Hello and good day to you from episode 48 of our podcast series Project Breakaway. A metaphorical and literal time in the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the back shop to 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, settle in and learn a little. I'm Courtney B, co-owner and project manager of Predator Cycling, and I'm here with my partner, I'm Goganian. The other co-owner, CEO, lead designer and engineer and Zudad, Zuzu. It's like slur that Zudad. Uh, yeah. We took the boys. You missed. You missed your zoo. We took the boys to the Nashville Zoo yesterday. We did, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. So they have a huge playground. Like a lose your child for like 10 minutes playground. I lost him for a minute. Yeah, no, I lost him. I lost him for like five minutes. I was, I was like, I was like, wait, he was right there and then I'm like, no, there's more than one kid with a red sweatshirt. Yeah, you need to actually need to put like glow stick, not glow sticks, but like uh, like a bike light. What about like one of those tile tracking devices? Well, then that would just still tell you they're in the vicinity. Yeah, but it like beats and stuff. Oh, I don't know, does it? I think so. I have no idea, anyway. So that was fun. Saw some monkey. We did. We saw some monkeys, saw some animals. Animals. Animals. Animals. Um, yeah, and I mean, you know, our four-year-old has about like a 26 to 34 second attention span for the animals. Yeah, we didn't actually see that, we saw more of a playground and more of the inside of like, um, the cafeteria for pizza than we did with the actual animals. Well, he liked the trails. Like all the trails and walking through the zoo, he thought it was like an adventure. It was like, it was fun. He had a good time. I had a good time. So that was good. That's cool. So we took uh, last week off because you were in Texas. I was. But the week before you went to Texas, we went to the 3D experience uh, software convention downtown Nashville. Yep. That was super cool. We were guests of our friends at Lenovo, who are always like the platinum, diamond, mega donors, sponsors of the event. So they had like a big booth in the front, like they normally do. And um, the event itself was put on by the Salt systems. Yep, which is a European company. French, I didn't know that. I just Wikipedia them. Yeah. I didn't know they were French. Um, that develops software for 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing and related products. So we're talking mostly about like solid works. SolidWorks is, I mean, I think probably what everyone knows them for. They have, which talked about mining. Yeah, I know it's a lot. Which I guess is like astronomical. Yeah. And price. Yeah. And like. Simulia. Simulia. Simulia. Simulia. Simulia. Which I guess is like a. Simulia. Simulation. It's simulation. It's their. It's their simulation engine. Is. Is that. Okay. So we always talk about Autodesk and AutoCAD. Yeah. And Fusion 360. So SolidWorks is basically the competition. Uh, yeah. I mean, the direct competitor is Inventor. Inventor and SolidWorks are the two that go head-to-head. Um, Fusion was, you know, the new kid on the block. Like, what is it? Eight, nine years ago. Um. So you, would you say Inventor? Inventor is Autodesk's competitor against SolidWorks. So you're saying Cam or Cat? What's. So Cam is computer assisted. Computer aided design. That's CAD. Yeah. What's Cam? Computer aided machine. No, it's not. It's not right. I always say it wrong. So I always think it's computer aided. But it's, um, Cam is what you write. To create, um, profiles for CNC machining. And cutting out parts. Computer aided manufacturing. Oh, is it? I thought it was, I thought I always get it wrong. That's what I was going to say, but I'm like, I thought I always get that wrong. Oh, I'll sorry. It's two. It could be computer aided machining or manufacturing. Or computer aided modeling depending on the company. That you're. Oh God. Okay, everyone considers it machining. I mean, machining manufacturing. So you're talking about I want to cut something out on. Uh, machine. Yeah. And I need to code it. And these are the programs that assist with that. Yeah, and like Fusion was one of the first programs. To really integrate all of that into one platform. So design, simulation, manufacturing. Into one product without add-ons. Like you didn't have like. Just open up the software and A to Z start to finish. I want to cut like a. Yep. Box dimension. So throw in the numbers and then it spits out the code for the machine. To know what to cut. Yep. Basically. Yeah. Uh, and Fusion was the first. I mean, Inventor and SolidWorks both did that as well. But you had to have third-party add-ons in order to be able to do it. Fusion was like a single ecosystem that really did it. And, you know, um. Anyways, Fusion kind of hits a lot of really a lot of spots really well. Um, so. So then what do like. So I was reading SolidWorks. I was reading the Salt Systems Wikipedia and it sounds like in the 90s. They were like, well, obviously Autodesk didn't have Fusion. So. They didn't have Fusion. They're big. They said they were used by like a lot of like the big. Uh, like BMW and like a lot of big car companies. I mean, I think still to this day. A ton of people are still using SolidWorks. Uh, Katia. Katia becomes really important when you talk about large assembly models. So like a lot of car guys I know use that. They also use NX is the other one. So you want Katia. I want Katia. Because there's no, what's the Autodesk version of Katia? There is none