How To Forge A Career in Mechatronics - w/ Shivam

NYU is one of the only colleges that I understand teaches meatronics with a hint of entrepreneurship. What are some of the job prospects in this domain? Just trying to understand with your peer circle where did your friends end up. My job is predominantly to play with like really cool toys and when you play with a lot of toys you break a lot of toys. I'm Nam Pandit. This is the Ready Set Do podcast and in this episode my guest is Shbam Bharat Vaj. Cham is a mechatronics project manager at design visionaries where he turns napkin sketches into profitable hardware for giant companies like Tesla, Meta and Apple. Shivam takes us through what the fascinating field of meatronics entails. The master's curriculum if you're considering getting a masters and the many lucrative career

a masters and the many lucrative career options that emanate from this rather underrated field. Let's say you're talking about computer science. They will be asking about algorithms like SLAM. If you are in mechanical engineering, they would ask you about your prior projects and something called GD&T. If you are in electronics, it can be a lot of things like electronic design. You have to code for the embedded systems. It depends on which specific aspect of megatronics you want to choose. What's the day in the life look like for somebody that's at your position in this domain? domain? The accuracy that we require is almost four times of one ballpoint pen. So, it has not been done before. We have successfully proven that how it can be done. done. In line with our theme of learning from

In line with our theme of learning from somebody that's just a few steps ahead, my goal with this episode is to spotlight the fascinating domain of meatronics and hopefully inspire some of you listening to explore a career in this field. Yeah, it's all about trying not to optimize everything. Subscribe on YouTube and any of your favorite podcast apps, including Spotify and Apple, for weekly episodes every Wednesday, and daily bite-siz clips from these episodes on my YouTube and Instagram. And now, without any further ado, here's Shivam.

without any further ado, here's Shivam. Welcome to the only podcast in the world featuring stories of high agency individuals who are just a few steps ahead of us. Shbam, welcome. Thank you. to jump in. I really want to um understand what was it that made you first take interest in this domain. Uh right cuz I know you got your master's degree in this and maybe while you answer that if you could also kind of showcase just kind of you know what avenues exist in this domain that would be really helpful.

would be really helpful. Awesome. So I think my introduction to meatronics was just pure luck. Hi every one major part missing from this whole world is the world of computer science it involves a lot of coding thanks to thanks to a lot of LLMs right now my job has become like much easier than it was like couple of months ago I see so how how I specifically got into meatronics was I wanted to go into computer science but you know in India we have ranking and we have uh different rounds of acceptance into colleges Yeah.

rounds of acceptance into colleges Yeah. So I accidentally got electronics. I carried on with electronics and I think that was the best decision that I I made so far. Interesting. Interesting. So in my undergrad itself we uh my friend and I we started uh training a lot of kids in in robotics u meatronics and that just like a lot of people I I personally know right now are uh into this field. they have trained somebody and they have enjoyed while explaining nuances of autonomous systems. So uh I got into meatronics specifically in NYU where uh I got admit from NYU and one other university but NYU is one of the only colleges that I understand teaches meatronics with a hint of uh entrepreneurship and I may may uh kind

entrepreneurship and I may may uh kind of confuse like now what but I am at a place where we have hundreds of problem statements to basically deal with our daily basis. Wow. So, and I would love to explore some of that. But um just before we kind of make our way into that segment, I I am curious to understand from your perspective, right? Obviously there there must be multiple ways to go about this. But to you, what exactly is Mechatronics? So already one new thing I picked up that I learned was that it does involve a decent amount of coding.

does involve a decent amount of coding. Obviously, it has the word nyx in it, which I'm assuming comes from electronics and mecha is obviously mechanical. So I kind of have a brief very vague idea but to you if you had to explain that to you know like somebody in 11th grade in India what is meatronics meatronics in 11th grade or or we can even say just in already like in college. So maybe like second year or sophomore year of college.

