I'm Scott.

I'm Russell.

I'm Leo.

This is Spitball.

Welcome to Spitball.

Where three nostalgic nerds and so many guests over the last two years have emptied our heads of startup and tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so everyone out there can have them for free.

that we have said has been yours to keep.

And this week we're on a summer hiatus and we have a lot of listeners to the show that are new who may not have heard some of our earlier stuff and we've had some really great ideas over the last two years.

So we wanted to go maybe back into the archives and pick some of our favorites.

So we've thrown together a little best of for you this week.

So kicking it off first, we had an all-time favorite of the three of ours, author, technologist, and general enthusiast for tech culture, Chase Roberts on the show, where he pitched us Netflix for Legos.

All right, Chase, what have you brought to us this week?

Um, so I pitched this one in an email actually, uh, a couple of weeks ago.

Um, for my newsletter, just people who have bought my book.

Um, and that was a Netflix for Legos.

So basically my kids, like they'll put together a Lego set and then basically just goes in the bin with all the other Legos.

And we've got, I mean, I said a bin, I've got like three of these huge bins filled with Legos.

And like, we have more than enough for free building.

And my kids are terrible at free building anyway, and never do it.

But it's like, it just feels like such a waste to spend $100 on a new Lego set, and they do it once, and then it just goes in the bin forever.

And so I was like, what if I could just rent the Lego set, they could put it together, I could send it back, and they could send it on to another kid, right?

So that's idea number one.

- That's great.

- Oh, Lego library.

- Like a Lego library.

And I think some libraries might even have Legos.

Mine doesn't.

But I think, I don't know, I think it's a cool idea.

There's some issues with, like, you gotta figure out shipping, 'cause you start shipping Lego sets back and forth.

If you get people on subscription and they're doing two or three a month, shipping adds up.

Yeah, and then counting pieces.

I feel like that's a solvable problem.

We could build some robots to count pieces.

There's some YouTube videos of people.

- When it gets back and if it's off by X amount, then pull it open and count the pieces or something.

- Yeah.

- Right, visual learning, right?

That's the visual eye camera thing.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- But those are solvable issues.

- Yes.

- Those are fun problems.

- Those are fun problems.

- And if you're making the service, you don't have to use like the official Harry Potter set with all of its whack pieces.

You could make your own sets that are a little more basic and easy to keep track of with, you know, all the basic parts.

You have your own plane set that your Netflix for Legos has designed with, you know exactly it's the same like 50 pieces across the entire thing, so you get the economies of scale there.

- Yeah.

- Whoa.

- And there are some people who've done similar things.

I think there's somebody in like the UK that's doing rent Lego stuff.

I don't know, I think it's a fun idea.

Like I'd sign up and do it.

- Dude, I could Spitball that for like, what Leo, you just said.

- I know, like Chase, you could totally, I think you said this, what if you took or scanned all the Legos in your library and just open source Lego creations, right?

And so now people know your inventory and now your subscription, Netflix style, is not getting new boxes but taking your current Lego set and applying it to new designs, creator community, or-- It just auto generates the instructions based upon what you have in front of you.

So there's actually an app that does this.

I think it's called Brickit.

And you spread out all your Legos on the carpet and then you like hold it up and it, it's supposed to scan your Legos and inventory and then tell you what you can build.

In theory, it's really awesome.

I haven't used it in a while, but I tried using it like two years ago and I scanned probably like 200 pieces and then it kicked back and it was like, you can use 20 of your pieces to build this bird.

And I was like, well, that's not exciting.

So the execution wasn't quite there when I tested it.

It's probably better now, but yeah, like the community, there's a lot of people in the Lego space, um, working on cool ideas like this.

Peer to peer, like, Hey, you and the guy across town who has, it's more age kids has, if you work together, you could build this mega robot, but you only have half the pieces and so do they have the other half.

It's a dating app, but for Legos.

(laughing) Yikes.

No, it could be good what you were saying though, like if you could inventory all of your Legos and do it correctly, you know, and then like upload it somewhere and then we could send you designs, that'd be cool for sure.

Or if you could just somehow say like, I know I've bought this Lego set in the past, I've bought this Lego set in the past, like I know I have these pieces.

And just do it that way.

Like maybe that's the way to do it.

And then it's like, oh yeah, build the mega robot from these 20 sets that you said you already, that you have.

- And Lego themselves have the whole ideas forge thing where people submit designs that they've created that they want Lego to make a set for.

So clearly there's like a well of people who are creative with designing cool new things that are like, they have, here's what you can make with these parts, right?

That inspiration is out there.

I'm not the kind of person who can look at a pile and say, this is gonna be great as a robot, but there's clearly a lot of people out there who are.

I'd love to like get connected with them, yeah.

- That's cool.

- We were so fortunate back in episode 22 to have Rebecca, our friend of all three of ours, pitch the idea of a bone conducting hearing aid.

All right, Rebecca, welcome and let's hear it.

What's your Spitball idea of the day?

