Live from AOPA 2024: Best Of Awards, Cutting-Edge Innovations in Prosthetics and Orthotics

Have you ever wondered how cutting-edge technology is transforming the world of prosthetics and orthotics? Join us as we kick off the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast with a thrilling behind-the-scenes look at our experiences recording live at industry trade shows. From tackling technical hurdles with Plantronics headsets to enjoying the comfort of Dive Designs' 3D printed chairs, we share our excitement about the American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) show. You'll hear firsthand accounts of innovative products, successful interviews with industry experts, and the seamless effort that went into coordinating multiple live recordings.

Expect to be captivated as we highlight standout presentations and memorable interviews. Katie from Advanced 3D delivered an enthralling talk on the applications of additive manufacturing, while Psyonic's live demo of a prosthetic hand reacting to muscle signals left us in awe. We also bring you insights from dynamic leaders like Anika from Psyonic and Louis-Philippe from Spentys, whose genuine and approachable nature made our conversations truly memorable. From low-tech solutions for tremor sufferers to the high-tech marvels presented by MyOMO and Spentys, this episode is packed with diverse perspectives and groundbreaking innovations.

Explore the future of prosthetics and orthotics as we introduce pioneering companies like Coyote and Radii, discuss the educational approaches of Dr. Adrian Hill, and reflect on Paul Gudonis' leadership at Myomo. Learn about the transformative impact of new technologies, such as Rocky Tech's cooling solutions for prosthetic sockets and the potential for Formlabs' additive manufacturing advancements. We also touch on the importance of making prosthetic technology more accessible and highlight the global market trends showcased at OT World. This season promises to be an exciting journey full of advancements and compelling stories from the ever-evolving field of prosthetics and orthotics.

Special thanks to Advanced 3D for sponsoring this episode.

Transcript

Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast Season 9

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Season 9 of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Podcast. This is where we chat with experts in the field, patients who use these devices, physical therapists and the vendors who make it all happen. Our goal To share stories, tips and insights that ultimately help our patients get the best possible outcomes. Tune in and join the conversation. We are thrilled you are here and hope it is the highlight.

Speaker 2 0:27

Hello everyone.

Speaker 1 0:28

I am super excited about this episode. I'm going to make sure that everything is going live here All right. So a couple of things that went into all of this. So yours and I did a bunch of interviews actually probably about close to 20 interviews and I'm going to bring him here in live as well. Hey, yours, I was just kind of giving a little bit of background on kind of what went into some of this. So yours and I met the first day just to make sure some of the sound stuff and all that worked and I was actually pleasantly surprised that it Good.

Speaker 2 1:14

I don't think we could have done that without you, could have done it actually without the Plantronics stuff. I think I've tried to record before on shows and trade shows is one of the worst things ever. Big rooms, a lot, ever big rooms, a lot of echo, a lot of people walking around, a lot of sound overhead announcements these things are amazing it was.

Speaker 1 1:32

It was crazy like I had to stop because the overhead announcement was so loud and you were like why are you stopping?

Speaker 2 1:39

yeah, why are you not talking? I'm confused. So those things are great. So the technical thing, I think we got lucky with using those Plantronics headsets and of course the guys helped a lot by giving you kind of your own little room, your own little space.

Speaker 1 1:53

Yeah, and we had the 3D printed chairs by Dive Designs. Those were pretty cool. So I'm going to bring some of these up, but we've got probably not as many categories as we had last year. Right, I pared them down a little bit. We kept on going and going. I mean it's still probably 17 or 18.

Speaker 2 2:16

First, just about AOPA generally. What do you think? Are you more jazzed up than usual? Are you much more positive? Was it kind of a downer? What was your overall feeling?

Speaker 1 2:27

Overall feeling was I feel pretty excited about some things. There were some things that I hadn't seen before that I'm really excited about, and so that's the best of show. I think we're going to touch on that and I hope that we're going to give them a little bit of a boost, because they're not in the US market. I don't want to give too much away here, but I'm super excited about that. So I'm actually going to go ahead and bring this presentation up, and so it'll be a lot like uh last year, where we have just, and then we'll talk a little bit about it. But you know, you were there for the, the uh, the journey of the um, uh, those interviews where we were just like it was like a train man, it was like it just kept on going. How was that for you?

Speaker 2 3:25

I thought it was amazing. I didn't know like. You did a great job, dude. You did an awesome job lining up all those people. The people did a great job as well, showing up on time, leaving on time, that kind of thing. I thought that cat herding element there went really really well.

Speaker 1 3:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:40

Because you always have people, especially at shows, like they show up late, they don't come, they forget because it's a show and they're somewhere else. You know, yeah, and so I thought that whole thing was amazing, dude, and I just thought I didn't know how many people I was like. Oh yeah, sure, I'll talk a little bit.

Speaker 1 3:54

There was another person oh, this guy, I know this guy and then I'm like there's another one. I'm like oh okay, yeah, I can stay around for another one and then I'm like oh, there's another one. I think I ended up eating at like nine o'clock, yeah well normal for spain, but not for me hopefully your girlfriend gave you a little bit of grace there, uh, so anyway.

Speaker 2 4:15

But hey, it was great, dude, I thought, and it really validates the approach of being able to um being there, you know, helping the show, I think, helping these people get their word out, and also being able to get this. Many people live in such a short. For them it's also a really easy interview. They're there anyway. They walk in, sit down, talk to you 10, 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later they're gone. Nothing is that fast. Any other interview is going to take a lot more time, planning and rescheduling and all this stuff. So I think it's really really great and I'm astounded that it went this well you had your.

Speaker 1 4:53

I mean, and, to be honest, when I was setting up, I was like I had it in my head how it was going to go and it didn't quite go that way. Technology wise, and we were kind of just able to bring it all together quite go that way, technology wise, and we were kind of kind of just able to bring it all together, and so that was awesome dude so and you get good responses on it as well.

Speaker 2 5:12

Like, really put it online and people.

Speaker 1 5:14

People were positive in the comments, I think very positive in the comments, and, and you know it's, and it was live, and, and it was live and it was crazy is you know, that last one that we did was almost three hours long, and and, and there's a lot of views on it. So you know, obviously you can scrub through it and see, see what you, what you want there, but yeah, so well, let's, let's get, let's get going here. I. So these slides are not beautiful, so very homemade looking, because that's what it is.

Speaker 2 5:51

It was a homemade the second IOP Awards.

Speaker 1 5:56

Yep, so let me get over here.

Speaker 2 5:59

The second year already.

Speaker 1 6:01

I know, isn't that crazy.

Speaker 2 6:02

Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 6:04

All right, so I'm going to share this.

Speaker 2 6:08

Time is accelerating anyway, like August was just like right away in September and I'm like what? What is happening? So I was like it's crazy.

Speaker 1 6:17

So this is kind of a throw to. You know, the ignite everything, it wasn't these colors, but it was very colorful. The ignite everything, it wasn't these colors, but it was very colorful. So our first award was a double diamond person, uh, and it was Alps. And so you you might not have noticed, but in the background behind it was always the Alps booth and uh, alps always shows up big for these shows and I I actually need to catch his last name. They have a um, uh nick, who worked with them for them, super energetic, very knowledgeable about their products, super friendly, and I just I just felt like it was a. They were positioned right. You know, when you come into the show and it was just a great, that beautiful booth, a great um way to like step foot into the show, boom, you're there. You're here in the orthotic prosthetic stuff, and they had some uh new stuff to show. So they had a new liner and they had a knee as well, and so I thought that was really great and did you like?

