Jonathan Collazo, Derek Stevens - Ostrich Air - Robotics & Drones

The team at Ostrich Air and Firebot Labs has a strong record of overcoming both technological hurdles for robotic systems, and regulatory hurdles for drones. They're true engineers, who get to the real root of a problem - including the human element of any system. Whether that be operational interface, regulatory, or just networking to the end users. They're a fun crew, and this recording brings that forth. They've already become engaged in emergency response, and are currently raising money to develop the next level of the system they've developed with ample feedback from emergency responders in both fire and urban settings.

BattleBot - Discovery: 0 and 2. Am I Through? | BattleBots | Discovery
BattleBot Preview: Ostrich Air - YouTube
Suppression Video: https://youtu.be/LqnWdlH11dA (Demo that they take a multifaceted approach; not single-drone-only mindset.) 

Transcript

Bryan 0:11

Good morning and welcome to the Solving Wildfire podcast. On today's episode, we have Jonathan and Derek leading up Ostrich Air. it was so fun when I first met these guys, I walked into their old bowling alley that is their development lab, and it's all set up for flying drones all around, and they're not just a bunch of tech heads. the thing that we'll get to and bring out in this, while we talk with Jonathan, in particular, is the ability to reach into what customers actually want. And this comes through a lot of the past work that he's done with various drone applications. They have Picked up the bug to solve the wildfire problem. they're emphasizing the operational solutions, over the technology solutions. This emphasis arises from understanding what emergency responders actually use, and don’t and why. You guys, do a lot of work for companies that need engineering done fast, they need it done right, and they can't let anybody know that somebody else did it. But now you want to build your own company that's actually solving the wildfire problem. And that's why you're on the show. Before we go into the wildfire stuff, when we were just scheduling this, you guys just landed gig with an Asian country, was all you would reveal at the time, building basically a human air taxi around there, there's a race going on. let's start a little bit with that. What have you guys done and why did they come to you?

Jonathan 1:29

So, we've had, um, vast experience on working with, just tons of different robotic applications. And one of'em, especially Derek, is, building propulsion systems for, flying cars or flying taxis. And as you guys, know there's this massive race going around the world to create these vehicles. And, through references, we were reached out to be one of those companies to try to help, innovate and catch up to what some of the bigger companies have already accomplished and use our twist, to be able to, impress a lot of these, a lot of these, other innovators.

Bryan 2:10

All right, so they reached out. You got some references, a little bit of street credibility is why you got there in the first place. Now let's just let everyone laugh a little bit. What's your view of the feasibility of this human taxi actually coming around and becoming a real thing at the pace that these countries are racing?

Jonathan 2:27

So you wanna answer that or, uh,

Derek 2:31

I think a lot of expectations of how fast it'll come into operation, are a bit optimistic because of the amount of infrastructure and everything that needs to be put in place. I mean, there is, market for it in some areas, in some places, and I think in some aspect it'll come into being. I think the biggest thing is the companies, with the whole doing a car you can drive on the road. Plus then you can do vertical take off and fly and people think they all, you know, take off from their driveway or the middle of the street and do something like that. And, One of those things is that the amount of air it takes to lift a vehicle like that, none of your neighbors or nobody around you's gonna like you if you do that and you take off from your neighborhood. Cause you're gonna just be blowing debris everywhere. And same if you're trying take off and on the middle of the road, you know, the amount of, gravel and dirt you're gonna be sending everywhere

Jonathan 3:14

is gonna be, let's just put it this way. Yeah. If you, you, if you take a flying car and use it as a car and try to take off anywhere where a car is, you will destroy every car that's around you. Yeah. And property that's around you. So that means that you need a very special infrastructure. And as you know, infrastructure moves very slow. So if you're, if you are gonna do that, the only places that are created are basically helipads. Right. So, but you have already a helicopter. So what are you actually bringing to the table, at that point? and yes, there are, some nice features, some nice things that you could do with a VTOL so that you can, go longer distances and land in very random places, but, um, it's gonna take a lot, it's gonna take a lot to make something like that. Not be just, wow, this is really cool, into an actual, functional thing, know?