- Okay, so I've always been really interested in like sensory substitution or sensory expansion.

I came to the States when I was two and I'm partially deaf, so I have a hearing aid in my right ear and it's not from the auditory nerve, which means I don't have brain damage, so I can still pick up sounds through vibration, but it just needs to be amplified.

It's basically a mechanical issue.

So my eardrum is static.

Usually an eardrum is really dynamic and with sound waves, it flexes and then translates those waves into sound in your brain.

Mine's damaged, so it doesn't actually flex.

There's a lot of scar tissue on it.

And throughout the years, like hearing aids, functionally, if I took it out right now, it almost looks like a little tiny satellite that can go right into the ear.

So I take it out when I work out, I do hot yoga.

So it's like, I feel like they're tasting and everything And all of the little electrical components are pretty delicate.

And I was on a plane one time and I saw this guy.

He had these totally encased silicone earphones that actually sat above his ears like a cochlear implant would.

They're called Shox.

I think they're like 200 bucks.

And they're waterproof and it seems like such a better feature for a hearing aid.

So when I went to my audiologist, I was like, "Do you have anything that's like a cochlear implant, but it's like just single and I don't actually have to have a hole drilled in my head that I could use because they, I, I, he let me try them on and they were awesome.

The sound came through really crisp and clear and I have to like stick something in my ear and have it sit like on top.

I don't have, I wouldn't have to take it out when I exercise.

It's like the shock absorbent properties of whatever the shocks were made out of.

Plus an actual hearing aid that's like a cochlear implant that sits above the ear instead of piping something directly into the ear canal.

And it's, yeah, more user-friendly for exercising.

I think you could probably even swim in it.

So yeah.

So once again, I have a pair of the Aftershocks, the running version, so they're not totally waterproof, but they're sweatproof and stuff.

And they're great.

I use them because they sit on top of my ear, like you said, and they're bone conducting, and you don't have your ear occluded so you can still hear traffic.

And when I'm commuting via bike or I ride a one wheel, I can still hear traffic and car horns and things around me without occluding, you know, and blocking out the world.

They're also great for wearing around the office.

You have your podcast or music in or whatever, and if somebody says, "Hey, come here for a second," you can still hear what's going on around you.

They're great.

They don't sound super great, but they'd be great for an amplification of in-room audio for sure.

And you're saying that this doesn't exist as a hearing aid right now?

That is crazy.

Your options for the bone actually is for a cochlear implant.

That's it?

That's ancient technology now, right?

I feel like they've been doing that for a long time.

I guess it's like 2024.

They haven't fixed that?

My thing is like, we can literally send shit to Mars, and we can't come up with better things that like go on our bodies, that it makes me feel crazy.

- And the Aftershocks that I have, have a microphone in them for phone calls, for Bluetooth.

But they just don't pipe the microphone that's in them into the speaker that's on them.

- Wait, what?

Like there's a separate microphone to it?

- You're 99 .9% of the way there.

- Totally, I feel like you just do a steady change.

- They're headphones.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, they're headphones that have a microphone, So you can take a phone call, right?

Like any, most Bluetooth headphones have, but there's no way to like turn on, make the microphone pick up what's in the room and make that sound louder in the headphone.

It only can pipe the sound to the phone call, to the phone, you know?

- No, no, I'm confused as to why this doesn't exist.

This seems like very doable and clearly useful.

- Without Googling it, AfterShokz, I think, makes a version that's two independent ones too.

So we're like 99.99% of the way there.

- You just need to call their customer service line.

- Should we not air this episode?

- Could you please turn on the microphone?

- Yeah.

- So the other piece of it is too, like for people who are profoundly deaf, like I still have hearing in my left ear and I'm not profoundly deaf, just partially.

I feel like there's options for vibrations to be able to be translated in different parts of your body.

So maybe you can't, your auditory nerve is broken, but I've seen things like wristwatches or like whole chess pieces that people put on like smaller children to translate sound waves or vibrations and correlate it to certain sounds like certain pitches and the sound of a dog that can help round out the way that you hear 'cause your brain is just perceiving these sound waves.

And so I feel like there's some kind of in-between there between like an over the ear hearing aid and that vibrational piece that people are like strapping all over their body.

But I don't know how any of the science pieces of it work, but.

Yeah, you just need an equalizer, so you make your bass more loud if you can't pick that up naturally as well or vice versa.

I think that most traditional hearing aids themselves do filter out.

Like I know that my pair of I think it's Pixel Buds or Sony earbuds or AirPods all have active noise cancelling where you can say only let the voices through but the rest of the sound not.

And AI is getting really, really good at real time, like only let certain frequencies through.

So if you had a personalized profile of what frequencies you can and cannot pick up naturally, then you just boost what you're not able to pick up.

And you like, it's your own real world EQ and you normalize it yourself.

That's so good.

- Can I tune out certain voices of certain people and just be like, (laughing) this person talk ever.

I'm sorry, I can't.

I can't hear you.

You're on mute.

Sorry, I put you on mute.