Speaker 2 7:23

the booth design as well. Did you just like that generally, that it was pretty, or did it have just a layout that really was inviting and kind of really enticed people in the site?

Speaker 1 7:32

Yeah, and I don't know if this makes sense, but it was like it was a big booth, but there were sections where you could have a private conversation with somebody that was with it, so I thought they just had done a really nice job with it yeah, you have these big booths.

Speaker 2 7:45

They're just like whoa and then, but they're not really engaging. And you have these big booths with like the cool people area and then everybody else is like, oh uh. But I think booths designed for people to, because there's always people that just want to come in. They want to learn, they want to do their own thing. They don't want to talk to anyone, you know, they just want to learn, they want to touch and feel stuff, do their own investigation and make their own decision. Right, yeah, and there's people that want to talk and they want to ask like there's more you and me, I think. They want to be like okay, what do you mean? Who is this? Why are you doing this?

Speaker 2 8:12

you know yeah, and I think the idea when you cater to those, those, both those groups of the independent investigation folks and the I want to engage with someone folks, then I think it's a really, really good idea from a trade show perspective.

Speaker 1 8:25

Yeah, agreed. So the next one. You'll get a kick out of this one Creative furniture. It had to be dive design. It's just corruption.

Speaker 2 8:35

Brent.

Speaker 1 8:36

So what's interesting, though, is it wasn't actually my idea, I didn't even think about this, but this is from Al, from Mitsubishi. He thought this was really cool, and it might be a little bit of corruption on his side, because it was mitsubishi uh, p-e-t-g glass filled p-e-t-g that was put into those chairs, so it might be a little bit that he wanted a little bit of a shout out to you but uh, dive design, adam from dive design, uh decibel furniture, uh super cool things, and they were actually actually very, very comfortable.

Speaker 1 9:06

So it was very cool.

Speaker 2 9:07

Do you see any applications for wide, medium format, large format?

Speaker 1 9:11

You know, the only thing that I can really think of is maybe like the spinal side of things and and this is an interesting conversation that I had with somebody, though it was like, and it was actually Al himself, he was like you know, last year I was like looking around and I'm like man, you can 3d print all this.

Speaker 1 9:27

And then when you have the discussion of like how we actually make certain things, have molds, vacuum form, it's like you know what 3d printing probably isn't the right solution for that because you already have a good solution, and so those are, those are conversations worth having. Like you can literally do a spinal brace in eight minutes to carve it, and if you've got the plastic in half an hour for the plastic to cool, after you vacuum form it, you cut it out Under an hour you could potentially have a body jacket ready to go where you're going to be waiting, even in the medium format side of things, five, six hours and you still have to trim it out. So it's a little bit of, I would say, give and take, and so for spinal stuff, it actually probably doesn't make sense to do that.

Speaker 2 10:18

The only thing I can think of is adaptive furniture If you need a bath but you don't want to throw out your whole bath, but you want some bath and you have paralysis on the left side or something and you want to be able to come in and out of the bath by yourself.

Speaker 1 10:30

Yeah, I think it's interesting and I think there's definitely custom stuff along with that, but it goes back to that conversation that we had a while ago. That becomes a premium line that only certain people could afford, and that's okay, right.

Highlighting Best Presentations and Interviews

Speaker 2 10:45

Yeah, but no one's bringing the cost down. I think there is an opportunity there to do that inexpensively.

Speaker 1 10:50

Okay, so best presentation.

Speaker 2 10:54

Okay, I have no idea.

Speaker 1 10:55

There was a lot of great presentations, but when I think of best presentation, it was a person that captivates a room right, and there was literally no one on their phone. They were all watching, finding out what was going on, and that was Katie, and we actually interviewed Katie not too long ago. She does work for Advanced 3D, but this is not corruption, I promise you she held the people's attention and uh did an amazing job.

Speaker 1 11:31

And uh, people like after the, after her talk and after everything, you should have seen the people kind of like start swarming to find out more about that. So always good.

Speaker 2 11:45

All right. And did she do like was there something? Because we're always trying to be better percenters, right, was there something she did that you think was really good? That was really good from a presenter perspective.

Speaker 1 11:56

Well, I thought of what was really cool and I know it's the rule of threes, but she had like three very different applications of additive manufacturing that literally hit every that. No one in the room would not have come across one of these applications, and so I think it really just helped people be like oh yeah, I think we could do this or that, and it just opens up this idea of additive manufacturing as a tool to solve problems that are otherwise difficult to solve with traditional manufacturing.

Speaker 1 12:36

So, I thought it was good. Now this one is on you, yoris. That's why I left it blank. So what do you think like the best interview for the podcast, which which?

Speaker 2 12:51

one stuck out and you can say like, hey, we need to have our audience know that you ambush me with this stuff all the time yep, so that's the premise of the show, right? Yeah, I know, but they probably don't know. They don't know that I'm here. I'm just like I get the link like three minutes before, like running like oh, wow, I'll water, and then I come here and it's like what, what were your best interviews? Like?

Speaker 1 13:14

this is perfect. That's why I left it blank.

Speaker 2 13:17

Wow dude I mean, we had a bunch of ceos, right, yeah, so that was.

Speaker 1 13:21

That was a lot of fun and uh, so I didn't do all of them because you did some. But let's just talk the Saturday one kind of the marathon one. We had Paul from MyOMO. He was great, I mean talking about the ringing of the bell and the stock exchange and all that. And then you have some of the other ones that are younger entrepreneurs. So I think having that gamut was pretty great and I'm going to take the cop out. I would say that all of them were great.

Speaker 2 13:53

Sure.

Speaker 1 13:54

What stuck out to you in all those, even a theme-wise. So I remember you saying it's amazing that people have, you know it is they're all entrepreneurs, right, with different visions, different thoughts about what, what to do, um, and they all have their ways to do it, um. I think the other surprising thing is, you know, most of these people were not clinicians, you know they're. They're. They're CEOs, um, and they're professional CEOs, right. So some of them were inventors. Oh, I know which one you probably liked the most. You like putting your hand up to the screen and watching the fingers move on that hand for a psionic.

Speaker 2 14:41

That was really good. That was as a demo went, went. I didn't know about this, I did not know about this at all. You were like oh, I've seen that before. I had not seen this. So, I think, as a demo, as like a live demo to do, all the time I thought that was fantastic, dude. Okay, I thought that was really really good. I thought that was really good. And then, uh, I'm trying to find like, uh, I'm trying to find like, I'm trying to look at like who else, who do we have?

Speaker 1 15:07

So we had Togar was nice, yeah. Spentys LP from Spentys yeah.

Speaker 2 15:12

Louis-Philippe Brose from Spentys. I thought he was super likable and very clear, yeah, and he was complaining about he wanted to learn more Americanism and stuff. It was actually really like the French is always adorable, the French kind of accent is really adorable. So I thought it was really clear and it seemed really approachable and open, you know, yeah. So I really liked that in the sense that when I asked the question I didn't think I was getting like a boilerplate answer. I thought he was like really like talking to me, you know, yeah, and I thought that was really good. I thought that he was really as a, you know so, ideal. Of course, the sonic was really good. I like the iceblown thing as well.