really. I don't, there's not much that competes with Katia. Katia really, I guess the only, I mean, I don't know. Probably somebody can correct me, but I mean NX would probably be the biggest competitor. I would assume to it. Um, Katia's real power is in the fact that like, well, for us, the reason we want Katia. Do you want to know what Katia stands for? What? Computer aided three-dimensional interactive application. Oh, that's makes sense. That makes perfect sense. Um, Katia's real power, the reason I want it is because we do bidirectional braided sleeves and we do very complex patterning like that onto complex organic shapes. Um, Katia is really the only software that I've ever seen or heard of that can actually correctly model braided structures on organic shapes. But you have we've worked with Ansis prior to that. How is that different? So, we have always treated our solid, I mean, this is getting really geeky. But we've always basically treated our solid structures as a surface and then we take those surfaces and we simulate the composite laying. A basically essentially a filament wound part. So we wrote a little script that goes into workbench in Ansis and then that basically models um that um angle orientation based on the cross section onto the simulation file. If that makes sense. Well, so let me try and break that down. Picture a bicycle. Yeah. A bicycle is made out of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is like a fabric, so it's like draping a sheet onto a solid object. Right. So when you simulate that, Mhm. Obviously, there's wrinkles. So, right. In like the curved areas. Yes, you are 100% correct. When you're talking about draping. But you're talking about, okay. We're talking about the braided sleeve. So you always say think of a Chinese finger trap. So think of a curve of a bicycle tube and wrap putting of a Chinese finger trap on that. Yeah. And trying to calculate. The diameter is great, but when you hit that curve to like where the down tube goes up to the seat tube and you have a Chinese finger trap on it. Obviously, that's not going to be like a nice flat layout. Well, even the down tubes, think about how you know when you we lay it, you can kind of see those areas where it gets like straighter and then it goes like straight along the direction of the tube. And then it gets like really wide and the angles go up. That all has to do because of the circumference of the tube. Now, setting that material properties up correctly for simulation is very tricky to do. Mhm. Um, in Katia, you can actually model that in. You can actually tell it to basically take a carbon sleeve. And drape it on the tube. And it will actually create that structure. Is what you can do in Katia. So my question is in real life when we're draping. When we're not draping, when we're like slipping on. Okay, so this. This is my this is how I'm picturing it. Okay, picture a body pillow. A pregnancy body pillow. You know how they're like they're big on the bottom, they're skinny and they move because it coordinates with your body. And now when I have to put that pillow case Yes. on that stupid thing. And I have to take this the tiny part over the big big part and I'm shoving it in there. So like in real life when you're trying to put when okay, so in simulation it's nicely draped on the simulation. But like where's all that extra material go in real life when you when you put it on there? Well, that's why we cut those weird fabric patterns and patches that actually go on there to fit into those sections. But yeah. I mean that's yes to fill those voids and fill those pockets and so that we can actually. is the only software that has the braided part. The braided section is the trick. And Why is that? Cuz no one uses braided sleeve except for. Because it's it's typically there the only people that really do it and use it for simulation is like really high-end aerospace. Like that is the only people that do it. And they do it from a loom. models it from a loom, we model it from a sleeve. gets the closest to be able to do it. Um and right now I do it basically with a a script inside of fusion that cuts things into sections. Then I have a little Python app that basically grabs it and runs circumferences and then cross references that to filament one parts. And then dumps that into we're using ansys, that would go into ansys workbench. And that would give me a filament. directional rules. Anyways. There was a good work around. And I'm pretty sure it was. I mean it was 90, you know, 98.5% accurate. Um so like we're getting the right orientation and then, you know, like you always say like comparing that to actually really what happens in real life. Um, we're probably right there on the money. Um, but you could take it to the next level. If you had and you could do variable analysis. So what's the difference between their software and their software? So is for simulation. So, when I'm talking about that braided structure, we could actually build that model of that braiding and then put that into their to actually do the computational solving. And is the one that speaks to the machine? It could. Like it's the CAD. It could do it has cam some sort of cam package inside of it. There is I think it's an add-on. I'm not sure. Does it speak to just like any old like Has machine or is it has to be a special machine? It has to be a post processor. But yeah, you can basically get post for all that stuff. I don't know I don't know to be honest the the power of in its cam. They didn't have a booth. They had a very small area. Yeah, I went talk to one of the guys there