You, a person.

Real life mute.

Isn't there a black mirror about that?

Somebody gets like shunned from society so they're blacked out and you can't see or hear them and they're just like a blur because they were committed to crime or something?

That's gonna be this show.

It's like that.

When we we get famous, you know, people are gonna be muting us.

(laughs) Full kids.

- IRL blocked.

(laughs) - I wanna, I guess like imagine, thinking of concerts, right?

You can't, you wanna hear the concert, but you wanna talk to your friend and you don't wanna scream, like, or you're at a bar and now you're just, everybody's talking and now you can have a normal voice conversation and not yell at each other because you have this like, bone, you still have the bar experience with, but you can isolate voices or.

Yeah, like it's maybe more magnify rather than like isolate because you still want to hear the outside sound But you want to magnify in a specific voice So aftershock should just or whatever we create a version like this That's just like a setting that allows you to have normal conversation with people in loud places simple, right Rebecca this is one of those ideas that's making me angry that it's like doesn't exist because it's we're so close as a society Aftershocks only makes the kind that you're talking about where they wrap all the way around and it's one big wrap around earbud.

There is no one that I've seen that's two from them, but other brands have some like bone conducting ones.

So basically you just want to like take one of the two pair of earbuds that bone conducts and stick it on the side that you are more deaf in and crank up the volume from the mic that's on it.

Yeah, totally.

- And I feel like anything in age tech, most deaf patients are older.

I feel like there's a silver tsunami coming and we have to figure some of this stuff out and then people like me will benefit greatly.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Hearing aids were recently opened up for over-the-counter administration, which hopefully will spur some innovation in this market because they've been restricted by, you need to go to an audiologist, you need to have a prescription and stuff for decades.

- What's crazy is it's not covered by insurance either.

- What?

- That's nuts.

- Yeah, they're only four grand.

- Man, this country sucks.

- And they're not covered by insurance.

- Four grand, is that what you just said?

- And it's not covered by insurance.

- Man, how long do they last?

- I mean, you can like 15 years, 10 years, but like the tech gets better all the time.

- Wow, I guess like, is that its own insurance?

It's like vision, maybe that's why.

Like, I guess people are walking around blind all the time.

I just don't understand why that's not covered by insurance.

It's okay if they're blind, you know, they gotta pay for vision insurance, not healthy, it's not for their health.

- Or dental, like, yeah, you're covered except for the teeth, like what?

- That's not critical to your health.

- How is that not health?

This country makes no sense.

Yeah, it sucks that they're $200 for a really good pair of Bluetooth earbuds, which do a lot more than a hearing aid, but then a hearing aid unit itself is thousands and thousands.

- Totally a racket.

- Hopefully that's being fixed soon.

- Like my urgency here is I'm not getting more hearing.

So the deafer I get, so somebody out there listening, make me an on the bone hearing aid.

- Mark, it's there.

- You said that you do have a little bit of sensitivity in the one ear, right?

- On the right ear, I'm partially deaf, yeah, yep.

- Do you have, partially, okay.

Have you ever tried putting in one Bluetooth earbud and just cranking up the pass through?

- No.

- Really, really loud?

- No.

- That'd be interesting to do as a little experiment.

- Probably just every noise though, right?

You can get-- well, I mean, like, AirPods and Sonys, you can say only let voices through and stuff.

So that would be an interesting thing.

Everybody would be different listening to this.

Yeah.

Yeah, because they tune them.

Like, when you go to an audiologist, based off of the frequencies that you can hear-- and lower sounds are much harder for me to hear.

So they-- like, I'll take it out if I go to a concert, or mine's tuned to pick up lower frequencies.

So male voices, if I'm not looking at you and kind of watching your mouth, I I can miss like a third of a conversation.

- Three white married 30 somethings on a podcast, for example.

(laughing) - You're piped like directly in, so.

- Wish you'd have crank it up guys, for us.

(laughing) Yeah, I feel like there's other applications too that it's not like, it's a benefit to those of hard of hearing, but like, I don't know.

I wonder if the isolation thing is really important in other scenarios or, I don't know.

It just seems like there's a lot of other use cases and I'm curious what our listeners are going to come up with, you know Yeah, like the bar scenario.

I mean even dinner in our restaurant during like a Work event or any type of social gathering.

There's like tons of ambient noise that's happening all the time And there's like a like a buzz that's always there in the background.

You have to really pick out tonalities so feel like if that tech improved or became more accessible it benefit multiple venues yeah actively canceling out just the TV at the bar or Just the yeah, you don't want man.

I wish I could open an app and it would show me Here's the four different things that we're detecting around you that are the category of sound and which ones do you want to just turn?

Off TV at the bar.

You're on a plane crying, baby That would be incredible.

Yeah.

Or like a concert again.

You want to listen to the band and not like the people-- or you want to enhance the audio, get clearer audio.

And-- But turn off the screaming drunk guy that's one row ahead of you.

Yes.

Who's singing along with it.

Yeah.