Speaker 2 15:47

The dutch guy with a with a mechanical kind of trimmers kind of device, because I think nine out of ten people, but that was not so much the interview, the universe, okay, but the device. You know where I was like. You know, if you would have just asked us or any other people to design a device for people with tremors generally, or we would look at motors, we would look at the dampening compensation, I was probably look at all sorts of uh 3d printed dampeners. So this is just so low tech but then ingenious that I think it's kind of wonderful. But that's more of the device, I think. I think the interview is okay, but it clearly he wasn't as as practiced as the other guys were. I thought also the other psionic employee, she was really nice, oh.

Speaker 1 16:29

Anika was great yeah.

Speaker 2 16:30

She was the patient advocate person, Yep. I thought she was really, really great. Oh, I don't know dude.

Speaker 2 16:41

Yeah, well, I think that I'm going to have to go with Psyonic for the demo because I just think that's brilliant Yep, I just think that's brilliant and also Psyonic for the demo. So I deal with the demo because I thought that was just really nice and it's really, and it really kind of made me think of like all these Because I've had these air band kind of things along as well, and and and. For me it was really like oh wow, we can do this in a computer vision type of way, much less invasive, uh, you know, much less pervasive, like as you could do it anywhere maybe, and and you wouldn't have to plug into another device on your head, right, right. So I like that very, very much okay.

Speaker 1 17:22

Well, let's go to the next one here yeah that's new material.

Speaker 1 17:26

It's not a new material, but no, this is all like pk 5000. So here's, here's the crazy thing. Uh, you know, a powder bed fusion, we know, creates great, uh, definitive style devices, but there's, there's always this like um safety factor, some would say impact resistance. That's necessary for stuff, and so I just had a couple samples there. Um and this may be breaking news for you, yoris um, so luke rogers, who was the kind of the president of, uh, jable polymers, that sort of thing, actually has spun off that polymer division to a new division called Loomis Polymers. Is it within Jabil? No, it's outside of Jabil.

Speaker 2 18:14

Ah, okay, there are people that don't know, because that's another thing. Jabil does a lot of 3D printing for clients, right? They're a contract manufacturer, really large. They have, like you know I'll do the best example I can come up with they buy like 2,000 CSU machines for the un-unibody MacBooks to drill them all out, that kind of thing. And they had a 3D printing thing that they made printers. They made printers for other people and they made material and they did a service for contract manufacturing services. Uh, and now that material part where they did pattern refusion and filament materials and they developed some really interesting ones they spun up and I didn't know about the spin up. I knew that they were going to think they were thinking about that, but I didn't know it actually happened.

Speaker 1 18:54

Yeah, that's really cool. So we're going to actually have luke on very soon and he'll be able to tell us a little bit more about it. But, um, people's eyes got really big like this. This type of material and the flexibility of it just raised a lot of eyebrows. This is what we've been looking for for a long time in powder bed fusion.

Speaker 2 19:14

You've been testing this and it's an extremely high strength but still processable material. People may not know this, but we have talked about this on the podcast as well, and some stuff, like some of the of the high strength powder effusion materials like peak, is what you think of pack. The problem with there is your recycling rate is low, so you basically have to throw away the whole build. So you have like, usually you've got parts, you've got powder lying around and the powder, you know, and it gets built up along with the parts, and then you just recycle it a certain amount of time and, as you know, brent, more than a lot of people um, you know that recycle rate is really big impact on your bottom line and it has a really, really big impact. If you can recycle more material, if you can put it in there a couple more times or put more in there, it's much more profitable.

Speaker 2 20:01

You actually like and and typically we used used to always say that people will throw away about half of the material unused and if you're buying that stuff for like 100 bucks a kilo or sometimes it's 200 and something, whatever, right Then of course that really adds up. Yeah, but these recycling rates are really key to profitability and with the high-strength stuff you can recycle nothing, yeah. So you're throwing away the whole build right, all the support stuff. You're throwing it away and super expensive, and with these materials you're getting the high strength properties and still you can recycle, still you can support it properly, still you don't have a lot of warpage. So it's like, I think, for the user it's really cool, but also for the service, that this is really really beautiful material. It's really been developed to be made and to be used, not just been developed because these guys had a grade or something lying around. They're like, oh okay, we're going to make three tons an hour of this stuff. Let's find something to do with it.

Speaker 1 20:52

Well, and Ani, the Scionic user experience person, was wearing a socket with this. Really, it was really great, because you've been testing this right and you love it yeah, I really do.

Speaker 1 21:02

Yeah, You've been testing this right and you love it. Yeah, I really do. Yeah, so it's really great and I truly believe so. I've talked to a couple people and I truly believe that they are the. It is the most recyclable material, so you can actually grind it, regrind it and it can be injection molded, so like, literally, you can use every single bit of this material you should try it, see if you can turn it into filament.

Speaker 2 21:35

So that is next yes, you should get a 3Divo one or something. If you can get a 3Divo machine, you can try it at home. All right, that's awesome dude.

Speaker 1 21:47

We've had Mike on and Ryan on from Filament Innovations. They have the Filament Innovations Icarus, the new generation with the Dyes Designs hardware, but then they also have the new Pellet Extruder, the Atom. That is up and going and I know that Mike spent a ton of time getting that thing ready for the show and so I think that's great. So it was a beautiful machine. They were cranking out sockets, all kinds of sockets, and doing it relatively inexpensive. Inexpensive once you factor in the cost of the machine. The material cost was very low yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 22:31

I like that pellets reduce material cost and the problem has always been getting something out there. You don't have to mill for like a week and a half, you know. So, so, so, making it kind of doable in the final finish and also, you know, getting the inlay or adhesion right to make it actually strong right. Yeah, that gives us, like you know, moseying along down to the final socket kind of thing, you know yeah, yeah, towards, towards.

Speaker 1 22:54

I'm going to try something really quick, because I just saw this come up in my preview screen, so I'm going to stop that and I'm actually going to flip this. Oh wow, look at this. If I come over here, I can actually show it here.

Speaker 2 23:10

We're going to be broadcast TV stuff. We're going to have anchors and desks and stuff.

Speaker 1 23:17

Okay. So the next one is one of. You know we've had Matt and Dale on and this kind of comes as no surprise. Best independent manufacturer, that is, the guys from Coyote.

Speaker 2 23:32

Okay, I now see the best use of pellets slide.

Speaker 1 23:38

Oh, because I'm I forgot to put my mouse back. There we go. Best independent manufacturer I love Coyote.

Speaker 2 23:48

My problem is I don't know that many other independent manufacturers Well, that's true. You know what I mean and I really like the guy that wouldn't stop talking with this whole systematic way of doing things and building things Dale, his whole systematic way of doing things and building things and what was his name again?

Speaker 2 24:08

Dale Dale. Yep, yeah, I like him as well. Yeah, I think what he's doing is really. He has a very kind of. We always look at innovators and inventors as being kind of like this eureka moment, kind of people Like it's like a fuddled professor. Now this guy like no, no, no, we're like it's a process. Yeah, okay, okay.