Bryan 4:09

Yeah. You know, I love that you guys go straight to the, irrefutable physics of how much air you have to move. And it was, for the other listeners, when I was with these guys at their shop talking about their battle bot that they did It was fun how quickly answers went right back to the engineering or the physics behind it. It was like being back at SpaceX again and the answer isn't as hard. Or maybe this maybe was, well, if you just look at this, this and that, that and equals these things, it just doesn't add up or you find the answer that it might add up and then it gets to be exciting from there.

Jonathan 4:40

Yeah.

Bryan 4:42

Let's go actually on that. Let's go back to your story. Just what's your, what got you into wildfire and what's been, you've taken an unusual approach to building some credibility to attract attention for, solving the wildfire problem. give us that story?

Jonathan 4:58

So, honestly, it took a while to get to the wildfire thing. we started the company, uh, just for fun. It was a side thing as a hobby to be able to, push, drone technology in racing. So we started, just basically hanging out every weekend and racing drones. Eventually, we want it bigger, faster, better. And that led to developing just a ton of relationships with different industries in order to get those parts to be, uh, changed for us so that we can, get that one extra percentage of speed or, or, uh, durability. and by doing that, we realized, we started developing a lot of technology that would actually affect everything that's happening with drone technology. and that's where Ostrich Air kind of came about. we're like, okay, let's do this, you know, we can actually make some changes. And we didn't know specifically what that would be. And in order to fund that, because I didn't wanna, try to get funding for something that we weren't focused on. And I actually sat on a, across the VC that offered us money, and I, I told them, if I take your money right now, you'll never get it back. And the reason you're not gonna get it back is because I don't have a focus on how I'm gonna give you that money back, but I will be back and that's one of my close friends right now. So, that led into us self-funding, which basically that's how we ended up white labeling for other companies. Or consulting and creating these, robots. And it was so we could find out what would be the real thing that would make a big change? What can actually affect humanity? What can actually do something positive And, eventually after working on, pretty much everything, the desert, just designing stuff for that could be used in space. Designing just the weirdest and most random things, but also drone technology for almost every industry. Security construction inspections, I mean, almost anything you can imagine. With those skills, then you kind of realize what's gonna happen first or what's gonna come in second. And this wildfire thing is, I mean, we're in California. It's like, whoa, okay, this is something that's here is right now. and we were talking about how it affects people and what we realize is that you can't even, like, most people don't even know how much a wildfire actually affects them. because they're in the inner city or, they're not, physically, seeing the fire or they're not, being directly having their property destroyed by it. And, we learned that this is a very difficult, thing to solve When we started talking to the fire departments, and realized that, there is a long way to be able to bring new tech into, into that space and, to have it be adopted by that space. So, we started creating the relationships because as we learned with everything, or with our past in racing, is that the first thing that you have to do in order to be able to do any kind of change is to create those relationships that can make the, or can accept or modify, uh, whatever the laws or the things that are stopping this technology from going into its place. so after we built that out and we see that there is a window for us to actually get into that space, then we decided, okay, yeah, if we can make an impact here, even though it's difficult, it should be a really cool thing for us as a company and best way for us to come out to the world and, show our skills.

Bryan 8:36

Let's go straight into that window. So you guys aren't looking initially at the big wildfires burning hundreds of thousands of acres. you went right to the fire departments and the people that, work on the big wildfires, but you, took an engineering approach to saying, what's blocking, what can we tackle right now? What's the window that you're attacking right now?

Jonathan 8:55

So, I'll take it a little bit off, but I'll tell you that answer. When we showed up at the fire department, we were really eager and we came, we had this huge amount of things that we thought would be amazing for them, and they gave us the whole, uh, um, yeah, okay guys, you know, that's cool. And I mean, I, I sensed it. I was like, okay, I mean, those were great ideas. Why are these guys not, attaching to them? So after further exploring and, really, really, I literally started going, what do you have? What drone do you have? How are you using it? What, what's, you know, what's going on? What's wrong with all of this stuff that's sitting here? And once you, you start asking all those questions, it completely changed. And I realized that these guys are so used to companies coming up to them, and just telling them what they need instead of asking them what they actually, need themselves, like what tools that you have actually work. And you'd be surprised how much technology sits at some of these stations that never get used, and it's costing an insane amount of money. and it's because the end user, was never really, truly, asked them what the problems were. So, I don't think I answered your question. What was the question again?