Well, if it's on the bone, you'll be able to turn off, I think, as many voices, right?

You'd be only-- well, I don't know, I guess.

Oh, maybe you-- - Whatever your input is, process the input and determine your output.

- But the TV's at a bar.

That was, yeah, Leo.

All right, it's less weird, put something in your ear, but now I can listen to this, yeah, this TV, that's great.

- I've used active noise canceling headphones in one form or another for many years, and it's still novel every time to turn on the noise canceling and have the (makes noise) sound where it just sort of turns off the-- I didn't even realize there was an air conditioner running in this room, but yeah, that's way better.

Feels good.

Every pair of active noise cancelling headphones I've ever owned has a microphone on them because they have to, to, like, cancel out the wave of the sound that it's around.

Just frickin' pipe that in but louder and boom, that is, that is ear enhancement.

Dang.

Rebecca, you're saying there's devices that someone who can put, like, around their waist or something that is able to translate sounds into vibrations?

Or like your wrist, you said?

- So it gives like electromagnetic pulses, which that's all your brain is using to convert into sound, 'cause your brain doesn't see and your brain doesn't actually hear.

Just takes in these electromagnetic waves.

So basically, these devices, there's, I think the smaller, or like for children, it's an actual chest band, and then for adults, there's like a wristwatch.

And it takes a little bit for your brain to be able to kind of learn how to hear through the pulses.

But basically it'll, I don't know how they tune it, but then they have you wear this for a couple of days and you're able to pick up like, um, certain words because of the way that your brain is starting to train on the vibration.

That's amazing.

And I mean, there's major implications for sensory, like substitution or sensory expansion.

like, think Google lens even, or, or what were the glasses that came up?

Yeah, totally.

Oh, like, oh, so I was at South by Southwest and there's this VR set.

And the only thing it plays is like these K-pop dancers who are coming like really close to you.

And they're, you know, there's like these dudes lined up with these goggles and they're like right in your face.

And I'm like, this is what we've used the technology for.

so we can create an entire experience and put people elsewhere and this is what we chose to do.

(laughing) I know, I know, don't get me wrong, I like K-pop.

(laughing) We're so close in all these areas, we're so close to really revolutionizing some things for sensory expansion in a way that's helpful.

- Sensory expansion, can I, so I'm really interested in how dogs and smell an entire different world than humans.

Not that I want to, but it's just like, they don't see as well.

Like you can't do that.

You can't, can you train, like are there people trying to train people's noses to like, I don't know, pick up crazy stuff that maybe wouldn't be able to.

It's just like the weirdest thing 'cause like there's no technology out there for smell.

And I always am like trying to figure out how like-- - I've wondered that too actually.

- There's an entire world that you can't see, feel, taste, process, even with technology.

Like we have cameras, we have microphones, we have, I'm sure, feeling technology, but you can't do smell yet, I think.

- But I imagine it's just like if you could translate the what stimulates the olfactory nerve in your brain, right, like they could hack it.

They could figure out to just saturate you with the most sumptuous smells based off of triggering some series of dots in your olfactory system.

send you some electrical pulses and boom, yeah.

- And all of a sudden it activates a sudden, I mean, there's people like stroke victims who can speak other languages or all of a sudden have like cheese then associate, like the small cheese associates with like forest fires and things like that because the wires get crossed.

I feel like even technologies like infrared or like night vision, I feel like we're one step off of being able to see, like if someone was just sitting down in a seat, we can see like a heat print of where they were sitting based off like having goggles or something that allows us to see like a thumbprint on a mic and see who last touched it because there's still a heat transfer on it.

Like I think sensory expansion is, like we're so close with VR and like night vision goggles or stimulating the olfactory nerve.

Like we're really close to this whole other world where like what if we could see the way that There's like animals that have such a larger spectrum of color that they're able to access.

And that's got to be a center in the brain too, right?

Oh, yeah.

And you're right.

Smell is one of the only senses we haven't really developed much augmented technology for.

Could argue taste too, I guess.

But it's kind of hand in hand with smell.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

I think just-- yeah, it's kind of like bio training.

It's like biohacking, but with training.

Like, that is crazy.

Can you imagine like 20 years from now and your kids are like, yeah, I smelled that.

What?

- What did you smell?

Did you hear about that?

There's a woman in the UK a couple of years ago who has some sort of, what's the word I'm looking for?

Genetic mutation that lets her smell Parkinson's and scientists are totally baffled by that.

What is that all about?

Like once in a while, I guess a human comes along that's inches closer toward some new unlocked realm of smell that we've never had before.

It's such a crazy mutation.

That's awesome.

It just validated my idea.

We like Rebecca, we got this, like it's going to happen now.

We just got to, we just got to start having people smell diseases and shocking them.

And that's it, right?

Just a little bio shock.

Like Scott, you got a taser.

Anybody got a taser?

Why me?

You're going to be the, no, not you.

I just need to tase you until you can smell new smells.

Oh my God.

I'm not tasing you, I need the taser.

