What should my next video be about?

I've been watching a lot of low-level programming channels lately and started dabbling with C. Systems engineering is a field that I would like to get into soon... sounds way cooler than building the 100th version of the same crud app.

as an agriculture engineer and web developper, i think Agriculture is one of the sectors where robots will make a huge impact

Recently laid off Amazon Robotics Engineer, I think your skepticism is spot on, some of the skillsets of a developer can translate well. The problem is these big companies often paint a grandiose picture of their robotics for press release and rarely deliver, usually do to economic or Hardware issues. Hardware trails software, and you have to take a hardware first approach as Steve jobs mentioned.

In addition, companies like amazon will have 2-3 separate projects that essentially do the same thing and compete internally so they can hedge their bets. The engineers on the "losing" teams often end up looking for work elsewhere, just look at projects like Scout.

I'm a robotics and AI engineer, with a background in Mechanical engineering and went to grad school for robotics and AI. It's not an easy pivot or a career to go and chill 😅. Robotics of previous decades is not the same as modern robotics. Before, you needed to understand electromechanical fundamentals and you could work your way through the rest. In today's robotics, you need to understand some new fundamentals you need to have development skills to start with then add on the fundamentals of AI and background knowledge in computer science. Then you need to choose your focus whether it's manipulators, Mobility locomotion, Sensing and perception, Operator interface, Manipulators, and effectors each of those requires programming skills. The same computer science fundamentals are required when building autonomous systems (could be vehicles or some other system). It's also not that easy for the companies building these systems to make them work and produce them in mass at a profitable cost and retain their staff. It's a long-term investment career and I would consider it as R&D. You can also go into automation & manufacturing which is more accessible and stable as a career since manufacturing plants use automation anyway.

The chasm between demos and production deployments for a robotics system is immense. Far greater than anyone would assume.

I like your format, no hype just a conversation. You've clearly thought about this and you have context to see the bigger picture.

As someone who wanted to get into robotics from the start but no one considered me because I didn't have an engineering degree, I see this as an absolute win.

But I am not gonna apply to the Amazons and what not. I am thinking more the small start-ups.

Robotics engineer here - labour cost alone is not a meaningful metric. Human presence reduces opportunities to automate (a lot of safety-related limitations). Even if cost is only 10% now, removing a human altogether can allow you to build cars a few times faster, so cost savings will be way above 10% that you'll shave off human labour.

And don't hold your breath on robots co-existing with humans. Even if technology will deliver (spoiler alert - it won't), the regulations will catch up years later. Large red e-stop buttons will be pervasive for years to come.

As for 3D-printing - not that useless, 3D-printing unlocked generative design. You cannot machine such shapes with the regular subtractive machining, but metal 3D-printing can do all those organic shapes easily. In prototypes or in scale - does not matter.

I didn't knew about this channel. Instant favorite. Thank you for this awesome content (I'm a Bsc in EE, transitioning to Machine Learning and Robotics through masters and freelancing).

Really like your calm video style! I tried to pivot from Software Engineer directly to a Robotics role and it was tough. My competition all had Master's degrees in Robotics, Comp Sci, Mechatronics, or something similar, and many had done robotics work in their undergraduate curriculum. I ended up going back to graduate school to "retrain" in robotics. You bring up some great points about what needing to go back to school every so often to retrain would look like. I'm fortunate that I was at a point in my life where I could go back to school, but it certainly wouldn't be something everyone can do.

Thanks, this video made me think. I've been an enterprise developer for almost 15 years using mostly scripting language. Last year I took a 10-month C++ course. It was quite an awesome experience to manage memory yourself. Hoping to find a way to switch my career to something more challenging like embedded, or just working on more profound software products for desktop/servers, like OSs, browsers, game engines. Robotics field looks intriguing, but I'm afraid I lack electronics/math skills to get such kind of jobs.

Really enjoyed listening to you! Nice tone, format, and content!

Great attitude!
I've been down in the dumps for getting fired and trying to get a Dev job.
This week I started looking into building self-driving cars and autonomous drones.
Loads of free content on YouTube.
Employers want to see hustle and curiosity and there's loads of room for entrepreneurship if you combine development, with AI vision and basic hardware.

This is the first video of your channel that I've seen after watching enough other types of tech commentary that 90% of the time just revolves around which language is better, which editor is better, this tired old measurement of tools instead of products, achievements and good investment of time, I've almost slam shut my tablet after hearing how 80 hours per week is the way to go while 50 is enough to maintain sanity. So this mature analysis of the state of affairs, and proper weighing more real-world aspects of the economics behind re-training the workforce, the natural resource dictatorships bent on violent expansion occasionally, which I've mentioned in discussions myself is so refreshing. Thank you for this video!

Thank you so much, your knowledge and insights are very inspiring!! love your content

Love your take on the idea. If I want human contact, I want human contact, if I want a coffee from a robot, I'll use a vending machine. :) Simple.

Thanks a lot for your vulnerable, honest, non-click-bait videos about these important topics!

Truer words have never been spoken 🎉

I have been looking at Zig as a replacement for C/C++ and has a much lower learning curve compared to Rust, at least for me. Looking forward to how the robotics industry shapes up

Thank you for this sober and informed view of this topic. All the hypers, though they may attract many funds to the field right now, should be aware that hypes create expectation bubbles and when they burst, many times a big peroid of questioning and a big drawback can occur.