for like a minute. But it was only the guys were the ones covering the booth. There was no one there was no. It was a small event. I mean all the conventions are small these days. But it also just didn't seem um like uh uh label like they always have like big like signage. This is this area, this is this area and it just seemed confusing like walking around to know like what okay. I'm at your booth, what do I what am I learning here? Yeah. Like I see a computer. That's great. Yeah, it was a little it was a little tricky for sure. Um. It was a little tricky. And then. also had a big focus on their definition of digital twins at the show. Yeah, they're really pushing digital twin VR. Yes, so in terms of like bodies on the floor and shown on a screen. So they had like a booth where you, um, we didn't get to try it out because they had like a sign up and it was full that I looked at the thing it was full. But you basically would put on like a body pack and VR glasses and then you go in this like makeshift room and I imagine that it put you in like a manufacturing floor type scenario. Yeah, it was a. I think it was it was I thought it was a. Oh, it was a car. Oh, I thought it was many I thought the one that I I saw they had like two of them. One of them I saw was like a construction site thing. Oh. I thought or maybe it was manufacturing. I thought it was manufacturing floor, but anyway, it puts you in like that virtual and then I think that's what they were considering like a digital twin. But you could have like, I think they had like saw like 10 body packs or whatever. And then you could go in and like. I mean it's like a video like those. It's like a video game. Yeah, like downtown Nashville has one, I think it's called like virtual rabbit or white rabbit or something. You can go in with like 20 friends and like put on packs and VR glasses and play video games in like a room. Yeah, and I think they were talking about it. I was talking to some guys at Lenovo that were because we missed the intro. The keynote. The keynote. We missed. Because we had to be here. But um, we uh, I heard that they were talking a lot about digital twins and how they're going to integrate digital twins into their workflows. It doesn't it sounded like they hadn't quite done it, but they were like the theory of where what direction they're going to go. Sounded like more like what they're talking about. Um, but um, you know, a lot of these anyways. Digital twins are a very touchy subject. I don't know if it's touchy, it's just it's a very buzzword topic and um, you know, a lot of people call digital twins different things than what they are. Well, in like the basic sense of what I a normal person you hear a digital twin. I'd be like, oh, it's just like literally what it's in real life. I see on a computer. So like a body and I'm sorry. A person standing at a desk. Oh, now I'm looking at a screen. There's a person on desk. Now I put the VR glasses on. And I am the person sitting at the standing at the desk. Sure. I mean, I think the real thing. The connection with a digital twin in order for it to be a digital twin. It has to have a connection to the real world. So something updates, there's the connection of representing the real world as a digital world. Like that's the point that has to work. If that doesn't work, it's not a digital twin. That's what you're. So you're talking like in our sense. I'm using a digital twin. It's not so much like. I mean it is. It could be. But it's not throwing on VR glasses and like looking around our shop. And like I add, you know, a machine and pop. It populates. It's like we're trying to use digital twins to like replicate like actual workflow processes. In software. It's like digital twin of software. Well, not even that. It's. I mean, we're actually. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's just me being me. But like I think that like we're taking digital twin to that next step. Because we're basically. says like, okay, great, you can see what the digital twin looks like or you can, you know, interact with it in VR. Okay, that's all cool. But what we actually want to do is actually take real-time data in the shop floor, created into a into a digital twin and then run, you know, a synthetic analysis on it and simulation and optimize that workflow. Um and take it to the next level. And we're not just looking at, you know, a certain amount of assets. We're basically trying to compile it with all assets that we can measure. that have an effect on the system. Yeah. So like, anyways, we're. So like manipulating the digital twin both in real life. And then it's reflected in the digital twin. And that manipulation of one thing changes everything. So like, I don't know, picture yourself in like a room in a VR world and I've. both physically in real life and digitally, you know, increase the heat on my nest. Uh-huh. And I cranked it up to 180 degrees and I'm like, let's watch all the people in the digital world sweat. Sure, but like. And then, okay. But then the idea being. And because it's so hot, that now has affected your machine. Sure, but like. It's not even. Yeah, absolutely. But like also like. Okay, if I, what if I did it to 170 degrees? 