Robots, Lasers and high power drills

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

By Patrick Dolan

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-When I called the number for Drew Gillingwators at his shop, GH2O Machining, this is what I heard on the other end: “If you get this message I’m probably wearing ear protection and the CNC Machine is blowing chips—It’s AWESOME! Leave me a message.” A CNC Machine stands for computer numerical control and the all-in-one machining tool can be programmed to cut, drill, mill and shape metal with unmatched accuracy.

I found out later that he was doing just that when I called: wearing ear protection while operating a computerized metal-milling and drilling machine the size of a small truck, the only of its kind in Teton County.

Gillingwators spends weekdays in his well-swept shop programming the CNC for whatever the day’s parts may be while listening to reggae and electronic music from his office computer. He’s also always ready to collaborate on designing parts with his nearby high-tech neighbors. Among those neighbors to the north is Bob Viola and his team of engineers at Square One Systems Design. Viola’s company works on robotic support and positioning systems for a variety of applications and clients. They have made everything from arms on robots that can disable bombs for the U.S. Military to components used in medical research equipment. They are currently working on a design they hope will be used in microprocessor production for Samsung, the electronics company.

To the south, only a few doors down in the same complex as Gillingwators, David Bloom and his team of young scientists refine the possibilities of laser projectors at Alces Technologies. Gillingwators fits right in the middle, literally. His shop is located between Square One and Alces, and he is an integral local source of parts and service for each.

“This is kind of my passion, the world of metal,” Gillingwators told me as I toured his shop in the South Park industrial complex. He’s been a machinist for 25 years, first making airplane parts in Southern California during high school. After receiving a BA in history from University of Wyoming, he apprenticed at a shop in Montana making telemark ski bindings and eventually moved to Silicon Valley where he mastered the craft of high-tech CNC work. It wasn’t long after he moved to Jackson that Gillingwators got on with the guys at Igneous Skis, and then Life-Link. After a few years he caught wind of a niche business on the horizon. One day he heard from co-workers at Life-Link that Viola was planning on expanding his then garage-based business into a bigger facility, and might have need for machining work.

“I started getting the idea that Bob was going to have machining requirements above what he was doing. Maybe it would be a good time to start a machine shop,” Gillingwators said. Right about that same time, in mid-2005, Alces Technology was getting started by Bloom. Gillingwators figured that between the two companies, there would be enough machining work to buy some tools and start his own shop. So, it’s no coincidence that Gillingwators set up shop within walking distance of his two biggest customers. “The guys walk down here on a daily basis to get some little part modified,” he said. “I’m a support team player for the larger projects they have going. Basically I just drop what I’m doing and make sure they can move forward on their side of things, and be a sounding board for their engineers.”

This support means having conversations face-to-face about what his machines can and can’t build or problems they may run into in making each specific part. In a field where each day builds on the progress of the day before, this level of communication is essential for research and development. When parts take months to design and then weeks to ship, a lot of time is wasted, especially if the part needs to be modified. The proximity saves time and the open communication cuts back on frustration.

Being the only employee along with monthly bills for the machine and shop space, the work is not cheap. “I’m certainly not the low-cost alternative,” Gillingwators said. However, the time saved and cooperation gained is more important in the high-risk research and development field.

While Gillingwators and I spoke in his shop, Peter Carman, co-founder of Square One came by to pick up a part for a robotic arm the team was working on. It wasn’t ready yet (because of our interview) but Gillingwators was quick to get back to work.

Square One is developing a robotic arm used in explosive ordinance disposal for the U.S. Military. To get an idea of how it works, it’s important to understand the basic technology Square One is improving. The goal for these robots is to accurately reach out and grab objects, such as wires or small pieces of debris, with pinpoint precision. Currently, even the most sophisticated robotic arms and grabbers move one joint at a time. Imagine reaching for an object, a pencil for example, that is on the ground in front of you, but only being able to move one body part at a time. Start with a bend at the hips, extend your arm at the shoulder, bend at the elbow, a slight tweak at the wrists, and then some articulation with your fingers.

This is how the operators have to process the steps, as well as manually control each separate movement, to make a simple pick-up. Instead, think of how easy it is to see the pencil and grab it in one fluid movement. This is what Square One is working toward with a machine it calls the Carma Manipulator.
This is the main project the newest member of the team, Charlie Hagen, has been working on since he began there in 2010.

“Obviously this is not what comes to mind when people think of Jackson’s economy,” Hagen said. Hagen is one of three Jackson natives currently employed with Square One. Alex Melka and Jace Walsh also grew up in the valley and returned home after college to utilize their engineering degrees. Founder Bob Viola started the company in 2002 with Peter Carman, a former Life-Link employee.
“You want a work environment where people can be creative and enjoy living in Jackson,” Viola said. “So we try to do that.” The draw to living in Jackson is what inspired Viola to start Square One. Previously, he worked with a mechanical engineering company and worked remotely from Jackson. However, when they asked him to move to Florida, he chose to quit and stay put.

The driving force behind Square One’s research and development is finding new and innovative uses for the tools already at their disposal. For example, I was surprised to discover that standard Xbox controllers operate all the robots in the shop. Hagen explained that because the controllers are so widely understood, used, and efficient, the military chose them as the go-to controller for bomb disposal robots and a number of other hands-off machines. On any given product, they use a mix of hardware already available on the market, such as ball joints from a Taiwanese company, and custom-made parts from Gillingwators. Even when it comes to building upon their own knowledge base, Square One is always innovating uses.
Hagen explained that several of Square One’s projects are based around its patented design, Tri-Sphere.