sophomore year of college. So you can have a lot of problems around you that requires solutions which needs something physically to be done. For instance, let's say you want to cover your windows uh while sleeping. and you want it to be pitch dark and you want to have a system around it. It requires some mechanical engineering. It requires a lot of electronics like servo motors. It requires coding to have the whole system working in tandem. Requires to think about uh corner cases like where it might fail and then ultimately the cost and time. So when you are able to understand a lot of aspects about a problem statement that is according to me called meatronics but I'm pretty sure there must be some better definition on that.

that. No that makes total sense. I love that example because I think it makes me contextualize everything that goes into the domain right. So yeah I I think that's spot on. Um and then from there what was your experience at NYU like? So I know you've studied that in masters. So do you mind painting a picture for us around what sort of courses they have maybe one of one or two courses that you personally enjoyed a lot and really just your experience while your time at NYU?

your experience while your time at NYU? I had an amazing time at NYU. Uh so we were it's a two years course and I think we were the second batch to have graduated from this exact course called meatronics and automation. So we had no expectations how the job market is because we had no prior case cases of how people are getting jobs in the market but we have some amazing professors and the best part about this specific course was that we had professors in one uh experts in their field which are very diverse. For instance, we we had one of the uh according to me professors of computer vision that uh taught us how autonomous system works like um autonomous cars.

system works like um autonomous cars. They help us to understand u like how a lot of slam algorithms work. We had amazing mechanical engineering professors. We had professors who taught us swam robotics. So it was a mix of a lot of tech technical courses. But there was one course entrepreneurship which actually combined all of this and in which you are supposed to come up with an idea try to have a startup out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And that little startup uh that little u I won't call it a startup because it never actually started but uh it taught us a lot of things uh which which uh combined everything that we were studying uh in in those uh couple of years. years. Interesting. And then can you just to

Interesting. And then can you just to you know put in more color to what you just said um compared to your electronics undergrad in India. How similar or different was the experience and in in what ways was it similar or? So I think it it it completely depends on who whoever uh you ask this question to like in my case the kind of projects that I dealt with required what I studied in my undergrad or at least the kind of projects that I did in my undergrad. Uh it it gave me a good idea of uh what what the stops will be and uh we we basically uh created a self-driving team. We participated in a competition called IGVC. Uh it it has

competition called IGVC. Uh it it has been happening for a lot of years but this was like one of the first or second time they were trying with a fullscale autonomous car. So NYU had the uh had a maker space where we could have executed all of this. We had amazing professors uh and then eventually like I was able to use my electronics knowledge to solve a lot of problems because the project had a lot of problems to um deal with.

had a lot of problems to um deal with. Interesting. So and then were were most of your courses like revolving a lot around projects would you say and it was less theoretical? No, I think it it was 50/50% and also again uh I I you can so one thing about colleges and uh I like at least the way I have experienced is a lot depends on uh what how do you learn the whole subject and it depends in the professor's hand how he or she is grading you. So um our professors give us enough leeway to choose either a very very theoretically oriented uh project or you could have taken something that uh like big enough to span over a like a good amount of time for instance a

good amount of time for instance a self-driving car or other projects that we worked on. Got it. And which way to question? Yeah. Yeah. No for sure. And I was just going to ask which way did you end up going? Did you usually choose the more theoretical ones or the more projectoriented one? I think mine was more projectoriented because I luckily got into places where I could teach robotics. So while teaching I had to do a lot of projects.

teaching I had to do a lot of projects. I was able to meet a lot of people like that. that. Uh I got contacts into maker spaces and a lot of other avenues in in VU where it helped us to form the team. Yeah. I mean that already sounds like such a fun time, right? And it does sound like Yeah. And it does sound like um you you do seem like someone and I know when we were connecting offline you also mentioned that that you like teaching, right? So I can see how you would have enjoyed that particular aspect of telling others about robotics and you know how that works. So from there I think it naturally makes sense to for me to understand and again we have to keep in mind and this is for a

have to keep in mind and this is for a listeners. I don't really have the first idea about meatronics. All of this information I'm learning from you live. Um so with that said, um what are some of the like job prospects that look like in this domain? Maybe if you can hint on some of the industries obviously that one might be a little bit more obvious, but yeah, really just trying to understand kind of maybe with your peer circle where did kind of the people ended like where did your friends end up? And then obviously from there we'll get to what you do specifically as that.