I need a research grant so I can just tase students and see if they smell new smells.

You need the real scientist.

Nah, we got this.

Close friend to all three of ours.

We had our good friend Carl on who that episode definitely went off the rails a little bit.

We had Carl pitch to us the anti-squirrel artillery cannon.

All right, Carl, what do you have for us this week?

All right.

So not this past summer, but the previous summer, my wife and I decided to plant an orchard.

So we bought two apple trees and two peach trees.

The apple trees not doing so hot, but they're still alive.

They're still green.

One died, but we replaced it and it's kind of limping along, but the peach trees have been just booming.

So the first year we put the peach trees in, we got a whole bunch of peaches growing on them, looked great.

And then within like middle of August, within like one day, all the peaches were gone on both trees the first year.

And it was like, we couldn't figure out where'd all these peaches go.

So then this year we had like a bumper crop.

Like I'm talking between the two, three, two trees.

We had like 300 peaches gone.

What?

Two weeks, August, like one day they were just gone off the trees.

So there's some type of animal that's eaten the peaches, and we're pretty sure it's like a squirrel or a bird or who knows what.

So that's been very frustrating.

So we're like, let's let's do some bird nests and I or some like bird nets, and I bought like an eagle and I bought an owl and I'm like getting irritated and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my with my garden.

Additionally, the apple trees aren't getting the right type of water or enough watering or the right water timing.

So we've had this water issue.

So I was thinking that I like artillery canisters.

Like those things are awesome.

Like they're sweet.

They shoot things like this is awesome.

So I thought, what could I combine to take care of my watering issue and my animal issue at the same time?

And so I thought, what if I made a multi-axis laminar flow water cannon that could shoot water in a pattern wherever I needed it?

And I'd be able to set up auxiliary cameras around my garden that when it sensed movement of a squirrel, it would call in an artillery strike from my automated water cannon to blast the squirrel And then it would also like during the day when it's just sitting there.

It's a oh, yeah We need to we need to distribute like four and a half gallons to this tree area and four and a half gallons to this Tree, and so it would sit there and just you know rapid-fire You know right Carpet bomb this tree and then that tree and then it would carpet bomb my corn rows And then it would carpet bomb my raspberry bush and my blueberry bush and in those specific areas So I'm not wasting all that water on grass that no one cares about I'm putting it on the plant where I need it But then also Pestering the animals that come not killing them not harming them.

Just anytime an animal shows up I'm just calling in an artillery strike to just barrage that sucker with water And I'm thinking that, you know, a laminar flow cannon that shoots water at high pressure over a long distance might even be able to be like set up in the middle of my backyard and water my entire lawn.

So it sits there and just runs, you know, 24/7 or eight hours a day or whatever it is.

But it's also on guard for my garden.

- This rules.

- Dogs are gonna love this.

- PETA's gonna love this.

I'm not hurting the animals.

That's right.

You're watering them.

So growing up, we had hostas all along our house, like a huge row of them, unfathomable amount of hostas.

And without fail, deer would come in in the season and eat them.

And my dad tried sound devices.

My dad tried all kinds of stuff until finally we had a motion detecting sprinkler.

Whoa.

And it was an instant fix.

Squirrels would get in or a deer, excuse me, would get near it.

It would just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then be done and they would go anywhere near it.

Not even afraid.

They were just afraid of the sound and the movement, not even like getting blasted.

Maybe they got it a little bit or something, but there were perfect circles of protection and right outside the range of where this thing would trigger, they would be all eaten.

Right.

Well, it's exactly what you're talking about, but not automated.

I love this is I can tell you from experience that it would work beautifully.

I just want to feed 10,000 pictures of a of squirrels and rabbits into a AI bot and have it a camera system with a.

Triple axis be able to recognize them and pinpoint the exact XYZ of this guy with a camera with a camera so you can watch the fun of course record it and make a highlight reel.

Nice.

Maybe you have like one camera mounted on the artillery piece.

That's like one control.

And like, cause you're going to have the hose run to this thing.

You're going to have probably a high pressure pump.

You're probably going to have a little bit of power.

So it's, it's going to be a pretty fixed unit in my brain.

You know, you might need a camera in a different position to like look from a different angle that then also coordinates and triangulate.

So then you'd need some calibrating shots to call in like, okay, we're We're gonna coordinate where this is and then it can fire for effect.

Bring a water artillery round in and land it right where they need it.

- Be the kids' summer fun.

- Yeah.

- Put it on fun sprinkler mode and it's like raining in little spots and stuff.

You make games out of it.

- Teach it to target small children.

This'll be perfect.

- That would be so fun.

- This would actually be a lot of fun growing up.

- I think that's the bigger market, Carl.

Screw all that stuff.

You turn this into like, this is an adult.

- Automated super soaker turret.

- Right.

- Oh, it could have all the modes.

It could have a child play mode where it goes out and just goes crazy.

It could have regular sprinkler mode where it runs around and just does the, you know, and sprays in a big giant arc on the grass.