Bryan 10:13

You actually, you did a good articulation of the approach. Uh, so what have you found is that that underserved need there, there are a handful of drones in the hands of some of these people. What level, how far down the chain are you actually going? Who are you working with? Who wants your stuff right now?

Jonathan 10:29

Okay. Okay. So we're working with the, local, fire department because we realize that we are actually sitting on a perfect place. right now, San Jose Fire Department, it takes an enormous amount of calls. So it is a good way to really get a lot of data and a good start. also they're the ones that, or the person that we're working with directly, is the person that's actually been pushing. Basically the drone evangelist for the whole area. So he's the person that has gotten drones to be actually being used into, into the facilities and to be able to train and, which is a huge, undertaking for him. so he was to us, the perfect person, cuz he has been using it in action. So he knows exactly what's going on, what's going wrong? And through him, we met a lot of other firefighters and then, different districts that I've actually been using and attempting to use this technology and started learning the real reasons why everything that they currently have, doesn't properly, really work for them. And then we went to a higher level and, got in some, government, people, so people that are pro new technologies. So the mayor of San Jose seems to be, very pro, technology. So you kind of need all those steps in order before you even start developing the technology. we have great ideas, we have to get those steps, set up first so that we know that we, once we create this product, doesn't just, sit and never get, purchased.

Bryan 12:00

Yeah. Now one of the, the things that I've been circling around in this whole wildfire space is why isn't this happening yet? So we have the drones, we have the surveillance technology and water drop has some other questions. And it was fun, Derek, when I asked about it. Are you guys thinking about dropping water? Just It's gotta be fixed wing. The amount of air you have to push and the efficiency and the batteries

Jonathan 12:23

Yeah.

Bryan 12:24

fun thing. That whole thought process just spill out in exasperation. But you guys are looking at the surveillance side, the emergency response side, initially rapid response to emergencies over people, which is a more difficult space to go in. I, I want to ask why is that not happening yet and what are you guys going to do? The different? So let's start with. Just understanding the problem. For the rest of us out there, we don't wanna, especially investors, they don't wanna see another solution without someone who really understands the problem. So let's go through a bit of what have you learned? What have these fire chiefs we work with who already have technology that's sitting idle? What have they learned about what doesn't work? And then let's go from there into what you guys are doing that you and these chiefs you're working with think will

Jonathan 13:07

work. Yeah. Yeah Well, I, I'll be brutal with it, honestly. Like I, the things that we've learned is that a lot of these companies are pushing the techno or are saying they're gonna fix a problem when the technology's not there yet. So, the solution right now is to be able to, solve, or at least help alleviate the problem with the technology that you can do right now, but also make that technology to be scalable with what these new products and innovations that are coming, like hydrogen, for example, or any of the cool words that a lot of people use, right? I mean, it's getting there, it's getting close to it, but, if I go and tell you I am gonna build a drone with hydrogen right now, I'm, I'm blowing smoke because even though we can't build it, and it will work, it won't work, any better than what's already available. That's actually, regulated and easy to use. So why not build something that works right now? And, drone technology has a lot of good and a lot of disadvantages. A lot of it is, that battery technology, or the energy technology. So if you end up trying to have one company solve the entire problem, that company better be very big and have a lot of money. the only way that we've learned that you have to, or you can solve something this big is with, networking and having multiple companies be able to help you achieve this goal. for example, like Derek had mentioned, a drone, that sits on top of, a fire is gonna blow, more air into the fire and make the fire bigger. if you're dropping something from the drone, it's gonna dissipate in air and barely any of it's gonna land onto the actual fire. So right now that technology, you can't drop some stuff, but because of, of all the negatives of, how long a drone flies for and how, effective it can be, it's something that needs to be looked at in the future. So what you can do right now that will work is going, and giving a lot of intelligence about what is happening. So to us, the biggest thing is identifying that fire as fast as possible. So if we can take that down within, a minute of time to be able to identify a fire, then that would be, that would be amazing cuz that's gonna cut down the amount of resources that the fire department, the community, the government, I mean, everybody that's involved, would have to use to take this fire out. And also, save lives because it was done at a proper pace. the drone can only do so much. So the drone can do the surveillance, the drone can give back a lot of that information and give that accurately to the firefighter who doesn't need to, be sitting there while he's trying to get dressed and drive into this location, be thinking about it. So it has to be an autonomous system, so it has to just completely free them from doing it,

Bryan 15:59

So a lot of people agree with that approach that we can do surveillance right now. Water drop or suppressant is a little further off. You're not the first to go decide we wanna do surveillance, but drone surveillance is not going on out there. And you've been working with the fire chiefs, they've been wanting it for a while, I imagine. why, why don't they have that? yet

Jonathan 16:22

So, I'm kinda let Derek actually answer cuz he has a little bit of insight too, on that side that we were talking about earlier.