get to what you do specifically as that. So a lot of my friends are creating autonomous systems. Some of them are taking care of the mechanical part. Some of them are taking care of the electronics part. A lot of them are into u the algorithmic programming of these uh systems. So the they they all diversified. Uh I am uh an engineering manager in a company called design visionaries. We get our own problem statements. A lot of clients come to us or we try to help uh people out in the bay with solving their problem statements. So uh experiences can be uh in let's say a self-driving car you can have sensors. People might be working on how to uh mount those sensors, how those sensors work, how to code those sensors, how to make a lot of uh these uh sensors

how to make a lot of uh these uh sensors come like basically you you can have a lot of uh information or lot of things to learn about a very very minute aspect of uh that specific engineering. So we we all diversified. We were a batch of I think 20 by 30 people. We are all at different uh doing a very different job. Right. Right. Interesting. So and it's usually what I'm hearing is some intersection of either the mechanical sciences or the electronic sciences or the computer science sciences and it's just kind of you know overlap in one way or another kind of fields see uh my answers might sound very generic because you once you have uh more than one experience you can help a lot of industries like some of my

help a lot of industries like some of my friends are working with companies like uh the hoop who manufactures uh semiconductors all aspects of it there are like labs like lab research. There are labs like applied materials who do the basic research. Then you grow to uh like when you have something in your hand, you try to basically create that by companies like ASML and then there is everything in between like the mechanical part of it, the computer science part of it or you can go into medical robotics field. Uh I I worked in a um company where we were trying to perform a fully autonomous knee arthroplasty. Basically a human robot or a human surgeon has certain amount of accuracy in their hand and you can perform a lot of this autonomously.

can perform a lot of this autonomously. So we were trying to solve problems like that. So you you see like a lot of people that uh were in this journey they just diversified. That is so fascinating that you can pretty much enter any industry and nothing's out of limits. Yeah. And Vishno and I don't think that's generic at all cuz apparently that's just how it works like Mhm. what would you call uh as cleaning a windmill with that kind of robotics?

windmill with that kind of robotics? What what kind of industry would you call that in? Like is that energy industry? is that is that like these like environmental like so it's an intersection of a lot of things and and best part is you work with really really smart people and you are just serving them. Yeah, I can think of my friend, one of my friends who's in the construction management industry who would also probably they must have um you know people with similar skill sets as yourself and your friends on their group on their team, right? That must you know be doing those site those sort of things on uh construction sites and such. So yeah, I can see I can begin to appreciate how just vast this is and anywhere where you can slot in uh somebody with your abilities, you know,

somebody with your abilities, you know, one would be able to and then naturally from there. So I understand all of you know this and how it works. But what was your experience like with the job search piece like is would you say that um it is difficult easy normal difficulty to get a job after your degree in meatronics? meatronics? So uh I'm not sure like how much uh the viewers know about the visa process but you get they're aware yeah you can assume that they're aware about like your basic F1 and how that works OPT stem opt etc. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So after after my masters I wanted to stick to the lab a little more. So uh I worked with my professor to uh like

I worked with my professor to uh like have some projects done in computer vision. Then I came to California to work uh for the medical robotics startup for I think like a year or so. We when we had like our first uh um initial study done we I moved to a company called Vodine Lidars. They are uh LAR is a sensor that basically you'll see on a lot of autonomous cars rotating that humps you to the car to basically see uh the world in a different modality. Then I joined other companies and right now uh I'm at a place where we are consulting a lot of uh like people around the bay uh companies or independent inventors trying to uh help them out with with whatever they u want to automate.