Or it could have, you know, prestrigion strike mode.

Don't you dare eat my rose bushes.

(laughing) - Or a joystick mode that you're manually controlling Oh, absolutely.

You could have like a video game controller and some POV goggles with a targeting patch on it And you could sit there and intercept it and shoot the squirrels if you wanted to with water, of course I'm only talking about water You know, it would be so much fun and then if if a precision strike is called in you could have it automatically save the clips and then Automatically snip the video so that you have the replay reel so that you can enjoy it and upload it to YouTube.

Yes Yes, yes, dude.

Super soaker is gonna if you like turn this into super soaker toy boom like Do the do the laminar flow thing right for you know the other market But you sell this kind of this game concept as super soaker Boom, you got a market.

I'm not picturing like a target or something on it Kids got to sneak up on this turret and try to hit the target with their own water in order to shut it down or Something long enough for them to I don't know capture the flag or whatnot You just got to get past this thing a capture the flag mode on it would be pretty sweet It's like spy mode right like I'm a secret agent trying to capture the flag There's nothing crazy about this too.

Like all the technology for this is there.

It's just putting it together That's why I picked that as my idea.

Like what's the MIT the MVP, right?

So like I can't is it hard to do these like giant ass pumps?

Do you feel like you have a big pump to like shoot water that hard and fast?

That's a great question.

How hard is it to lob a artillery amount of water across the yard?

It's pretty heavy.

Well, I looked into that, and the trick is really to get the laminar flow because then you can send a packet, but you're limited by the surface tension of the water because as the velocity goes up and you get this packet of water going, if it's bigger than a regular raindrop, which rain droplets are the size rain droplets are because of some actual physics constraints.

And so what will happen is, if you send something say the size of your thumb, it will dissipate into at a certain velocity and with not enough surface tension, it will separate and disintegrate into, you know, the corresponding drops that would be a droplet size.

And so then your targeting accuracy starts to go down and your velocity starts to go down because you have more drag and then you have a larger amount of droplets that are going to dissipate from your normal grouping.

And so that's kind of an important...

So it's a shotgun.

Yeah.

So then it ends up being a shotgun.

Could we have some variation of this that self-fills biodegradable water balloons and just lobs them across the yard.

You won't have to deal with that.

And he's just, there is your artillery strike is water balloons coming from seemingly nowhere from the sky.

A trebuchet.

Essentially a automated trebuchet.

Oh, that's great.

I just want to build that.

Biodegradable.

Yeah.

You're right though.

It's all physics.

If you know the exact weight of the projectile.

What if you didn't care so much about precision accuracy and you did the trebuchet, but just, it's like a five gallon buckets worth of water that gets lobbed.

Would you get the, like enough of a spray, you know?

Well, you don't want to knock the peaches off the tree.

Oh, right.

That's true.

You know, that was, that's the original goal here.

or snap a bird's neck.

You can use it to harvest the peaches.

It'll be great.

What about the angle?

What if you just had a high arc?

Like literally create rain on your lawn though.

What if you did the five-gallon bucket, but you lob it so high in the air, the spray just covers the whole lawn, bucket after bucket after bucket.

I don't know how long that's going to take, but The laminar flow thing is great.

Yes.

I don't know.

I like that idea.

I like making rain on my lawn through one trebuchet.

I've never imagined laminar flow that has a brief on off.

Like the only time I've ever seen laminar flow is when it looks like a solid biller because it's constant, but I've never seen intermittent laminar flow.

Well, I guess there's like jumping fountains that sometimes look kind of cool where they've got the splash pad.

Yeah.

They're always a little like disturbed, though.

I've, you know, those really precise videos of jumping fountains that are like the splash pads where they're, you know, like intermittently on off, on off, on You could get something really cool going there when you scale it up.

That would be cool That sounds like a fun and very hard to pull off hardware project Very cool.

Yeah, you could sell add-ons like additional barrels.

You could do like I have a quad barrel Sprinkler It would be sweet if it was a quad barrel and then and then the barrels kind of came back and forth like one of uh, bofors that they had in World War II.

Anti-aircraft guns.

Yeah, there you go.

I was picturing four barrels, but they're all along the roof in different spots, so you have this sort of reigning terror of different angles and stuff of various blobs of water from all sides, overwhelming the enemy.

Enemy squirrels.

Maybe that's how you make the valves work.

You move the barrels and slide them in and out, so it's like the bofors, but the sliding in and out is where it takes a new slug of water and emits it into the barrel.

A slug of water's excellence.

Shoot a water slug with a compressed air back up and just *pfff pfff pfff* All day, all night *psh psh psh psh* Turn off the artillery, honey.

It's hard to do that quiet, I bet.

-You're a compressor running all night.

-Yes.

[laughter] -It's just nom in the backyard for these poor squirrels.

-You could design it like a minigun, like a Gatling gun, like one of the-- -Oh my God.

[laughter] -Spins?

-Yes.

-Oh, sure.

[laughter] -Okay, why is it super soaker all over this stuff?

