An Interview with Ben Krasnow, 8 years on

From The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)

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Welcome back, Ben Krasnow!

We first talked to Ben 8 years ago.
YouTube has changed quite a bit since then, as has Ben's channel:
- It's now called "Applied Science" instead of the original bkraz333 (though that link is still the official one)
- It now has 600k viewers and many Patreon sponsors
When Chris asked about replicating the paper setup (like from a research paper), Ben says it's a recipe. It's easier to follow and get started.
An artist had exclusive license to use
Vantablack, which made Ben wonder if he could make some. (spoiler: he can)
Applied Science gets lots of great feedback from technical viewers, including some who have insider knowledge.
Since the last episode Ben was on he worked at
- Valve Software, with past guests
After Valve, Ben went to go work for GoogleX in 2014. They wouldn't tell him what he was working on!
At 6 years, this is his longest running gig.
Joined science team with 20 people, which has grown into Verily Life Sciences. He's able to talk about (some) things now.
Ben has been on Embedded.fm twice in the meantime:
- 119
- 184
Verily announced an accommodating contact lens, which helps with presbyopia
Though Ben didn't work on that project, he had previously made am LED contact lens
Verily have a micro-fab on site for making and prototyping such small devices.
Ben's lab is a bit more simple, he says it almost looks like his home lab.
Chris compared the research portions to Bell Labs
When the team hits a wall, they focus on finding and integrating new tech.
Chris asks if the development is a push or a pull. As in, does the customer request certain technology or do they "deliver" it to the market and test whether it will work?
Verily is working with a US centric view, especially given the high costs of the US medical system.
Being an inventor type person in healthcare includes figuring out what the market looks like
How much iteration?
Verily have made hundreds of certain devices to test whether they can be manufactured "at scale" and that they will work in large numbers.
Primarily they partner with other (medical) hardware makers and Verily licenses the tech to the OEM.
A common demo in the Verily lab is a little motor that uses combustion because battery technology isn't power dense enough for what they need
Ben often gets comments about safety on the YouTube channel
He likes to be application driven
Wikipedia op amps
Ben is a KiCad user, he likes the push and shove feature.
One of his most popular video shows vinyl and LP under a SEM. The tough part is pulling out the bitstream, which he currently does with a Teensy.
Rubber band fridge
Drill through EDM
Ben tried over 80 different methods to get PCB traces on a piece of plastic. This is a good example of the importance of starting from a paper or a patent.
Chris thinks that Ben is a great example of the behavior defined in Grit
Tim Ferriss talking about fame/money
Cookies DOE
Exceptionally hard and soft
Ben kept blowing up the controllers for the Apollo Electroluminescent display. Ben later gave a great talk about the experience at Supercon
Needed a source of radioactive material, which are apparently easily acquired in static brushes for LPs.
Want to hang out with Ben in person? He's usually at the Hackaday Supercon
Follow Ben on Twitter and be sure to subscribe to the Applied Science YouTube channel
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Elon Musk Biography
- Skunkworks