whatever they u want to automate. Got it. And then you it sounds like you have jumped around a decent amount and so does the like this industry work similar to how one would expect where you just apply online you submit your resume there's an interview and you go from there or any notable uh contrasts that you can think of when it comes to like other other job say in software etc. I think there are similarities and contrast like when it it I think everywhere or predominantly US right now uh it's a it's a numbers game because a lot of your application processes are going through autonomous systems like ADS and all which are which have their own mind per se let's say so once you get past that

se let's say so once you get past that stage then it uh it basically the process is pretty pretty much similar you have uh like similar rounds of interviews with the companies that are specifically interviewing from let's say software engineers but the problems that they ask or the problem statements they change based on if you are trying to help them in one of the fields uh that you would call as metapforms.

you would call as metapforms. Makes sense. And what would be just an example of one of these questions that they ask? uh is it usually around a past system that you designed or is it more hypothetical or you know just curious about it? It it depends on the interviewer as well as the stage at which you are basically talking at uh let's say you are just out of college. They were uh you have experiences predominantly formed by your projects done in your undergrad. So they talk about that and theory because you will be helping a lot of senior engineers executing what they they want to basically try out or want to produce uh in like want to uh introduce that in production. Mhm. But after like when when you have a

But after like when when you have a decent enough resume the problem statements changed. They asked you about your prior projects. they asked you like what kind of work you are doing right now because then you basically go into some sort of specialization. So it it basically keeps on narrowing down narrowing down and eventually you end up in a very very niche uh form of field. Has that happened to you as well? I think I'm not on that top of the pyramid but uh like I I have narrowed it down to a point where I I am helping generic enough people so that my interview will be predominantly about uh the projects that I'm doing. Got it. And so but there haven't been any unifying themes in the type of

any unifying themes in the type of projects that you worked at like have they been more mechanical more electronic some combination of the two? lower unifying team. One day we are trying to help somebody uh like recycling and in the in the evening we might be helping somebody with semiconductor industry. So I I to pick a very very weird path. Yeah. Yeah. But uh generally there is a symmetry in let's say you're talking about um computer science they will be asking about algorithms like slam.

about algorithms like slam. They would ask you to implement them. Uh also that depends on what stage you are interviewing with. If you are in mechanical engineering, they would ask you about your prior projects and something called GD&T. GD&T is like geometric dimensioning and tolerances. Uh I don't know how deep you want to go into this field, but it's also pretty pretty amazing. If you are in uh electronics, it can be a lot of things like EDA uh like electronic design like you have to design circuit boards. Maybe you have to code for the embedded systems of of that. So it it depends on which specific aspect of metatronics you want to interesting and then naturally from there where my mind goes is when it comes to your resume right all of the

comes to your resume right all of the things that you mentioned um that's what they look for probably right even as you said with the ATS that's just trying to screen people out um you don't have to have all of the mechanical aspects or all of the electronics aspects as long as you have some combination of the two. Would that be a decent takeaway from what you said? I'm not the best person to ask that question because I have not applied for jobs for a while. Yeah. Yeah. But uh what I do know about the current market, it's uh like you you basically like I have like I'm like you have to cut this part out. Yeah. Yeah, I will. I will. Don't no worries. Yeah. Yeah. You can continue from wherever. Yeah. Yeah. Because the way by Jaws says

by Jaws says I think you I think there was a there I think you I think there was a lag or something. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. ahead. Okay. So the way I my job works is that we reach reach out to people who want to automate a repetitive tasks. For instance, let's say the light bulbs behind your uh your link on your wall they might be manu some part of that might be manufactured in US some part of that might be manufactured in China. So there might be some engineering where you have to produce documents that you send into China to get those manufacturers. So that is a GDMT engineer that is a job of that person to translate what engineers

that person to translate what engineers are expecting into the language that the machinists understand. So when you want to apply for a job like that, you apply for you you have your resume accordingly. accordingly. M that Yeah. No, that makes total sense. Um and then lastly, I know we're you know just towards the end of what I was trying to cover here, but um yeah, so I know obviously you and you also mentioned this in the beginning, right?