Innovative Prosthetics and Orthotics Companies

Speaker 2 24:27

So I like him too. But hey, coyote is a super sympathetic company, super smart products and a broad range of stuff as well, Like a crazy broad range of stuff, from the basalt stuff to the closure mechanism, stuff like that. I think it's more all over the place than somebody saying like, hey, I'm going to make this one AFO thing and then keep making stuff around it, yep, so I think that's really good Okay.

Speaker 1 24:52

You're going to love this next one and you have no idea about them. It's a company called Radii.

Speaker 2 24:57

Oh, sounds really cool, plus 10 startup points for Gryffindor.

Speaker 1 25:04

So yeah and that means a lot coming from you, yoris, because you sure do tend to give some people a hard time we won't mention them, but hey. So what's cool about them is they have taken scan data that was before something has been modified, and they have the modified model put it together into a machine learning, ai-ish type of thing.

Speaker 2 25:32

So it's like Fourier fast transform with, like AI or what.

Speaker 1 25:37

Yeah, so what you do is you take a scan.

Speaker 2 25:39

I know what they did. They did inside-outside, they did inside-outside, they gamified inside-outside. So they're on the normals or not? No.

Speaker 1 25:48

I'm not exactly sure what they did, but it was amazing.

Speaker 1 25:58

So you take a scan of your patient's limb and then they will actually apply their model to it, give you some suggested ways to modify so you can you can use the way that it comes out of the the you know the learning model, or you can take some of those things away and add your own, but nonetheless there's some sliders and things of that nature that make it very quick that get to a final model.

Speaker 1 26:17

And here's where it gets really interesting is when they did their study. So they did like hey, the prosthetist fits their version of the leg and they fit their version of the leg out of the model. It was a smaller study. I believe it was like 30 or 31 patients all 31 patients that were in their socket, based off of their model, walked and were comfortable, and that's amazing. So, and here's the deal, even though there's shapes that necessarily I wouldn't necessarily quote unquote agree with, or what have you guess what they have that I don't have Data? Or what have you guess what they have that I don't have Data, they have the measurements and the outcomes that go along together, and so the reality is they're more science-based than anybody, and so really cool company.

Speaker 2 27:11

I've never heard of it, dude, never heard of it.

Speaker 1 27:14

Well, we'll have to have them on. So, um, yeah, we didn't. Oh, it's a question.

Speaker 2 27:18

It's on before. Somebody does like the inside outside face normals and then solves it like chess or whatever you know and then reconstructs the mesh like that. They're waiting for that, so I thought it was. Maybe they did that. Okay, I like this dude.

Speaker 1 27:33

This is, this is a really valuable kind of tool so, uh, we did this last year and I thought it went really well and I say best advocate, professor, and we had Chad Duncan on last year. This is Adrian Hill, dr Adrian Hill, and she was great. So I had never really had much of a conversation with her. I had never really had much of a conversation with her, and then we kind of started talking at one of the closing of the shows, right after I was tearing down the podcast stuff and that sort of thing and the thing that stuck with me. We were just talking about some of the challenges with education and such.

Speaker 1 28:09

But I really appreciate what she does to bridge the clinical and some of the business side of things. And so one of the things that we talked about was people just coming into the field that are new. They may be fitting their patient and having a good outcome, but what you get reimbursed, let's say, is $1,000, but you pay $1,100 for that device. Well, you're better off lighting a $100 bill on fire because there's so much that goes into this. And so what she does with her students it's like a pass or fail, does it code or not, does it work or not, and so what it is is you have a mock patient that you say, hey, you need to provide this device, and so it's got to be clinically relevant, with the right components. And then you also have to make it work, make it to where you have a profit.

Speaker 2 29:08

So then you have to look at the components and the labor and all this and that is super important and so I just really appreciated kind of that perspective of it and the idea of doing that, you know, not the first time live, but and also knowing that that's a thing that you can't just put all the rolls royce stuff everywhere, you know, yeah, or you're not going to only be fitting these myoelectric amazing stuff everywhere because, hey, it's not going to work for a lot of people. Yeah, I think it's cool, dude.

Speaker 1 29:36

I think it's cool, good idea, good choice so, um, you know, we had paul godonis on the very first one, who was the ceo of my. Yeah, it's great, and I believe so they. They started early I think it was 2011 is what he said and then he came on with 2014. They're so far ahead of the curve and research specifically around this exoskeleton, what works, what doesn't work, designs, some of the speed bumps. They have a roadmap that they want to get to of things making better. They're growing like crazy. So I really had to give best R&D because they're looking at this as the long-term sort of thing to my MO and I think, one of the most. It was a great question on your part, but I think it was very telling, also on Paul's part is you said well, you know, somebody is going to come in and gobble you up, and he's and he pretty much said we think we've got something so special that we're going to be one of those big companies very soon.

Speaker 2 30:37

I like that. I know I know where you're saying this, cause you're always like it's easy to go to, like the new kid with a shiny new toy it's always nice to say some new kid but like, oh, wow, we did this thing and these guys are more like, kind of like you know, proving it out and then grinding it out long-term. I like that. I understand you make things yourself, so you understand that this is a very different approach and much more difficult. Really, anyone can make something that works until the paint dries.

Speaker 1 31:07

In this case, I think they've done some interesting things. They have a medical director, they've got this commercial director, they have compliance, because all this stuff has to work together along with the FDA, and that's that's really a pain because it's a class two device, and so there's just there's so much. So I think for them they have the machine to collect the data which is necessary to get it out and be compliant with the FDA, but then, on the same thing, you're going to be able to start making better and better products, stair-stepping along the way.

Speaker 2 31:45

That's valuable. Again, it comes back to what you said More data, better product.

Innovative Booth Designs and Collaborations

Speaker 1 31:50

Yep, yep, all right, this one will be quick. The best restaurant within walking distance was this, this excellent uh one called dos caminos. It was an excellent Mexican restaurant. Okay, so there you go, those caminos. Um, so, you were talking about booth design and such. I thought hp did a really nice job. They had, uh, dimension. So I'm hearing some music. Is that on your side, or is?

Speaker 2 32:16

that on my side I live next to, uh, uh, it's actually too weird. It's too weird. So I live in the center of Lansing, like the dead center of the city, Right, and actually communist foundation, and they managed to somehow in the 1800s get a building in the center of town and they do like food and like worker council stuff. It's like actual communists, like really like actual true believer communists, right, and they have a great lunch. They have a great lunch before they go, I'll take you if you come and they also have music lessons and pianos, stuff like this to elevate the worker, and they have choral stuff and all this. Oh, that's so um, every once in a while we get music, so I wasn't planning on the background.

Speaker 2 33:04

I was like, do I have another window?

Speaker 1 33:06

open. I mean, I don't think youtube's open or anything. Um, okay, so there's a level difference.

Speaker 2 33:12

There's like one guy on like on mondays. It's like a classic of advanced class. We're always speaking back with a book being like wow.

Speaker 1 33:16

And then there's like one guy on like on mondays.

Speaker 2 33:16

It's like a classic advanced class we're always back with a book being like wow. And then there's the guys that do like the. You know the repeat stuff over and over again.