Derek 16:30

Yeah. As far as, the why things aren't happening. So, part of it, comes down to just regulations. Getting the approval to do the fully autonomous, flight and just how people are trying to do it right now. It's very difficult to get these, autonomous surveillance missions approved. Especially if you're trying to fly over people. part of it is just, in general, government is slow and, a lot, it comes down to FAA and a lot of it's, they're more reactionary to things. They haven't done a good job of getting out ahead of things, for that aspect. Um,

Jonathan 16:56

honestly, not sure where you want me to go. Well, that is a big part of the, of the reasoning why, why it is slow. We've learned that through everything. We've had to do a lot of jobs that are over people, over buildings in, Hollywood, through very expensive actors. pretty much everywhere you can imagine, right? Uh, an inspection on a chemical plant that if the drone sparks, then you all die, and that's bad, So, there's a lot. There's actually, quite a bit that's stopping, a lot of these companies from doing it. But also I believe is the focus that they have, on, on their solution. if you're like what we're mentioning earlier about, surveillance, right? We've done security and we learned that a lot of the sensors or cameras and stuff that you're putting onto these drones, are very heavy. if you wanna do a really good job, right? So it becomes non-practical. But now that doesn't mean that that can be a solution done in a different way. So one of our solutions is to be able to, use multiple drones to do the job, which means that one drone is going to give you a rough, idea that there's a possible fire. There's a another system that will then identify positively that this is a fire and that there are, is not a picnic or something like that. And it has to be done incredibly fast, which is where we're pulling from our racing background for that part. But it's a multi-stage system that takes an account different stuff that we've learned from the different industries in order to combine them and give a solution that really works. and, and that is not just a drone with a camera looking down and we hope we see a fire. And

Derek 18:42

one of the other issues they run into is there's a lot of drones out there that can do amazing things and they work in a perfect environment on a sunny day with low wind. Yes, they work fantastic and do amazing things. You give it, make it a windy day, rainy. You make it nighttime, they don't work. And so that's the other issue is there's lots of devices out there that in perfect environment work great. As soon as you get into real conditions and, you know, real weather, uh, they don't perform like they're supposed to. Other issues that these?Fire departments have run into, the devices don't work when they need them to work the most.

Bryan 19:15

How many of these departments and people you've worked with, how many have tried to onboard some kind of drone system that works in the perfect environment, but then ends up not getting used because of A, B, or C reason?

Jonathan 19:29

Um, actually, I can tell you that every single fire department or emergency service, company ends up going down to one drone almost. And the only reason that they use that drone, even though they will tell you that it's not the perfect drone, it's because it was easy to deploy at that moment, even though it did nothing other than provide them a camera. So, so that tells you a lot, right? you're putting a new job into a department that really. uh, they need the technology. They don't need a new job. They need to concentrate on what they're doing. So they, they need a solution that takes a, takes in account the things that they need from that drone, but they don't need to basically touch this drone and work on the drone themselves.

Bryan 20:19

So in a sense it's the solutions they've had have been built by engineers that over-engineer the thing, put on too many features instead of built by the operator who just needs one tool to do one thing well enough that can be easily pulled out of their pocket.

Jonathan 20:34

Exactly. Yeah. So, so the solutions, it's simple. It's basically creating a simple tool that gives them the, I mean, obviously to our side, it is gonna be hard for us to create, the entire process. But in their world and in what they see, it's a very simple solution that they don't have to mess with, they don't have to deal with. And gives them that information that they require in order to do a better job, and be more efficient, which at the end of the day is efficiency. So efficiency on every scale.