mentioned this in the beginning, right? Like how LLMs have made your life so much more easier. So I am curious to explore how with the advent of AI, where do you see meatronics going? How do you see this field changing? And yeah, just kind kind of your candid thoughts on you know where you think this domain is headed. headed. Oh, it's amazing right now. So there like at least for me uh my coding aspect was not that developed and right now these LLMs are helping me to try different stuff out really really quickly uh which is which is helping me and my clients right now. So you you think pretty much outside of the obviously it can't do mechanical things just yet, right? It it can it's only limited to writing code and such. Um but you think that it it has like people in

you think that it it has like people in this domain should be you know doubling down on their usage of AI and absolutely absolutely really absolutely like uh it it helps you to save cost like right now you want to find an actuator online there can be hundreds of site because what you are trying to find is is developed by a very niche amount of uh people out there like very small amount of people out there so you have to reach out to people you you would understand like you you have to reach out to people, you have to get quotes, property, all of that can be automated. So yeah, it it is it is helping us uh us a lot. People are able to try a lot of things to save time and

to try a lot of things to save time and money, right? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I actually didn't even think about how it can be plugged into the operational life cycle, right, so to speak. So yeah, no, that's a great call out. Um and then yeah lastly I am curious because of you know how you showed me your lab which had just so many cool stuff just so much going on there. I am curious uh if you don't mind for our listeners if you can talk through maybe one or two really interesting projects that you've had the chance to work on. I understand if some details you're not able to give. So that's totally fine. But I'm just looking to you know get a good picture of what's a day in the life look like

of what's a day in the life look like for somebody that's at your position in this domain. Let me talk about my day then today. Perfect. Yeah. Right. So it started with a meeting where we were supposed to demonstrate uh a system that helps a company that injects uh material under the soil so that the soil or the ground is leveled. It can be used in parks. It can be used at a lot of place which u like I'm not very sure about but our job is to figure out when the uh the whole ground is leveled. So we are trying to invent something for that and the accuracy that we require is almost four times of one ballpoint pen. So it's it has not been done before. We have successfully proven that how it can be done and we are

that how it can be done and we are moving to the next stage to basically manufacture it. This was like my till 12:00. Then after that we are trying to help a company that has a lot of uh uh shipment being done. let's say and they want to generate crates and right now with the help of AI you can write programs that helps you to uh solve problems that are bounded by mathematical rules. So like generation of crates or generation of brackets or or or let's say it basically broke an experiment but like optimized form of uh like some sort of drone that drone as as a it it solves as you said like I can't I can diverse into a lot of details but it basically solves some specific purpose.

basically solves some specific purpose. So it it it varies a lot every day is like that. That is so cool. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually just blown away by how much, as you said, if you're local, pay us a visit. It would be really cool to like show you some some of like real things in action. I would love to. So, my brother actually lives in in the East Bay and I go there a lot. So, I would yeah, absolutely love to uh you know, make sure that uh I can do a visit and, you know, see in with my own eyes, you know, all of the cool stuff that you guys are up to because yeah, I'm just one of the lame software guys, right? I don't get to um really

guys, right? I don't get to um really use my hand you have what you have I struggled to have for for such a long time till till like LLN helped me out because it's for for a so for me meatronic sometimes it's rather hard to imagine abstract things like algorithms greedy algorithms or like some some you might know fuzzy logic and stuff like that right exactly So uh we we can design stuff we can we can do physical manufacturing of a lot of things but right now like what you have you can you can learn a lot of our field really really quickly really I feel like I doubt that I feel like the reverse is way more true than

like the reverse is way more true than cuz if I had to start coming in today and figure out how you know like which direction like an Arduino moves or like a motor moves and even like something as simple as like an IR sensor. I feel like I would struggle with that. I don't know if that is true but it doesn't feel the most accessible. No, that's definitely not true. I think it depends on on like if if you are studying that then yeah it's very difficult but if you're trying to solve something using IR and the technologies that you just mentioned it will be a breeze for you to remember that forever.