Speaker 1 33:24

It's like yeah, no so we were talking about booths and how much, how important it was and and I think hp really hit it out of the park. They they had Dimension there, they had Lubrizol there and then they had Nate from the computational design side of things there, and I thought they just did a wonderful job kind of bringing everybody together. They had a lot of stuff from Quorum, some stuff from Leopoli, some stuff from just Poto, so it's just a lot of different things that were in that booth and so it was super interactive too. So it's something that you can pick up, touch, feel, and everybody was so friendly there too. So I thought that.

Speaker 2 34:11

Yeah, I think HP booths always have a ton of models there and I think, at least for the 3D printing industry, it totally makes sense just to put a ton of stuff there and then see what people do with it. You know, yep, yep, all right, good, good play.

Speaker 1 34:25

So you may or may not know this name. I say the additive advocate. So Shinden and I don't know Johannes I would say that's about, but he's with Formlabs and they always have a great booth too. But he is always so excited about different types of manufacturing that sort of thing and he's kind of the face of Formlabs and he's 3D printing everything all the time and getting out there and just educating people around it and I got to know him just a little bit more this show and he is just so genuine about additive manufacturing and obviously he works for Formlabs. But it also opens up a lot of other opportunities for conversation around additive manufacturing pros and cons, that sort of thing. So I think Formlabs got a good one in Shinden for sure.

Speaker 2 35:15

How do you see Formlabs? Are they making NROs now? Are people more looking at it for small devices, for prototyping and stuff like that, or are they looking at the Fuse in a big way?

Speaker 1 35:26

Yeah. So I think that Formlabs is interesting. It's got a small build volume. But I can't help and nobody has told me this, but I can't help to think that, you know, once they kind of get this part down, especially with their acquisition of the other group, that one that was going to do the $3,000 SLS printer, I can't imagine that there's something that's not a little bit bigger to really kind of compete with some of the stuff that HP is doing or far soon that they can do.

Speaker 1 35:57

And you know, now they've got some of the materials, the polypropylene and some of the stuff that HP is doing or are far soon that they can do. And now they've got some of the materials, the polypropylene and some of the polyamides. But guess what? They put nitrogen on their machine, which means they could run PK5000 if they wanted to. And so I believe that if their machine runs that it then starts getting very interesting, not only for the orthotic and prosthetic industry but for those that are looking to do small parts on those machines that they want to act like polypropylene, so automotive and that sort of thing. So I definitely see a future if they validate PK5000 on their machine. I definitely see a future where people contract, manufacturers will choose to run a fleet of these for small parts, and that might be a pie-in-the-sky thing, but that's just you know.

Speaker 2 36:45

No, I think if the right part. So things like doing like a large voluminous parts is not great, but if orthoses maybe, or something like a split brace kind of thing, you know, I think, I think there could be a lot of stuff there. If you did like a as a business, if you did like braces which we have to talk about the separately, these kind of open braces if that's a good idea or not, yeah, but imagine, and you fill it with other stuff that you print for other people, whatever key chains, I don't care. The economics of this start to add up really quickly, really, really well, and especially if you want to do it locally. Yeah, I talked to like a Dutch guy who has a service that does 3D printing orthoses and they have 125 points in the Netherlands where they sell these things and for them it's like, okay, when do we print on location and when not? And for that kind of business this could be really exciting, yeah agreed Best collaborating company.

Speaker 1 37:45

We have not had Paul Pruskowski on from Opie, but they had probably one of the most creative booths and he had a massive large screen TV because it was uh, so college football and NFL football were playing, so it was just kind of like a magnet for the people that want to watch football too. So but they just um, they interact with all these companies, so all the companies that we is that. They are the electronic medical records for the O and P industry and there's a few others, but they're the. They are the electronic medical records for the O&P industry and there's a few others, but they're the, they're the main one and they so, like they have an ordering system that there's all your main companies that you order from are integrated into them. So, like there's, you don't have to go and call Coyote and then call Bulldog and then go call Oser and Autobuck. You can do it right there on the web and they're always going out and finding these companies, and so they've integrated with Comb recently. They've integrated with Radii and they've also integrated with some people that do data capture, so you can take a video of your patient walking and then you can break it down and draw lines, almost like training lines, and creating data points to help yourself get paid from the insurance company.

Speaker 1 39:04

So not only are they trying to create this tribe of people that are helping each other and these are independent companies helping each other, essentially clinicians but now they're kind of putting their money where their mouth is. They're having a presence here and their booth is always great but this year it was really great and trying to attract and become like a family. So not only outside of these conferences, but then they're doing mastermind groups and all this stuff. So when you get together it's like oh, hey, bob, hey John, hey, it's so good to see you. You know it's only been a few months, but now you're throwing a party at the OPA. You know booth and people are coming in and hanging out and that sort of thing. So I think that's a neat and it's a great way to go.

Speaker 2 39:53

Interesting approach, super interesting approach. That'd be the nexus, that kind of thing.

Advancing Prosthetic Access and Innovation

Speaker 1 39:57

Yeah, last year we did this the wise owl award and that went to Jen, and so this year it's going to go to Mitchell Dobson. We are you weren't on that, but we were we. He is a part of like compliance and that sort of stuff for Hanger, but he's also the president of AOPA, which was the show that we went to, and I thought his insight was really great. He's been in the field for a long time I think he said 28 years and he's been volunteering for AOPA for that long as well, and I just love his perspective and how he's trying to get everybody together. And I know we say it all the time the rising tide lifts all ships, and that's what it's about. Even though part of a bigger company Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics we need all the independents to also raise up as well, and doing this through AOPPA was great. So if you have a chance, check out the interview, but I thought it was great. I thought his insight was great into how do we get the younger generation more involved, how do we get more coverage?

Speaker 1 41:13

So one of the things right now is people that have an amputation can only get one prosthesis in a lot of States, and so they the insurance will not cover for them to have a sports prosthesis or something that can be active in, because there are two different ones. Like you, you wear your walking shoes right, or your dress shoes and you're not going to go run in your dress shoes, but insurance companies say, I don't care, you're going to be active in your walking prosthesis, and that's really not the right approach. And so AOPA has really taken charge of this, I forget. So everybody can move. That's what the initiative is. So everybody can move. It's grassroots at the state level to try to get people moving. Because there was a story that I was a part of, like a little panel, and this guy lost because he had a prosthesis, lost 50 pounds, so he was in bitter health, he got off of medication, that sort of thing, and he wouldn't have had that opportunity unless he had a prosthesis that he could move more in. And that's not your everyday prosthesis.

Speaker 2 42:31

Okay, that's a good point, dude. Imagine doing this for this long as well. I'd like to very much the Mitchell's point about like one thing is doing this for a couple of years, something about doing this for 28 years to bring about change gradually. This is like your 20th talking point. You know that you're working on over a decade. I like that very much.

Speaker 1 42:49

Yeah, it's good. Yeah, and you already foreshadowed it, even though you didn't know that we were going to do it, but the best of show was STIL yeah you think so.

Speaker 2 43:02

That was the best break. That's good. I like the real alignment on this, yeah.

Speaker 1 43:07

So you foreshadowed it. You almost blew it, I don't know, but I'm glad you didn't go too far down the road. I was going to have to hold you back, rein you in a little bit, but a super innovative use and so I think there's a couple things right. So it's definitely a problem that affects a lot of people with the tremor side of things. But also the use of additive manufacturing in the brace was very novel. So he used a lot of assemblies, a lot of hybridlies, um, a lot of hybrid type of things.

