The Startmate Demo Day, Detecting Dark Matter and Stretch the Robot

April 22

This week we will look at a few of the 18 startups that presented at the Startmate Demo Day. These are just ones that caught my eye as interesting. There are quite a few others that I think will also be successful. We also examine a possible new way to detect dark matter. What is dark matter? We don’t know, however it makes up approximately 85% of the universe. Finally we meet Stretch the Robot. Stretch is Spot’s brother. You may remember Spot the Robot from Boston Dynamics from previous newsletters.

Startmate Demo Day

Last week the latest cohort of startups that have been through the Startmate accelerator had their demo day. Here are a few ideas that caught my eye (quite a range of others if you want to have a look here).

Hullbot

I know that a few of my readers dread the need to take their super yachts out of the water to clean the hull every year. Also the antifoul paint that is used to keep growth off the bottom of the boat is incredibly toxic to marine life. Now there is a robotic solution.

Hullbot will autonomously inspect, map and clean the hull of the boat without a human operator present. Using Hullbot will stop the growth of marine organisms, improve performance , reduce fuel consumption (for those that drive stinkboats) and extend the time between haul outs.

The robot is able to provide a variable cleaning pressure for a range of fouling, from slime to early stage heavy growth. The robot will inspect the boat via a series of cameras and clean the boat every day so the hull always has optimal performance. There are already several hullbots working on Sydney Harbour.

Great Wrap

Great Wrap have developed a compostable cling wrap using food waste as the main ingredient. It looks and feels the same as petroleum based plastics and is competitive in price (price will be critical in addressing the market outside the very early adopters).

The wrap takes a few weeks to break down into carbon and water once it has been composted. Great Wrap have consumer and industrial products available.

Uluu

Uluu has developed a plastic alternative from seaweed. It is fully biodegradable and has the added advantage of sequestering the carbon that it is created from. They will be releasing their product shortly.

Sicona

Sicona have developed a new production process for high performance silicon graphite composition anodes and polymer binding materials for use in lithium-ion batteries. The anode has been developed over the past 10 years at the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials.

The Sicona silicon composite anode technology delivers up to 233% higher capacity than conventional graphite anodes and the anode materials can deliver 50% to 75% higher cell density than current Lithium-ion batteries.

The products seamlessly integrate with existing battery plants and supply chains. A Pilot production plant is being developed in Woolongong.

Detecting Dark Matter

Dark matter (so called because it does not interact with light and thus we can not see it) comprises approximately 85% of the universe. We know dark matter exists because we can see the affect that it has on light. The gravitational mass of the dark matter will bend and stretch the light from distant stars as that light travels through the universe to our telescopes. We know where dark matter is, but we don’t know what it is.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have proposed a way that might allow us to “see” dark matter. A new device using quantum computing bits that are capable of detecting weak signals from two subatomic particles, the “axion” and the “hidden proton”, has been developed. These subatomic particles are thought to interact with photons of light in the visible universe.

The technique uses qubits (the quantum computing equivalent of a bit) to detect photons generated when dark matter particles affect an electromagnetic field. A customized superconducting cavity offers a way to build up and store the photon. Any invisible particle (i.e. the dark matter) that converts into a photon of light will be detected.

Each photon lasts for about 500 microseconds and the measurement takes 10 microseconds thus allowing every photon to be measured 50 times. This is just one important step along the way to finding out what dark matter is.

Stretch the Robot

Boston Dynamics, the inventor of spot the robot dog, has invented a new robot that moves boxes in a warehouse. Not as exciting as spot, however warehouses and factory based robots are by far the highest demand sector for robotics.

Stretch has a square mobile based designed for mobility, a “perception mask” with cameras and a range of sensors combined with a huge robotic arm with seven degrees of freedom. A suction pad array on the end of the robotic arm can grab and move boxes up to 23 kgs in weight.

The robot can operate in a environment that doesn’t have automation infrastructure. Approximately 80% of the world’s warehouses don’t have any automation equipment. Stretch can move up to 800 boxes an hour, very similar to a human employee. The high capacity battery means that Stretch can work a full 8 hour shift.

The greatest value is in the flexibility of the robot to adapt to spaces and workflows. Boston Dynamics claims that Stretch can be operated by anyone with a few hours of training and it will be able to work wherever humans can work. The only drawback is that Stretch only works with flat boxes at the moment.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below.

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.

Till next week.