breeze for you to remember that forever. So like if on my LinkedIn you might have seen the banner it's like first principle thinking and then analogical thinking thinking basically you first uh you understand the principles of these things you understand how how a analog sensor works you can work with almost most type of similar analog sensor which can be unknown. So it's it's not that it's not unknown. So it's it's not that hard. Makes sense. And what you're saying it's it's basically it's transferable that like like it's not a new thing every single time and and it kind of translate to it. Interesting. Do you ever just make things in your own free time like outside of work just for your house and stuff? stuff? Every Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I I gifted my wife a cutting board. We have a whole

my wife a cutting board. We have a whole workshop behind. We have all sort of woodworking systems. That was that was something that I gen and 3D printing 3D printing is amazing. You can you can if you break a lot of stuff you can make that back if you if you have a 3D printer and CA software. Wow. And so yeah. So was so about that cutting board was that so did it have like any cool features that normal cutting boards don't have? I think you made it over over complicated. uh like my my CEO is really really good with woodworking and you thought like it would be like we learned from him and then we thought like it would be easy but we we tried to create a checker code on our first try it

a checker code on our first try it didn't come out to be a checkerboard. It it was a good good attempt but uh it looked like a cutting board but uh that was my experience. Got it. No. And even just the fact that you know you can try and experiment with building physical real real world stuff is is such a cool concept to me. Yeah. I I wish I could do that. Imagine yourself to go into a shop where they have random woods and you are selecting a wood like how many how many people do you like are finding a wood in a physical you can't buy that from from online store right like these are certain things that are still remaining which you cannot you have to go and and

which you cannot you have to go and and like feel it and like buy it so it was a pretty amazing experience yeah that reminds me actually it's funny just um this this week with the episode that I uploaded was with the head of hardware at Matic Robots which is kind of like it's basically like a really smart smart home robot right and he was also sharing something similar where he was like um working in you know working with hardware is a physical sport right you can't sit in a chair all day like you have to get your hands dirty you have to go out make calls buy things so yeah I actually feel like you you you should probably you know check that episode out if you have some time ever I

episode out if you have some time ever I I do think you will enjoy that because a lot of the concepts that you mentioned here are kind of what they are using but specifically to build one single product which is a smart home robot. So definitely some balance there and yeah I I've just kind of stumbled across this world right like I said I really don't know much about it but it is something that interests me I do really really enjoy um having these give you an example you you will be interested probably so I once consulted um a company that makes autonomous ships that go around the world and they basically collect data for environmental reasons and I was tasked to help them with the manufacturing of the harnesses. So

manufacturing of the harnesses. So harness is a device that for instance your car a car steering wheel has so many buttons on it right. So not a single wire is just going through the whole whole uh car wherever the computer jar. So similarly in a boat you are making those harnesses which are very very long. So I was averaging about 20 to 30,000 steps a day and that was the average for pretty much like under average for everybody around me. So you can imagine like and you you can't do that by just just like Yeah. It not a sedentary lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And was were you like on an actual ship when this was happening and when you were doing this? It's not it it those are not that big but yeah you can climb on them and the harnesses are made in a separate like uh way but yeah those are those are decent enough uh size but uh just just the place where those things are made those are really really big big yeah and I guess it makes sense that they're not that big because if you if they're just going around the world they probably need to be really power efficient and energy efficient I should say right so that that makes total sense and and in in engineering you would realize that things are made like in good engineering

things are made like in good engineering you would realize that things are made for for certain very very quantifiable parameters. So what they want to achieve they will make they will use enough resources to achieve that. So it's it's exactly of the size for the mission it is going. So it's it's not it's it's small but there are some giant ones as well. So that that was a very very interesting experience. experience. Yeah. And have you that with what you just said kind of made this come to mind but have you ever uh found a project where you tried really hard to do it but it just turned out to be impossible like there was just no way to do it. Has does that ever happen? Almost every day you try it out. Yeah.