We need adult water guns or water turret systems.

This is our generation growing up.

We need like this version in our lives.

- My roommate in college modified a Nerf gun to where it was like really painful levels of speed.

It would leave welts.

They needed that scene, but for Super Soaker.

That probably exists, right?

Where you have like stainless steel canisters instead of plastic shit.

- Have you seen the Phalanx gun that they put on the US warships that intercept missiles that are inbound towards a US warship?

- Yeah.

Those are 75 rounds a second something like that with with water.

That's what I want in my backyard for the squirrels That sounds fun identify target aim targeting solution and then just and squirrels Not eating my peaches Incredible Most recently in episode 36, we had our good friend Jessica on and Jessica pitched us uber for home bakers All right, we save the best for last Jess what do you got for us?

All right.

All right.

Hold on to your seats guys.

Here we go.

So Well, I feel like it's actually similar to something that Russell said so I Love making sourdough, right?

You'll not everyone knows that but you guys know that I love making sourdough making sourdough everything.

And I also love eating it, but I don't want to own a micro bakery.

There's way too many startup costs for that, right?

But I love selling it to like friends or neighbors or people in my town.

And I really feel like there's a lot of people like that.

Like, hey, I would make rolls or pasta or bagels or anything for you like occasionally, but not, I don't wanna get branding and be a big baker thing, but I have this skill and I'm willing to share it with people.

And so you kind of, you have this opportunity for people to order things, to order sourdough or micro bakery type things from people like me.

And it's like an order comes up and I can like the standby line.

I can choose to take it like, yeah, I'm free today.

I could make that.

Or sure.

I could have five loaves by Friday, but like, I don't want to do, I don't want to be a baker and have people just demand all my time and be like, Yeah, I want 20 loaves.

Yeah, I want five loaves today, tomorrow, the next day.

I can't do that every day of my life.

But I would really love to be able to sell it sometimes to just be able to make some money, but not have it be my job.

It's like Uber, but I'm, Uber eats, but I'm like, other way around.

It's like, sure, I will claim that food order and I will make it and fulfill it.

- Those are, what's it called?

Cottage food laws, right?

Where like, I can sell baked goods and I don't need a full FDA approval.

- From my home.

- Yes, from my home.

but you're combining that with the open source, or Leo, what are those, 3D print groups where all these people have a 3D printer and anyone can select jobs from this large site.

- It's a gig economy.

- And just print at home.

Gig economy, thank you.

- 'Cause so many of us sourdough bakers are already making stuff all the time.

I make stuff to feed my family.

It'd be really easy to make an extra loaf when I'm making a loaf.

But if I'm not making it, I don't wanna really make something for somebody else.

But if there's an order comes up, It's like, oh sure, I'll make that.

I'll make that tomorrow, whatever day.

Bagels, sure.

I feel like making an extra 10 bucks, extra 20 bucks.

So.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

- Whoa, okay.

So this is like a ticketing system of like, I want a dozen bagels, some homemade bagels, right?

Let's go.

- And see who around there.

- Right?

And then you wouldn't have to find a local baker or bakery or friend to make them for you.

You could just get on your phone and be like, I want bagels.

and then it'll be like, Jessica Zoe will be fulfilling your order.

Like, you know, sourdough takes a while.

So it'd be like tomorrow.

- Pick 'em up here.

- Sourdough can't be instant, unfortunately.

But, you know, that's the idea.

- It's part of the rules.

It's part of the fun, I think, too.

It's the trade-off.

- Would this marketplace be assisted or hindered by a rating system of the bakers and stuff?

Like, oh man, I got Diane again.

Oh, she's awful.

- You know, I was wondering that, because obviously when it's homemade, it's like, do you get to select, like I only wanna pick from these five people, like are there a list of bakers?

And you can start making your own baker wishlist and be like, only if these five people say yes.

- When you go to post a thing on Facebook Marketplace, there's a checkbox that says, don't show this to my friends and family.

So you almost need like, okay, did you like that meal that you just had?

Okay, don't ever show my tickets to that person ever again.

- There you go.

(laughing) Yup.

Or like, you also need a way to make sure that people's kitchens are like, you know, it's like, I don't want someone baking that has cats or something.

- Oh yeah.

- I don't want-- - And a peanut oil house or whatever.

- Right, allergy stuff or yeah.

So, you know, it's like, then I can have all these like little things, these little stars on my profile like, peanut free, this free, dairy free, whatever.

I don't know.

- Totally.

- That would be so cool.

'Cause I feel like people that want to eat sourdough or eat something that's like healthy or homemade, to go to a bakery is, well, it is really expensive, but also sometimes they don't have the variety that you're hoping for, or you just don't have one in your town.

Like, I don't even know where, most towns probably don't have a sourdough bakery.

- Right.

- It's made with love too.

That's the difference.

- Only if you get one of those.

- That's the app.

It's made with love, right?

Added ingredient, right?

The secret ingredient.

And that's it, that's why.