Bryan 21:06

You know, this is interesting and kind of counterintuitive a bit because we're talking with some drone racers who have built some of the best stuff, and we haven't even talked about your battle bot-that talk about going into unknown conditions and that thing getting hammered and smashed and hammering and smashing on other things. But the, the crux of the problem that you just identified there, it's not the engineering. It's the deployment. It's not the engineering inside the drone and it's not super advanced engineering and optimizing for that extra 1%, which is where you guys have really shined. But you are now coming in saying that, well, you know how to identify what the, the root and crux of the problem is. And the root and crux of the problem is not optimizing a little bit of extra lift or power. It's optimizing the deployment process. So is that where, where you guys are looking, take that run?

Jonathan 21:58

Yeah. So, I mean, uh, it is, um, but it is, and at the same time. Obviously because of the knowledge that we have on the racing side, it will help our drones to be, last a little bit longer, be a little bit faster. So all of that still, falls into it. But that wasn't really the solution. So, it's just something that, it's an extra, caveat on the fact that, that we were making a better system, or something that really worked for them. and I, I mean that comes from our background, right? When you start making robots for companies who are telling you, Hey, can you build this? It's because they couldn't build it or they had a problem or they couldn't figure it out. So now you're coming in and you're going, okay, let's solve a brand new problem. And it has to be effective, it has to be low budget because most of the time it is, and so it makes you think differently or very outside the box and gives you a very unique perspective into how to create a solution that doesn't necessarily means overthinking the product or creating some new technology that doesn't exist right now, but just utilizing the technologies that are around in a different way, and combine them to really, take care of the problem for right now. And sometimes it's just, setting it up for the new technology so that at that point it can be solved.

Bryan 23:16

So if we were to break down the innovation that needs to happen, we've got the hardware and we've got, well, I guess software can go into flight hardware and all that stuff. So we'll say the drone itself, whether it's hardware, software. And then there's the operational side, what the fire chiefs or whoever's pushing that launch button. There's regulatory. So innovation on the drone itself. Innovation on operational, maybe automation or innovation on regulation. What do you guys think is, what's the crux?

Jonathan 23:50

Um,

Derek 23:52

I'm not sure if there is, uh, one specific answer for that. I think it's just kind of combination of all of'em that deter the technologies from moving forward right now. And I think we're in a position where, everything's far enough along where we can put all these pieces together and make a solution that really works. Um, I think in the, past, a lot of people see the regulation as the biggest thing and, it's definitely there. It's an issue to overcome, but it's doable. There are ways to, get through the process and, make things happen. And, some companies have shown that with various, different operations and various places where they've been able to do things. So I think it's kinda just putting them all together and just putting the right combination of things together for the whole system to work.

Jonathan 24:29

I think honestly Hollywood has been a big impact on that because Yeah. they need a drone to fly in the middle of the city at high speeds with a heavyweight camera through the top of people. yes, they're actors, but they're still people, right? Mm-hmm. uh, and then you, you, so all of those kind of started poking holes into, okay, now we can do nighttime flying, so we can do drones that make pretty signs or, or whatever. So a lot of these other industries, and I, a lot of it I realize is entertainment that has started to poke holes and, and gain access to special licenses to be able to perform. So right now, even though we can't go in, into, a whole bunch of airspaces, but we can go into certain air spaces and show that this technology works and wildfires are the perfect venue because most of it is over, G-rated airspace. So it's a space that drones can be, and our company does have nighttime waivers so we can perform day or night, in those spaces. That's the beginning of being able to prove a concept. As things start changing, you already have, gained enough ground to then move into the areas that keep opening up.

Bryan 25:47

Hmm. So it seems like you guys, your goal is. Demonstration, functional technology demonstration with early adopters, basically the early adopters of in the space. And then once that's demonstrated, your, it's kind of a first mover advantage that, that you guys are looking to carry forward. But I would imagine also you'll have built networks of relationships throughout that process. So the next movers, the early adopters or the early majority or whatever they're, called, would; you already have a warm relationship with them?

Jonathan 26:24

Yeah, a hundred percent. But also we, we wanna solve the problem. So we are actually reaching out to a ton of different companies that have different technologies that are willing to work with us so that we're not, it's not like we're just trying to do it all ourselves. We wanna make sure we take the best of the best from the different technologies and incorporate them to really, really bring a solution into any problem. But specifically this right now, for this year.

