Aerospace
Rockets, satellites, jet engine testing equipment and drone technology were a few of the amazing products showcased by engineers and founders at our Aerospace-themed meetup on 9th May.
A huge thanks goes to Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom from International Space Consultants, Mat Rowe from Dotterel Technologies, Ian Rowe from Air New Zealand, and Naomi Altman from Rocket Lab for coming along to share their stories.
Our event was a big one (we capped registrations at nearly 180), and we were very proud to be a feature event for Techweek 2017. Our amazing sponsors Blender Design, GPC Electronics and GridAKL enabled us to put on such an amazing event, and we also bought on a new sponsor, Adroit, who bought along the beer (Adroit are a specialist smart-tech company also working across AI, image recognition, augmented reality, and voice & gesture control).
Event attendees came from many leading New Zealand companies, including Orion Health, Xero, Rocket Lab, Air New Zealand, Chronoptics, Boxfish Research, JUCEBOX, Navico, Compac, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, The Icehouse, Sunfed Meats, Tru-test, Downer, Tekron, Globex Engineering, Fonterra, and the New Zealand Defence Force.
Speaker #1:
Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom from International Space Consultants
Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom is co-founder of International Space Consultants, and space faculty and former Chief Impact Officer at Singularity University.
Having recently arrived from Silicon Valley, Emeline and her husband are working on multiple space-related projects, including offering to help Kiwi primary and university level kids to build sensors from satellite kits.
They are also working to create a stronger space ecosystem in New Zealand, and help local entrepreneurs to use exponential technologies to build spacecraft and software tools for space data.
Interested in getting in touch with Emeline? Reach out to her here >>
Speaker #2:
Mat Rowe from Dotterel Technologies
Mat Rowe is CEO and Co-founder of Dotterel Technologies, a company who have developed award-winning noise-reducing drone technology. Dotterel was formed by Mat and his two brothers in response to Callaghan Innovation's 2015 C-Prize - a competition aimed at driving development of UAV technology for the screen industry.
After winning Most Innovative Product at last year's NAB Show (the largest showcase of media technology in the world) the company is now in the process of commercialising their technology.
Think you can help Dotterel Technologies? You can reach out to them here >>
Audience Pitches
Four audience members pitched hardware-related things for one minute each. Products included:
A 3D camera from Chronoptics
A device that aids people with hearing impairments
A high-speed axial flow fan
Electric jetboards from Voltaic Jetboards
Do you have something hardware related to pitch? Want to show off your project, release a new product, or find a team member? Please come along to our next event!
Speaker #3:
Ian Rowe from Air New Zealand
Ian Rowe is a true legend in the world-renowned Air New Zealand Technical Services Operations department, and is currently Senior Technical Support Engineer after being with the company for 49 years.
Ian has designed and commisioned test systems for pneumatics, avionics, hydraulics, flight guidance, wheel brakes, halon recovery systems, transmissivity test systems for military P3 radomes, madbooms, and commercial aircraft radomes (the dome-like shells that protect radar assemblies from things like weather and moving fast).
You can learn more about the wide range of engineering work Air New Zealand does here >>
Speaker #4:
Naomi Altman from Rocket Lab
Naomi Altman is Electrical Systems Engineer at Rocket Lab, a company developing lightweight, cost-effective commercial rocket launch services. Rocket Lab have been extremely busy gearing up for their first test launch with NZ-built, carbon-composite rocket 'Electron.' They achieved this goal last week, when Electron was successfully launched from their Mahia site.
Electron will be delivering imaging and communications satellites for the likes of NASA, Planet, Spire, and Moon Express, which are providing services such as optimised crop monitoring, improved weather reporting, internet from space, natural disaster prediction, up-to-date maritime data and search and rescue services.
A huge congratulations to Rocket Lab for successfully launching Electron last week. You can read more about their plans future plans here >>
EVENT IMAGES
Many of Auckland's top engineering and product development minds were in attendance, as well as many up-and-coming hardware enthusiasts. Want copies of any of these photos? You can pull them from our Facebook folder.
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