- Your order will be fulfilled by Taco Bell.

What?

Aw, you got the corporations on your app.

- All right, so here's what I don't know.

So does someone get to just put up in the app, like, I would like blueberry sourdough scone, or is it like they have a menu in the app and bakers upload what they can make and then people can click on stuff, like a menu, because I'm very creative.

And if you tell me to make something, like, sure, I'll look up a recipe and it'll probably be great.

My motto is it'll probably be fine.

- I like that way better.

- You know, so there's this fun side to it.

Like, cool, I'll make something new.

Like, I wanna try.

- That makes a lot of sense to me.

A couple of episodes ago, I don't even know if this episode's out yet, Russell pitched, I think it was Russell, Grandma's Sassified, like, baking delivery fulfillment service.

So it was kinda like that, where you have like, Etsy stores, but they're all menus of, you know, recipes that people have posted, I make this really well.

And then you, his pitch was you outsource that idea to like the factory actually makes it and you just put the recipe in there, remove all the love.

Remove the love.

But having it not be menu based where you have like, what are five different local people's takes on blueberry scones?

It's really fun.

I, I, yeah, I think that that's where the match happens.

Like you uploading your recipe makes it make sense.

It's a little bit anonymous, right?

So like maybe, you know, you might be the only baker that does scones this way, right?

So then trying to not overwhelm that person, like, dude, those scones I got on whatever app, like, I'm ordering them every week now.

And now all of a sudden you're just like overwhelmed because you're just such a good baker.

All of a sudden, like everybody's buying that recipe.

- She's going viral on, oh, what's the app called?

Ooh, hmm.

- Honestly, if there was an app or a website where I could order just a box of scones, but they were all made by a different person, logistically it's a nightmare, but I got to like blindly vote on these and then a communal vote of the world of like, A1 is the best scone of all of these, made by such and such.

Boost his business.

I would do that in a heartbeat.

I'd love that.

- So then it would just be like a drop off thing where I would bring like 30 scones and drop them off at a certain place.

and so would 10 other bakers.

And then there would only be 30 boxes available, right?

We put one score on each box.

And then it's just a, yeah, there's just a, like a limit to how many it's like, okay, every Friday, every Friday, there's 30 boxes first come first serve.

Oh, then you can start bidding on them.

- Oh man, I've been making muffins out of a box because I just like don't have the energy to make it from scratch, right?

But if I could, like, there's something different about like, I buy muffins all the time.

I go to LJ's, get the muffins there.

I get muffins from Blueberry store, but they're not as good as, I don't know, even the box stuff that I make at home, it tastes better than sometimes the stuff I get at LG's.

And so it's like, it'd be nice to just get somebody with a little bit more, you know.

- Somebody who knows how to handle a sourdough, you know?

- Just like, you know, I'm trying my best with this box, but it'd be nice if somebody who actually tried to provide the good stuff, you're like, oh man.

- Fresh fruit, all that, yeah.

Yeah, yes, fresh fruit, real good ingredients, you know?

There's no short cutting of employee work or whatever.

I mean, it's just like, I don't know.

- Your app would be the first thing I would fire up if I was traveling too.

If I'm in a new town for a week, what are they known for here?

Oh, a really good curry that's made by that lady down the street or whatever.

That sounds awesome.

Delivered to my hotel room for sure.

- Oh, that'd be interesting too.

- Wow, that would be really cool.

- Just a convenient way to get food That's homemade from people that you don't know.

(laughing) Awesome.

You do have to deal with the random arsenic poisoning or whatever, but.

- Just give them a one star review and then move on.

(laughing) - I'm sure the one star reviews will keep all of the ill intentions in check.

- Yeah.

- They will be hilarious to read.

- Put razor blades in your carrot cake, one star.

(laughing) - Three stars and above is just like how good of a baker you are.

Two or less, something's happening.

It'd be so cool to just buy some legit cookies, not like the-- I think you're just hungry.

Russell's in.

You are too.

He is on board.

All right, what are we going to call the app, Russell?

I just want some good baked goods.

Good?

Russell missed homemade muffins.

Whole baked.

Baked whole, or something like that.

You could go healthy holistic or whole-- like not fake.

Maybe there's a spin on the at which is just like not like crud ingredients.

You know, you have to use good stuff.

Whole.

Whole.

Oh, no, it sounds weird.

Donut whole.

W H O L E.

All right.

Whole foods.

Just whole it baby.

Uh, now I'm, uh, shoot.

I don't know what to do for dinner.

I'm going to whole it.

Whole, whole goods instead of whole foods.

Just.

You know, we could just call it o good.

Zo good.

Oh, that's pretty good.

And then no one will ever mispronounce our last name again, because it would become famous.

Yeah.

As always, thank you so much for listening.

We hope you enjoyed yourself.

And thanks to all of our guests we've had over the last couple years.

It has been an absolute joy.

We're coming up in the next few episodes here on 200 ideas, which is unfathomably cool.

We're going to keep at this as long as we can.

And thank you very much for listening.

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