Speaker 1 43:38

So some fabrics along with the um, the the brace itself and then all the innovation that goes into that, whatever that mechanism was that allows the flexion extension, pronation, supination, flexion extension, all that. It's really incredible that there's no motors. It's very lightweight, it was wild and so and I know this is not, you know, this was their first time, I think, at Aopa, but they've been working on this device for a long time. In fact it's not even in the US yet. But I mean for me, with everything that we like, the additive manufacturing, something novel, something that is effective, something that can be paid for in cash If your insurance doesn't company, a company doesn't cover it, like I forget what the cost was. I don't know if you remember what it was.

Speaker 2 44:39

It was $2,000.

Speaker 1 44:40

So, like you know, if it, if it makes that much of a difference which I believe it does for the people that have tremors, I think they're going to find $2,000. I really do, and so I think that there is an opportunity here for something good, and I think you did a nice job describing the product and the podcast. I think it was great.

Speaker 2 45:07

We should have it on the podcast like an in-depth episode, because I think most people would have thought, okay, we have sensors, these muscle spasms. The sensor goes to a feedback. We would have made a robot for the hand and then another thing that charges. Then, all of a sudden, you have to be like, can I take it in the shower? Then you have to IPv6 it or whatever you know, and they just made it a complete mechanical thing and I think that's beautiful, I think it's very elegant and it's really difficult to do stuff that's that elegant, that actually works right, yeah, and and no batteries, no worrying about knocking it against somebody if you're playing lacrosse, or look, I don't know, these guys are gonna play lacrosse. You know what I mean? It's like. It's like world proof, you know?

Speaker 1 45:48

yeah, I like that very much yeah, well, so you know, we we didn't have as many as we did last year, but I thought this was a good kind of roundup of the whole thing. Um, I'm just trying to think of, like, if any, any other things that I really stuck out. You know, uh, rapid liquid print was definitely in the in the in the in the whole thing. They had a really nice booth, some nice showing and that sort of thing. Um, I thought I thought they did a nice job and, uh, getting to me, getting to meet them, was really great too, and I like the team a lot.

Speaker 2 46:21

I like the people a lot and I also like this is one of these things. It's gonna take some time to percolate through and people are going to be like what can I do with this? But if you look at like little bumpers and dampeners and little cushions and stuff like that grommet type of things, it's really going to be one of those things where this is something that we could use in our arsenal.

Speaker 1 46:51

And it's going to yeah, and so there were a couple others. So Proteor had a nice booth. We haven't had any of their guys on yet, but I'm hoping to they. They are really moved into the digital space and kind of the iPad, and you can modify things, scan things. Everything can be done on the iPad. So that's that's pretty neat. The other interesting one that they've been around for a little while actually is a Protoesthetic, so we haven't had them on either. We need to do that. So they have a model and I think you'd really appreciate that where they will put in a printer into your office for free, right, and you have a subscription, and then you will do the scan, You'll send the scan to them, they will modify it and then send the file back to your printer and print it and then literally you take it off the printer and go fit it on the patient.

Speaker 2 47:37

I like that. What's the printer like? Is it kind of like a Creality or something? So?

Speaker 1 47:42

currently it's a modified LulzBot, so it's a USA-made, but it's modified in the Z so you can get up a little bit higher and so, yeah, it works. It's not a super expensive printer but it's a great way to minimize your CapEx getting into this and you've got somebody kind of coming along with you, so you know, having that conversation with them, that would be exciting as well to talk about that.

Speaker 2 48:14

For example, do they have like a whole room of dudes modifying all these skins, or do they have some magical software to do it?

Speaker 1 48:20

So I think it's dudes and dudettes right doing the modification and it's almost like the 3d system side of things, so like if you have a relationship with bob, then then bob's the one that you're going to be communicating the most to do the modifications and uh and on that. So I think it's it takes a little bit of a page out of the, the 3d systems, patient-specific implant and all that stuff, the medical stuff. So, yeah, and then I think you know, lastly, the AOP people just did an amazing job with the show, not only with all the content. I mean, can you imagine trying to get like you've got, you know, I don't even know how many rooms they had going and you've got to have content moderators and all that to keep the time and recording stuff. So they recorded a lot of this voice and slides sort of thing and so, yeah, I got to know that team a little bit more and just to kind of hear their heartbeat of what they're trying to do.

Speaker 1 49:24

I mean super genuine people and really wanting, really wanting to take this, this field, to the next level and um, so yeah, it was just, it was a really great experience on on my end and you know how it is like when you meet people in person it's definitely different than meeting people over zoom or whatever. You get more of a sense of their, their presence, their, their, their heart right there. Yeah, yeah, it's just, it was just really, really great. And then, you know, comscan was in that conversation as well. They, they won an award last year for a collaborator award and they did the same thing again this year. It was it was, uh, you know, really great. And um, you know, I think john even chuckles, he goes, it's, it's so easy that yours can do it.

Speaker 2 50:17

So I mean, I mean you said that very few things have cost me as much time as scanning has cost me. I mean this, if I can do this you're golden man.

Speaker 1 50:33

Yeah, shining 3D was there as well. They've been kind of coming and, unlike some of the other scanner companies, it seems like they're really investing the time and energy into understanding our space. So I really appreciate that sort of thing too. So those are the things. Those are kind of my thoughts off the top of my head on that. We probably don't. We talk about the technology and all that stuff, but really all this is about is the people that make the technology work and meeting the people, the human capital, so to speak. That was really special.

Speaker 1 51:15

Oh, the other company that was interesting was Bionit. So it's a hand company and they have this. They drive all the fingers with two motors, somehow through some sort of magic, but it's also fully waterproof. So it's a very interesting device. And the way they do their grip patterns is very interesting too. So some of it has to do with how the hand is being held. So some of it has to do with how the hand is being held. So, for instance, if you put your hand down, your hand knows that it's probably going to go into some sort of grip that's going to hold like a bag or something like that.

Speaker 2 51:57

Because you're going to go like this, or you're going to go like this across something, or you're going to go like that.

Speaker 1 52:01

Oh, I like this, that's right, okay.

Speaker 1 52:04

Yeah. So they've put a lot of thought into that and I think you know, having some of that, yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, so like some of the machine, the engine of some of that is is is really neat. So I thought they and we had spoke with jerry stark and he's always a good, you know, know, a fun person to talk about. And I would say this this is the last one that I thought was interesting is there were some a group from Integra and we had Mike Jenks on Actually you weren't on the episode, katie helped me with that one, but it was the bone integration.

Speaker 2 52:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 52:45

Kind of like your dental implants sort of thing, but it's an implant for um, the a knee and a foot and um. So they were there and um got to meet some of their patient models and such and it really is an amazing technology. So I'm excited to see where that technology goes in the future. I mean, I think I think it's kind of at a point now where it's going to start snowballing into popularity, because there are a lot of issues with, depending on your amputation length, the socket fittings can be difficult, and so, if you can literally Also the fact that we're amputating people the same way we're doing.

Speaker 2 53:24

This is during the First World War essentially, and there's like a complete disconnect, like I'm just going to amputate this dude and then I'll give me like three weeks later, and yeah, it's like it's really crazy to think about how important that is day to day and how much people's comfort and tiredness and overall pain level can be affected by how they do this. And also, you're like what you can do. Can you play tennis Right? Maybe not. And then if we do it the other way, then maybe you can never play tennis again.

