Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Lightening the load

I've been working with a company out of Atlanta named Verco Materials and you can follow them on my website through the link there. They have an amazing technology capability to form boron carbide into complex shapes. Now what does that mean and why does it matter? B4C is the third hardest material known to man. After you form the B4C into a shape you're done. It is very difficult to machine it to a different configuration. The B4C is 60% the weight of Titanium and four (4X) times as hard. It is a ceramic material so using it as lightweight body armor immediately comes to mind. Their process makes it extremely hard and dense and in complex shapes. It is also very abrasion resistant. I'm amazed by the many potential applications that I've been investigating to use this new material to make better longer lasting products. If you have applications, please contact me.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Where do you get the technology?

I've had people ask me for years "How did you come up with this new technology?". The most frequent answer is that I looked for it. I'm always amazed as people who complain about the success of others but don't see the need to put in the effort to learn how to do those searches themselves. There is a great art in asking the right question. Many times I don't really want to do what a customer asks, but provide them with alternatives. When you don't know the way, climb a tree. In the advance technology development world frequently that is simply take a look around and open your mind to how others have solved similar problems in other disciplines. Moving imagery for a UAV looks allot like moving MRIs in the medical field. Solving a power problem in the military looks allot like solving a power problem in the civilian world. Who would have thought that a millimeter wave radar would end up with TSA at the airport?