like we tested a couple parts, we couldn't nest things together. Close enough to make it cost effective. Because the heat from the laser, you couldn't get it. The next part couldn't be too close to it because of warping. They're afraid that the part would warp. And then like the wall thickness of the part matters a lot. So like if the if the part's got a super thick wall thickness, the nesting powder has to be a little bit farther spread apart. And there's like all these little things that you have to figure out to figure to see if it can be in production made. Um, which would be really cool to see in Discovery, maybe. I don't know. Um. Uh, but yeah, I mean, that would, you know, there's a lot of questions to answer. And then, um, Yeah, but metal's very cool. I mean, it's very it's very cool. Like you said, it's very expensive. The machines are expensive. The production's expensive. Yes. Processing is expensive. So you can't make mistakes. Aren't these industries, I feel like us, like sporting and especially aerospace trying to get lighter? Why would they want to print in titanium? Is that light? It's very light. It's very light and strong. Um, but I think this kind of gets back to. What about this composite? No, composites are actually. It's cheaper. I don't know what I'm talking about. Uh, no, it's it's you're you're starting to get into. It gets it gets complicated very quickly. Because, um, Yes, it gets very complicated. So composites have a it's even composites if you're looking at tensile strength to density. Uh, the composites that we're working on are far superior to titanium. Um, the problems you get into is when you start getting into intricate designs and mounting and hardware. Oh, okay. And like and and compression loads from bearings. Titanium becomes. a really nice option. Um, easier to print. Yes, you can't print technically carbon. No, then to mold carbon. Yes, yes, it would be easier to titanium 3D print something for a one-off part than it would be to design mold a highly complex compression molded part. And you can create like a giant print farm for titanium prints, right? Yeah, you you absolutely can. You can make a print farm to print stuff off too. Um, it gets interesting. It gets super interesting. And so that's where like simulation comes into it. Yeah. Simulation starts playing a huge factor into this because. Um, I mean, what I'm most interested in for me is like, and that's where we've been using, that's where the original idea for us and additive was and we had in the past been using is like hybrid manufacturing workflows where you're dealing with composite structures as well as printed structures. Um, and that's for us what where where I was going to go with Ansis and where we we are going. But, um, we took a break on the way for the the genius cage and whatnot and some of our direct consumer parts. Um, but like and then start incorporating like, you know, printing like metal printing into that. Incorporating metal printing into a carbon structure. Yeah. Does Ansis have the science to see how those two materials fuse together? They're actually the only ones that. Oh, there you go. That's my question. Yeah. It's. Are you surprised? Are you surprised? I'm surprised every day by what I learned. Come on. Oh. Yeah, I believe. Where's my Ansis for dummies book? That's what I need. It's just more of, oh, we can do it. Yeah, we can do it. Uh, yeah, no, it's it's super. Anyways, it's very interesting what you can do. And that's that's I think where the the future of manufacturing is like we're going to see in the next 10 years. We're going to start seeing some really cool hybrid. Agreed. Um, that and then in conjunction with simulating the entire assemblies with manufacturing and looking at topology optimizations across assemblies with different materials and manufacturing properties. Like that's what's interesting. Um. Anyways, yes. I don't know if we went off a little bit on a pigeon here. I'm not sure. What are we talking about? But we can go deep into additive. I mean, that's the thing. It's I know with time. But it's I'm learning so much about it too. And it's just interesting. And and I'm just excited to get back into the trade shows, right? Like. I'm hoping IMTS happens next year. I'm hoping Form next happens this year. There's some really cool shows to where you build these relationships and you can just learn about the technology of like. Darn, I didn't know you can do that. Like. Right. Who would have ever thought? Right? Who would have thought like 10 years ago welding? Welding metal together, right? Right. It's just interesting. You remember when they did the bridge, was it in Sweden? They built the bridge with two robots and like welded a frame. Like, why? Did you see it? It just went live, um, or they just did, I think it's the same one or I think it's the same one, but similar. That just went got published like two weeks ago or something like that, right? Something I saw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really cool. Oh, yeah. Just. Yeah. It's interesting. Well, and now that like this is, I mean, it's. I mean, okay. Everyone in the world doesn't have access to all this technology, but like it's it's worked its way down so that more people have so much access. And that like the hardware has scaled so well to compliment it. Like it's really cool. to see what people are doing. Like. Uh, it's it's really, I mean, that's to be honest, one of the reasons why I always like try jumping on all these different webinars and stuff. Because I'm just like, oh, what are they doing? Like I have this nothing to do with what I'm we're doing, but like I'm just interested. Like it's cool. Yeah, he could be a professional webinar uh viewer. And he loves nothing more than trade show. So COVID needs to go away so he can travel. But like I on that note though. I really hope that they still keep everyone keeps this virtual trade show thing going too. Like because I have gone to more trade shows and it been involved in more shows and stuff because it was virtual that I would not have gone to otherwise. I mean, we're basically, I mean, well, we're a small company and also like it's just it takes so much, it's cost, but it's also time. I mean, most of these trade shows take a week. It's like we don't have a week to give up for a trade show. Like I'd love to go. But I can't. Um. Now it's been like, oh, simulation world. Like, okay, I can jump on that for like, you know, two hours here, three hours there. Watch this conference. You know, it took five hours out of my, you know, my week to like watch all these conferences. Or I can save them for later. Um, like GTC, I've always wanted to do GTC. And like now that it was online. Like I actually went and I did it. So it's been fun. Like I I I totally hope that conferences also keep that. Uh. Because it's a cool part. It's a plus. Yeah. I think. Awesome. Cool. Um, anything else you want to talk about in discovery before we wrap it up? Any plugs? Nope. R two. Our R two is out. 2021 R two is out. So just as you alluded. There is some really cool things, right? I think it comes down to specifics. But you look at like porous media. Uh more functionality with CHT. You get down to the to the nerdy stuff, right? It's it's just great to see the evolution of the product. Right. We look at like a year ago. Yeah, last year. When we launched discovery as this one experience environment. We've evolved a lot in one year, right? For for a a desktop installed software, right? That the traditional use of like engineering software, we've done so much and it's just remarkable. So kudos to to the teams here to our customers like yourself who just voice their opinion and help us push to to deliver what we need to deliver. So, so yeah. Awesome. Well, Kurt, thanks for coming on again. Thank you for having me. 27. I guess we'll probably see you in like. 50. Episode 50. Hopefully, right? 48. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah, there'll be a lot of there'll be a lot of additive discussion then. I'm sure, right? Which will be awesome. Additive is getting bigger. Awesome. Thank you for choosing to take some time with us. And we look forward to future breakaways. Look for us on Instagram and LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and in person here in Tennessee. We ask our listeners, please share, like and subscribe. We're available on all major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening. Have a good one and find some time to break away.
EpisodeJul 30, 2021 · 33:32
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Project Breakaway with Predator Cycling
27: A Discussion with Ansys; Topology Optimization, Ep. 27
In this episode of Project Gridlock, Predator Cycling welcomes Ansys's Kurt Chan to discuss topology optimization, focusing on the Ansys Discovery software. They highlight how its "live simulation" capabilities drastically speed up product development by allowing engineers to quickly iterate and find optimal structures. This dynamic approach transforms the design process, making the software an interactive companion that fosters innovative solutions.
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