Discussing Innovative Prosthetic Cooling Technology

Speaker 2 53:57

You know, that kind of stuff, a better way is, is, is, is, is. It needs to become in a more coordinated way where we're all like talking but what is the best way to amputate this person and what is that you like talking about? What is the best way to amputate this person and what is? Then you know, if I do something like this as a surgeon, would you as a process do something different and how does that work together? You know that was that's still the most shocking thing. I think I found in this all the episodes we've done when a couple times, when three or four times, come up with amputations and how that's kind of like. You know such a like kind of like you call center thing where it's like, oh yeah, we have to do that, we'll just saw it off, like yeah, it's all good, and it's like come on, this is how you make the interface with the device forever and it has so much impact on people's lives.

Speaker 1 54:37

I think, yeah, I agree. So I thought that was interesting and then I would. I know I said that was the last one, but I would be remiss in pointing out point designs. With the partial hand stuff, they're always doing amazing work. Chris Baszczak kind of leading that digital team, and then we've had change happen as well. So anyway, you know you can't everybody was great, right. These are kind of the ones that float to the top for me and I didn't get to interact with every single booth. Oh, there was a guy that had air conditioning, essentially for your socket.

Speaker 2 55:28

Oh, wow, that's. We talked about that before, right. How did the cooling elements come in? Yeah, Something like heat sinking or something so it was air conditioning like an active air conditioning, so he does it in two ways.

Speaker 1 55:38

So he has created this gel that when it compresses it takes out some. I mean, it started going over my head, real. My eyes started blazing fast, but I was interested. But it's like when it compresses it takes out some of the thermal energy and cools, yeah, at the same time. But then there's another thing that he had. That's a mechanism that's like a some sort of film that he uses like a usb charger, like a charger that you would do for your phone, and literally you can feel this film that you put inside the socket Cool. And what was interesting is Joe from Quorum, from the Quattro socket. He has a patient model that sweats a lot, that does, um, like an mma fighting style, and so they put this liner on him to see, you know, how sweaty he would get. He said he was not able to sweat and he loved it, and so I think I think it's a game changer and I I think that there's already some like, uh, because he's pretty far along in the development of the product itself.

Speaker 2 56:49

Um, I think there's some people that are really wanting that information I imagine if, like in phoenix or saudi arabia or something, everything is getting hotter right. I mean, there's a lot of cities in europe where it was like 40 or 35, 40 c sorry, I don't know what that is For more than a month this year. So it's going to become a much more of an issue for more and more people. Imagine working outside in a hot summer temperature or something. I think it's wonderful that someone's working on this.

Speaker 1 57:19

Yeah, we have a question that actually came in on YouTube that said do you? Remember the name of that product, which product? And it was called rocket. I think it's called rocket tech. Rocket tech yeah, the cooling thing.

Speaker 2 57:35

So that was uh, no, I'll find it yeah, I'll put it in.

Speaker 1 57:42

But uh, and I remember his the last name was uh gupta, a g-u-p-a mog a. Okay, let me hold on just a second, I'm gonna get it a mog there. He is, uh, a mog gupta, a-m-o-g-h-g, and then his last name is G-U-P-T-A. So let's see, his company name is Rocket Tech, rocky Tech, not Rocket. Sorry, rocky Tech. So we'll put that. I'll just put this in the comment here.

Speaker 2 58:22

That's cool. Do you have any idea if it was expensive or not?

Speaker 1 58:25

I did not ask um. I actually did an interview with him too, and so he had that and it was. It was very nice, cool dude, because I think the temperatures.

Speaker 2 58:35

Imagine working outside the guys in guatemala that you help with the it would. It would be a game changer, kind of farm labor type of stuff. Oh, 100% In the hall of climate.

Speaker 1 58:44

Yeah, do you need it as well. I think, yeah, well and I mean, I know this is kind of a jest, but it's like those other people that would be working in the field and such. I could just be like him, chilling out, literally, you know, and other people are just sweating like crazy.

Speaker 2 59:02

Like, hey man what's going on? Oh yeah, I like, oh yeah so I know this because I test a lot of 3d printed shoes that's terrible I can tell you that's absolutely terrible. Uh, so I kind of have an idea of why I have this reveal at least. Uh, the heating, uh, the build-up heating stuff. Okay, that's cool, that's a cool product. We should talk to more to him as well.

Speaker 1 59:22

That could be really yeah, so I mean we have like 20 people that we need to get on the podcast now. So we're like good to the end of the year for guests now. But it was really great. So let me see if there's any other comments, I'm going to open up.

Speaker 2 59:40

No, that's good. I couldn't open the LinkedIn without, like me, hearing the audio of the LinkedIn, so it was like a little bit kind of complicated.

Speaker 1 59:55

Don't see any comments in here. So for those that have hung in with us thus far, I'm going to kind of clean up, clean up this. I'm going to actually make this the podcast for this week and then um, but then I'll. I'll post the rest of um for the LinkedIn as well.

Speaker 2 1:00:17

I think if you cleaned it up, that one interview you did I don't know if it was in three hours or whatever, but but that, but with all these people successively, that could be really cool as well. Maybe in two to three or something, that could be really nice.

Speaker 1 1:00:30

So do you think we should do that? Release them at two to three, I think so it's a really different format. Or do we release them as a one-off?

Speaker 2 1:00:40

I don't think a lot of people will stick around for two hours. No, I don't even like movies like two hours a minute. It's got to be a good movie. So if we just did like an hour long, but then with two or three people, I think it'd be really interesting.

Speaker 1 1:00:56

Okay, well, I think it should be pretty easy to do. I was actually super impressed. So for those that are nerding out on, like, the equipment that we use, we use the uh yeah, plantronics right the plantronics poly, something, another um, and then I had my computer open that was facing me.

Speaker 1 1:01:18

but one of the things that we figured out is if we did angles, so I had my computer facing me with the audio so I could hear um the other person, and then I had my computer facing me with the audio so I could hear the other person, and then I had my phone, literally like this, facing the other person and they were connected to my phone so they could hear me and they could hear you. It really worked out really well. So if I had to do it again, this is a lesson learned. So the hotel, not the hotel, but the exhibit hall. Internet, I think I told you I paid $80 for 24 hours of access and it was three megabytes down.

Speaker 2 1:01:57

That's always going to be the problem. And a half a gig up Always going to be a problem.

Speaker 1 1:02:00

So I think what I need to do, I talked to Paul Prusikowski. He is like anber nerd on this stuff and he brought his own like like literally suitcase wi-fi that had four different antennas and he had like I think he had like 600 megs down and about the same up we pay for this so, yeah, so I want to be next to his booth. Let's do do her.

Speaker 2 1:02:24

But okay, we can just be nice to him. This is also different, or he might invite us into his booth.

Speaker 1 1:02:28

I don't know, but nonetheless I think next time there's there are some like commercial hotspots available and yes, you pay per gig but it's high speed, but like one of the three hour episode I I'm. I think it took I forget how long to upload all the tracks?

Speaker 2 1:02:53

yeah, but for me it was really weird because you would be like, hey, this is like, and yours, you know yours already. I'm like look at the screen, going like who is this? Yeah I think that's a good point.