The Tri-Sphere is a positing system which can articulate movement in six different directions using three points. If you start with a flat surface, like a notebook, the Tri-Sphere can move it up, down, side to side, and also tilt any corner, change the pitch forward and back, and articulate the yawl (twisting around the center). This results in nearly uninhibited movement in all directions. This technology is being used to improve robotic arm movement on the Carma Manipulator and could likely become a key part in a new process for creating semi-conductor computer chips.
This latest project with semi-conductor chips is no small undertaking.

Viola said that Samsung could possibly use a component using Square One’s Tri-Sphere technology in manufacturing more detailed, smaller and faster micro processors. If Samsung likes the component and chooses to use it, this would bring the technology to the commercial market. When a technology makes it way out of research and development and into commercial application, that means big money for the developers.

“More importantly,” Viola said, having the technology used by Samsung, “would validate what we’re doing and open more doors for us.”

I asked Viola to put me in touch with Bloom at Alces. Viola shared his contact information and being a writer himself, relayed the description of Bloom in his personalized address book: “A Stanford trained high tech entrepreneur here in Jackson and thus, perhaps, a kindred spirit.” 

At Alces Technology, they believe, “The team is really the key, especially in high-tech science. With five to 10 people, every employee changes the chemistry of the company,” Chris DeMarco told me. He manages the day-to-day operations at the five-man company.

Bloom, a former Stanford professor and entrepreneur with five Silicon Valley startups, founded the company. Bloom was out of town last week but DeMarco shared his own insights on how the company works, and his history with high- tech jobs in Jackson, this being his second. DeMarco is in his mid 30s and is just as comfortable in the backcountry as he is in the lab. He snowboards, hosts a radio show on KHOL, and is a former hockey player for the Jackson Hole Moose. What he thought would only be a stopover on a road trip to the West coast has turned into a 12-year stay. In that time, he has only worked two jobs—Alces, and Decisive Diagnostics, a medical lab that also happens to be just up the hill from the South Park cluster.

When he started out with Alces, Bloom was moving into the current shop space. The two built the lab themselves from the ground up, something unique in the science world, DeMarco said.

Gillingwators, the neighbor with the CNC Machine, is just as involved with Alces today as he was when it first started. He helps build custom parts to hold high power microscopes, as well as tables and counters for the lab’s “clean room.” Now, Alces is building laser projectors that are designed to have four times the clarity and detail as current high-definition projectors. They work on developing chips so small they can only be seen with electron microscopes. DeMarco said a lot of the work is based on theory developed by Bloom during his time at Stanford. DeMarco spends roughly half his time in a white full-body suit in the lab over a microscope, and the rest managing what he calls the “human side” of the company, such as human resources and recruitment of new employees.

His talent for building cohesive high-tech teams in Jackson, DeMarco says, comes from understanding how the outdoor culture influences peoples’ career choices. “The kind of people that settle here and want to stay and make it work are a certain niche of people,” he said.

The current team is composed of Bloom, DeMarco, an off-site researcher at the University of North Dakota, and two MSU Bozeman graduates—Matt Leone and Chris Arrasmith. The team is young, intelligent and cohesive, working in a loft space without cubicles or dividers, above the sterile labs. This openness of space is reflective of a more open source approach the company is embracing. “I think this is pretty radical,” DeMarco said. “If you walk through Silicon Valley today you won’t see much of this.”

Detailed information about their products and process are on the welcome screen of its Web site, inviting users to look, learn, and provide feedback.
Looking to the future with Alces, it’s  tinkering with a design for laser projector systems that could potentially be purchased and used by a major electronics manufacturer. “That??s our goal,” DeMarco said, a commercial road map of sorts, “somewhere we can find a home for this technology and help us get it to market.”
Square One and Alces are just two examples of the numerous knowledge-based businesses in Jackson. While they share a similar location, and even a common supplier, the two companies have used different financial models for their development in Jackson’s economy.

Beyond being a successful and functioning business, founded by locals and employing locals, Square One has been a lightning rod for controversy since it upgraded to the shop space in South Park in 2006 because of a state grant that helped them make the move.

Viola leases the office and shop space from the nonprofit group, Imagine Jackson, which secured grants from the Wyoming Business Council to purchase the space and promote high-tech business in Teton County. The real estate deal was controversial at the time and received scrutiny for community members and business owners who questioned the role of government assisting private industry. 

Mark Obringer, executive director for Imagine Jackson, and a Jackson town councilman, said that Square One is just one of several companies they hoped to assist through state grant money. Obringer said they are looking for downtown office space to house a group working space. Similar to business incubators, group spaces house several companies under the same roof and share resources, such as copy machines and wireless access.

DeMarco said that while he believes Imagine Jackson has the community’s best interest at heart, he questions the need for assisting high-tech business. “There’s 10,000 people with no university, is that really a need? Even though you see a little bit of clustering like we have here, I would question the need for a specific building.”

Viola said it is unlikely his business could have prospered without help from the state. “We recognize the state has been good to us, so we try to give back which includes being gracious to the media, giving tours, hiring interns, and coaching the high school robotics team,” Viola said.

“The relationship between government and private enterprise is long and very close,” Viola added. “I’d like to think we give a good return to both the state and federal government on the money we’ve gotten.”

photo by Patrick Dolan
Drew Gillingwators at his shop, GH20 Machining.


PERMALINK:
Robots, Lasers and high power drills | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

Leave a Comment