Almost every day you try it out. Yeah. You try it out. Like that's the that's the beauty of my job. like you fail every day and you you discover something almost on a daily basis. So my job is predominantly to to play with like really cool toys. So and when you when you play with a lot of toys, you break a lot of toys. So like yeah, sometimes things don't things just don't work.

things don't things just don't work. Sometimes it's something that you didn't expect or sometimes things just break on the demo day. Wow. Yeah. I mean that's we've all been there, right? Just in different context. But yeah, I do think it's just different if you have a physical thing that just doesn't work how you would expect it to. But yeah, in principle, yes, I have um experienced that. And yeah, it's never never a fun time. I think you can't learn without failing like if you are I don't think so like it's even possible for somebody to just be right at the first time. Like if if it is probably I have not met them. They are too too rich for my graph. Same. No, same same. Or they're in the wrong domain, right? Because they've

wrong domain, right? Because they've pretty much figured out everything there is to figure out about that domain. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Um so yeah, really that's kind of all I wanted to pick your brain around uh today. Do you have any um I guess parting advice for our listeners, anybody that's interested in this domain? Anything that you would like to share with the world? I think in the world is changing so fast that just trust your gut like just just be curious about what uh what fundamentals of things that you are working on are you're an electronics engineer try to make audio amplifier if you're a mechanical engineer engineer try to make try to get man something manufactured that is smaller than your fingernail and if you're a computer science I think you can you can give a

science I think you can you can give a better advice Yeah. No, but it's along the similar lines, right? Like just go build things that it's all about. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's no point in trying to learn theory for two years, right? Simply irrelevant. Just go out and make things and while you're at it, as you said, make them interesting. I love what you said about the thing being smaller than your thumbnail because yeah, automatically just because of that constraint, right? You will learn so many things that you just would never have just if you were you know doing like course or whatever like first thing that you learn is not everybody can do it. So how do you find the people who can do it for the cost that you would like like you you sell

that you would like like you you sell you sell properties right like you know finding people can be really hard sometime like who exactly fit. So you at least learn that when you try to get things manufactured. Yeah. One other way of thinking about that is a lot of things most things in life just boil down to be optimization problems at the end of the day and I don't know yeah yeah every day yeah it's it's all about um trying not to optimize everything like uh that is that is like sometimes my life exactly exactly that's the trap right yeah that's the trap where you're just just optimizing everything to the tea and then suddenly you're just like h that was not even worth it. So for some reason sometime my gut says that it some people have figured that out by looking at like what what people

out by looking at like what what people are able to achieve right now but sometimes I feel like they might be also be struggling with a lot of things. It's true. I mean it is a danger. I feel like just a couple days ago I saw this tweet by this person that was really trying to you know eat healthy, go to bed on time, reduce stress, blah blah and his sleep score just did not was not good at all. And then he just threw everything away. He stopped tracking all of these things, did whatever. And then he reported that I've been doing this for a couple months now, and I've never felt as stress free, as happy as I am currently. So, you know, who knows

currently. So, you know, who knows what's my own my own house is like that. My wife is if organically fit. She she she goes by the first principle of health. Eat healthy, like sleep on time, and walk enough. She's healthier than me. So like I think like I don't need to go far to get a real example for that. Yeah. No, that's awesome. It's just so interesting how different things work for different people. But but yeah, um Shivam really appreciate you taking the time today. I've learned so much from you and I'm sure anybody listening or anybody tuning in would have taken away a lot about this field, this really exciting domain that you've shared with us today that you've opened the doors to

us today that you've opened the doors to for us which I really appreciate. So yeah, thanks so much for taking the time and I'm happy to remain connected and also anybody that's interested in this field, go follow link Shivam's LinkedIn. He posts really amazing things and that's kind of also where I found him. So you will not be disappointed. So big shout out to Shivam and thank you so much for doing this. Thanks Raman. Thank you. Have a good night. night. Thank you. That brings us to the end of that fascinating episode on meatronics with Shivan Bharat Vaj. If you would like to support me, the easiest way to do that is by subscribing on YouTube and leaving me up to a fivestar rating on Spotify or any of your favorite podcast apps. Please comment below for any feedback that you have for my show or

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