Discussing Podcast Recording Technology

Speaker 1 1:03:04

So I'm like I don't know, I don't know yeah, but yeah, you know, like it was a crazy how many people walked by and recognized that was. That was really cool and it was, uh, it was.

Speaker 2 1:03:20

What else did you have? Did you have? Okay, we use stream yard, by the way, so this is stream yard right, so we did stream.

Speaker 1 1:03:23

This is stream yard.

Speaker 2 1:03:24

We actually did, because I we use StreamYard, by the way.

Speaker 1 1:03:25

We're really talking about the StreamYard, right? This is StreamYard we actually did because I wanted to make sure I captured all the tracks separately. I use Riverside, which is the Riversidefm, to record both the audio and the video, and I think StreamYard would have been better if the live video for the live video, like what we're doing now. But Riverside downloads to the local computer and then uploads back up and so you get the raw stuff. So I thought it would be better to do the Riverside. Even though I was giving up the video for the live, even though I was giving up the video for the live, I thought being able to chop up not only the video, each video, but then the audio, chop that up individually, I thought that was a big, you know, potentially a big deal.

Speaker 2 1:04:17

So I don't know, Did you have an SSL 2 or something kind of like a mic in or not?

Speaker 1 1:04:23

No, it was Bluetooth. So all the things that they tell you not to do, but these poly these poly headphones.

Speaker 1 1:04:30

I didn't even charge while we were there. It's it's got 25 hours of battery, so I I mean it was crazy. So I for those. Those headphones, I think were like 160 dollars, but like, if I would have had this microphone with the SSL, it would have been wicked loud, like it. It needs this, needs a, a, a quieter place, and so, um. So the way that I found the headset stuff was I was watching a YouTube video, tried to figure this out, and it was a guy in a coffee shop and he does business zoom meetings, and so he, yeah, and so he tried a whole bunch of different um headsets and this one was the best. Like you couldn't even tell, he had a decibel meter of the, the noise inside the coffee shop and I was like man, I gotta get a set of these and it was, it was great you used two right, one for you and one for the guest, or correct?

Speaker 1 1:05:30

yeah, so that's two computers, right, so I had my computer and my phone okay so I think if I was to do it again yeah, I would probably do my computer, but I don't know that I would record to the computer. I would use that to set everything up, but I would potentially do two phones.

Speaker 2 1:05:50

Really.

Speaker 1 1:05:52

And then do Bluetooth and with the Bluetooth.

Speaker 2 1:05:54

The batteries didn't go to, or did you have them plugged in all the?

Speaker 1 1:05:57

time I had my phones plugged in. But yeah, so it was.

Speaker 2 1:06:04

That's crazy. I think you did a great job. I think you did a lot of work and it really paid off, dude. I think it was really really good. It's way better. I've tried to do this a couple times and it's always hugely terrible. And this is great, this is fun, this is entertaining. I watched back our episode we did together and it was good, it was entertaining, it was fun. You know it was entertaining, it was fun and it worked. It looked yeah, it was. It was a good thing to listen to.

Speaker 1 1:06:29

so I'm super happy with this dude, yeah, yeah, well. So, and I think, uh, I think aopa was going to be happy with it too, so I mean I'm speaking for them, but I, I think so and and um, yeah, it was great. So I really appreciate you making the time. I mean, it was saturday night late, right, your girlfriend was probably like what in the world is this guy?

Speaker 2 1:06:49

doing Next time. I think we should plan a little bit more in advance. I didn't know who was going to be in the weekend, for example, because no one does trade shows in the weekend, so I should block book stuff in advance.

Speaker 1 1:07:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:07:05

Maybe you can make it down there there, right, that would be even better, because I still have not met by the way, that's right.

Speaker 1 1:07:10

Yeah, we have not met in person, and here's the interesting thing is, is I I do think that there's ways, I just didn't know how, like the exhibit hall and all that stuff, so we had to be a little bit more uh, free flowing um on that. But I think in the future, yeah, we can, we can actually set blocks of time. Now that we've got the tech stuff down, we know kind of what setup worked and um, yeah, I mean I think I would even bring in probably a like a potential like a bigger, like a big screen tv, um to to, so people could actually see it. So people could obviously see on my that we were recording something. But, um, I mean, what was crazy is, we were on air.

Speaker 1 1:07:53

We made like an on air. Like, oh, you should, I should have taken a picture of it. I had an on air. Well, I should have put it on the table, but I had a nice on air banner as well. I that I was really um excited about that. Um, uh, dale Schneider we've had him on, but he does a lot of the the graphics and such for uh for us on that. So that was that was fun. So, yeah, man, awesome. Well, that is uh. That is our show for today. Thanks for those that are uh have stuck in there with us watching this live. Thank you for listening folks.

Speaker 2 1:08:28

I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you enjoyed going to Iopa. If you went to Iopa, or maybe you can catch it vicariously, kind of through us.

Speaker 1 1:08:37

That's right. I think there was some of that, and in enough advance. Do you think you might be able to make it next year live?

Speaker 2 1:08:44

I should be able to make it next year live. I should be able to. I was gonna, I was gonna come and it was all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1 1:08:48

Oh, yeah, yeah, I did, I want to, and uh, and I definitely want to go eventually yeah so totally cool, let's, let's try aim for it, or at least like block more times to do more of this next time yeah, or you know, maybe we should try to see what shows are going on in over on your end of the, because I'd like to come to Spain too, really.

Speaker 2 1:09:08

What are the big prosthetic shows, though? What is it AOPA?

Speaker 1 1:09:12

So you've got AOPA, the Academy Show, and then you've got OT. World is the big one that I think is every two years, so it won't be until 2026. And I don't know. So there's an international society of orthotists and prosthetists, that is, but I think that show is in Houston this year and it's it's while I'm in Guatemala, but they usually like go around to different places too. So you know that might, that might be an interesting one too. Typically, the people that go 20,000 visitors.

Speaker 2 1:09:49

Look at the OT World thing, dude. Oh the OT.

Speaker 1 1:09:52

World would be a big one. That's like the form. Next for, and where is it?

Speaker 2 1:09:58

We don't know.

Speaker 1 1:10:00

I don't know where the OT.

Speaker 2 1:10:00

World is going to be? Oh, leipzig, leipzig is pretty Kind of boring, but it's pretty Okay, let's try to go there.

Speaker 1 1:10:09

Is it 2026?

Speaker 2 1:10:11

Yeah, 2026. We're planning a little bit ahead.

Exploring Global Market Trends in Prosthetics

Speaker 1 1:10:15

We should hit them up and see if they'd be interested in coming on. Here's the cool thing about OT World is that you get to see stuff that wouldn't necessarily be in the American market. So, you get to see a lot of the stuff from Japan, china, that sort of thing, so some stuff that I would never see would be there because their market is more the European market. I think it would be pretty wild, so that might be a good one.

Speaker 2 1:10:42

Let's look at that this is a successful experiment and a lot of fun. And, yeah, this is awesome successful experiment and a lot of fun. And uh, yeah, this is awesome dude all right.

Speaker 1 1:10:49

Well, hey, thanks for your time today, yoris, and thank you everybody. Thank you for doing this. Bro, yep, take care. Thank you.