#480 – An Interview with Ben Krasnow, 8 years on

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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
    • Jeri Ellsworth
    • Jeff Keyzer
    • Alan Yates
• 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