175 degrees and 180 degrees. And I ran that model. And then what happened and then made variations of those models. And then analyzed that data. And then came up with. Hey, I want to raise the temperature so that X machine is off by X amount. What's the minimum amount of temperature that I have to do to it in order to achieve a condition that that would happen? Yeah. Um, you know, that's like a really complicated question. But like our concept is basically, well, we could run that kind of simulation very quickly and get the answer. Because we have all the data in real time. Um, and we could synthesize different scenarios and model it and simulate that. So, anyways. That's kind of where we're going. It's. Anyways, it's a it's a rabbit hole. Anyway, that is kind of on par with our um National Science Foundation grant that we are working on. Yeah. Kind of. That's kind of like the idea, anyway, that all ties all of the software and metaverse and Nvidia Omniverse stuff together. Yeah, and it kind of. I mean, that's the reason. We'll do a more in-depth podcast on that probably in the summer when I submit it. And it's like out there in the public sphere. Yeah. Anyway. Um. So that was the show. Is there anything else that sticks out from the show? To be honest, the biggest show is we've worked with a couple of the guys over at Lenovo. And we've actually never met face to face. So like that was kind of cool, like seeing people in person was super cool. Um. See, I, I don't know, my brain works. Is that I just I had assumed we had already met them. So did I. But then I was like, no, we hadn't. Like I we've just known him. I mean, like. I don't know. Like Chris at Lenova. We've known, I mean we've been working with him for. Three, three years. Two years. Two years. Two years. Two, three years. Whatever. I mean, like, you know, we've had a bunch of virtual meetings and conversations. And like, I don't know. I kind of feel like, you know. I know him pretty well. And it's like we've never met face to face. Like, you know. I've met other people face to face at like, you know, other events. We did AU, I think that was the first time we met people face to face. But. Anyways, it was kind of cool. And we got to see some of our friends from Nvidia, which is also super cool. Um. So it's good. It was a good show. And we gave them some barbecue and hot chicken suggestions to them. So we'll see if they actually went. Yeah, we should, we should follow up. And see what their opinion was. So, and then we ourselves. We went over to Fifth and Broadway, grabbed something quick and then came back to work. Yeah, yeah. A little escape. They escape. So, okay. Um, moving on. So my throwback Thursday photo that I posted last week. Was of you holding up a magazine cover of Road Magazine. Yeah. Circa 2013. That's 10 years ago now. Oh my God. So you had team Predator carbon repair back then. Yep. You were based out of your shop in Santa Monica. Yep. In which the idea was that we took old broken frames and repaired them with our carbon repair services. And then they were repainted. And then we sent them out on the road to be raced. And that was kind of like a testament to your repair service. Yeah. And they also rode the first version of the major red bars. All of them. Oh yeah. Yeah, they all have the red. The motor. Major roads on them. So what was like the level of the team? They were an elite team. I don't know what that means. So non-pro. Not a pro team. They were just one category below a pro. What's in baseball? Triple A, double A. It's different. It's different. But they were in what's called. But they still traveled around the country. They traveled around the. And did local races in each state. Yeah, they went, did some South America. Races in South America as well. So they did criteriums. Mostly crits. And some road races. Okay. And they did. We did really well. We were the only team that year, I think in the last two years of that. To actually take on United Healthcare, which is the big pro team. And beat them in a sprint. Does that team still exist? I know a lot of these teams don't exist. Don't think. I don't know if they got renamed into another, absorbed into another team. But I don't think so. We only had the team for two years. Two years. Yeah. It's hard to run a team. Yeah. And the second year we took a much smaller role. The first year we were very involved. The second year we took less involvement. As it just, it literally drained all of our resources. To do it the first year. I mean, we were working on that. Anyway, the photo on the cover of the magazine. I think we were walking down. We were walking, we're going to brunch. Because that's what you do in California. Brunch. There are very few things I miss about living in California. Like the beach. But also brunch. Brunching. Brunching. It's really like I guess pre-kids. When you had nothing to do. You're like, I'll get there when I get there. Oh look, let's go have some eggs Benedict. Yeah. Sea Otter, like, yeah. It was nice. Memphis eggs Benedict and we're three blocks from the ocean. Anyway, we're walking down. What's the mall called in Santa Mo? The third street promenade. The third street promenade and there was like a little magazine kiosk in the middle. And we were like, oh, hey, look, let's check. And, you know, Why I heard that we had gotten on the cover. And I was like, what do you mean? And I was like, and then. And then we looked and if you look, it's not technically like a cover. No, I'm taking that as a cover shot. That's his cover. The guy on the front is wearing a jersey that's just USA. I don't know if that meant. Was that like a. It was red, white and blue. Yeah, that's the national jersey. Um. Anyway, and then but literally the second place guy in the picture behind him, clear as day, not blurred at all, is a predator cycling jersey. Yes. But like what's. So what's huh? Okay. Um. Are you trying to look at that? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Because the guy who's on the cover is Fast Freddy. Um, and he rode for us that year and then switched to a pro team. So he could do the national pro pro US Nationals. So this is before he was on our team, he was on the cover. This is right after. Oh, he was already. He was on our team. He was on our team for you, Fast Freddy is like, I mean, pro. European pro, like won big races. Freddy Rodriguez. Yeah, Freddy Rodriguez. Uh, Fast Freddy is his nickname. But, um. Um, anyways, when I was a junior racing, like he was the fastest dude ever. And like killed it and won a bunch of stuff. And uh, raced against Mario Chipolini and like in Europe. And then when he came here, we were doing Redlands. And him and Kurt Carlson. Um, who used to race for uh Garmin, um, won and had a spot. They were looking for for a team. Did Redlands. And so they joined our team. So these you can like team hop. If you're not contracted, that's when you're an elite team. So we could do that. So you can just team up like, I'll do that race, I'll join that team for that race. Yeah, I mean, you can't just jump from team to team. But it's like composite teams, you build up teams. Because you don't have an official team. So he rode for us for a couple races and, um. And then went to Jelly Belly and, um, and raced and won Nationals. And then, you know, um, uh, one of our guys is literally right behind him in that picture. So it's like ironic. Because he was on our team a couple months ago. And then, you know, our team's on it. And I think in that issue or the another issue. Kurt Carlson was in it and they were interviewing him like they had a little interview question thing with him. Yeah. Anyway. I found that. Because he won. Um, he won Sea Otter that year in the kit on our team. Solo. Like no team support. Nobody else went with them. He went, I think last minute. He decided to go. And he ended up winning the overall. For the three night. I mean, it was. That was an amazing year. Those guys were incredible. I mean. Anyway, I found this photo. Yeah. And, um. It was cool. It was cool. Uh, anyway, I was going to be like, I was going to. I was on Instagram. I was like, oh, tag Road Magazine. That's now defunct. Yeah, and actually one of the the old editor. Uh, uh, Neil Brown. Who actually did my first interview for any magazine I ever was in. Um. When we were on in. Oh gosh. What was it must have been like? 08 or something. He wrote the first article that we ever got a little interview in Road Magazine. I met you in 2012. It's like 08, 09. Something like that. And that's actually the the picture that we do with that um with the bike and the um the the woman on the bike. Um the black on black like. The naked woman on the bike I stare at every day in my office. Yeah, that one. That was done. We did that with my cousin Craig. Um he helped with that. And we did that for a road bike magazine ad. It was the first ad we ever did. Yeah. It was pretty cool. Anyways. Anyway. Anyway, that was my throwback Thursday. We'll see what I find. I know I'm always interested on Thursdays. What you come up with to post. Anyway. Um, okay. So, um, we're regrouping here at the shop this week after your trip to Texas. Yep. And so we have a few local repairs as well as uh custom arrow bars that you are designing. Yeah. I'm just finishing up the on a couple arrow, we have a couple arrow bars in right now. And getting finished some stuff for the. So you need to design those. And then the next. We discussed it before, but it's the process after you, you know, design them is the 3D mockups. Yeah. So they're all designed right now, we're just waiting for we're waiting for some sample pieces to come in to make sure everything fits correctly to the factory mounts. And just getting that. Um. Done up. Um production. Just finishing up production. Arm pads and molds. And um working on a couple of the um um track pilots. So that mock up's go to the customer. And then when they okay it, uh it's off to the races with laying it up with carbon and then we get them out. Okay. Things to mention. Um, SPD SL cleat wedges are in the process of receiving materials. Um, I just can't seem to get them fast enough. Yeah. Which just tells me that the competing vendors of the wedges also don't have product. So. Um, anyway, this post COVID inflation manufacturing supply bubble. Is killing me. Yeah, it's something else, isn't it? And other news. Oh, never mind. I already talked about this. I was going to talk about the NSF grant. I'm just working diligently on it slowly. But diligently. There's a lot to do. Um yeah, I really want to do some uh in different in-depth podcasts on that. But it's just I want to get it done first. Yeah. Anyway. Um. That's it. Anything else to add before we sign off? No, I think that's it. Okay. It's Monday, let's get to it. We 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 to 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.
EpisodeFeb 27, 2023 · 26:50
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Project Breakaway with Predator Cycling
48: We Went a Conferencin': 3D Experience World & Digital Manufacturing, EP. 048
In this episode, Courtney B and I. Goganian recount their experience attending the 3D Experience World conference, exploring the latest in digital manufacturing. They dive into a fascinating discussion about various CAD/CAM software, including SolidWorks, Inventor, and Fusion 360. Discover why CATIA's advanced modeling capabilities for complex braided structures are particularly exciting for Predator Cycling's innovative composite manufacturing processes.
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