Simone Giertz’s journey from robot comedy to high-end design
4/16/202618 min
In the 2010s, inventor Simone Giertz (pronounced “Yetch”) began making videos that straddled the line between practical and absurd. What if you had a robot that could feed you soup? Or a drone that could cut your hair? As time went on, her projects became more polished and more ambitious, like converting a Tesla sedan into a pickup truck.
Today, with almost 3 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, Simone is still designing and building objects that are quirkily useful—a fruit bowl that changes size for instance—but that could also be at home in a high-end design store. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about her approach to problems, and the joy of making physical objects in an increasingly online world.
Guest:
Simone Giertz is an engineer, maker, YouTube creator and founder of Yetch Studio.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsFlora Lichtman· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hey, it's Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday. There's no shortage of YouTube how-to videos. There's the practical DIY ones where, you know, someone walks you through how they fixed the sliding doors on their minivan. But on the other end of the spectrum, there are the makers, people who have an idea in their head, sometimes quixotic, and show their process of bringing it to reality. In the 2010s, inventor Simone Giertz began making videos kind of right on that dividing line between practical and absurd, like what if you had a robot that could feed you soup?
Simone Giertz· Guest0:40
3D printed all these parts 'cause you can't get a claw that needs to pick up soup just like that.
Flora Lichtman· Host0:46
Or a robot that could cut your veggies for you.
Simone Giertz· Guest0:50
The chopping machine is a revolutionary invention that helps you chop just about anything. [machine whirs] Chop lettuce, the neighbor's cat that pees on your lawn, tomatoes.
Flora Lichtman· Host1:01
Or a drone that could cut your hair.
Simone Giertz· Guest1:05
[hair clippers buzz] You duct tape a trimmer to the bottom of it, and this is a very bad idea.
Flora Lichtman· Host1:13
The projects grew more and more ambitious, like converting a Tesla sedan into a pickup truck, like way before the Cybertruck was even a glint in Elon's eye. Fast-forward to today, and remember, 10 years in YouTube years is like 200 regular world years, and