Bryan 26:51

So what are these other technologies, the, the things you guys are not doing but you're bringing together

Jonathan 26:56

so, so we just, we just actually, had a meeting with j Elliot. he's, a former VP of Apple. for example, he has a, an emergency services, app for, people who got hurt. and for example, if a person is in danger, right, in a medical situation, or hey, there's a fire or whatever in, and they're in the outskirts of one of these communities, by pressing a button, they're able to tell, emergency services everything about that person, including like all their medical, any allergies, so that when they go help this person, they know exactly how to treat that person and possibly save their lives. Well, having the drone added to that, now you're able to, specifically bring a medication, for example, with that same platform. So if I needed to bring an IP pen along with doing the surveillance, I can take care and deliver that. and help that person while emergency services lets them out as on top of giving them a better route to get them out of there based on what the wildfire is doing or what the situation is around that person. Just uniting with people that are leading in, different technologies that can possibly be adapted and so that, we can scale our product and also their product into something that's incredibly beneficial.

Bryan 28:21

Hmm. Now that, that's a, a different angle, but very interesting. Especially for high speed drones, if someone's having an allergic reaction, seconds matter. You just gotta be able to get there quick. And in the matter of safety too, if you can basically get a drone to come scared, walking down a dark alley, a drone might, might make that attacker a little bit less likely to follow through on an attack. So when Jay Elliot. When he is talking to you guys, is he coming? Are, are you steering the conversation specifically toward fire or are you looking at this generally of applications of drones over people where you guys have experience. A lot of drone companies, they only have the perfect situations, but you guys have operated over people in construction situations and chemical situations and Hollywood situations. So where, where's he looking and where's that conversation going?

Jonathan 29:12

So you gotta look at it, and again, from a different perspective, like if you focus on the engineering, it doesn't work. But what we're trying to do is solve a problem. He's trying to, he's trying to solve the problem of somebody being hurt and dying because emergency services was bogged down, or he couldn't reach emergency services. Like for example, if you take your cell phone and you traveled with it, which most people, this is your life, right? You're stuck to it. Uh, and you call 9 1 1. that might not connect you to the 9 1 1 that's correct for helping you. So now it's a long process to getting that emergency service to get to you. On top of that, depending on your situation, you might not be able to tell them or even remember what medications or things or what's actually, happening to you. So by having all this data already, that's going directly to emergency services and to us, it makes it so that we can now, really assist that person in a better way or even diminish the use of that emergency service. So if a fire department, was being sent out because of, this person needs a epipen, tell me how much faster we can get there and maybe cost this person not to have an insane reaction or be too late. and yeah, the department will still get there, but by the time it gets there, the situation's been like completely diminished or com or absolved, you know,

Bryan 30:36

Hmm. You know, that's interesting. One of my favorite things about this whole wildfire thing and where we are right now in this, this moment in history or progress, is there's a convergence of technology coming across all the world, and it hasn't converged yet in wildfire, but it is starting to converge. And that's a, health and emergency response situation in urban areas. And that's, again, we're seeing the convergence of technology happen right

Jonathan 31:02

there. Yeah, I, I think it's a big deal cuz it, it's not just whatever is burning out there. But it's also the air quality that's affecting everyone else. It's also power utilities that get caught off and can, a person that's disabled in some house now has no power and they died because they had no power. or just transportation, you have roads that have to be closed. also the diversion of all of these, departments that had to go to help, the wildfire is now... they're not, able to assist as many people, here in the city. And, and a lot of that stuff is never taken in account. And I think that's probably one of the big reasons why, maybe it hasn't happened as much yet, is because a lot of people are just not aware of how many things are actually affected by a wildfire, which is why we find it incredibly, interesting to tackle.

Bryan 31:54

Hmm Let's take this. Going toward swarms of drones versus single drones, and autonomous, fully autonomous drones versus piloted drones. What have you guys found in the space in terms of what's being attempted and what's being uptaken with fully autonomous versus piloted? Let's just start with just one drone, but fully autonomous versus piloted drones. What's working and not working?

Derek 32:20

it kind of depends on the application. Some things piloted drones are fine, especially if it's something that's planned ahead. So Hollywood... piloted drones work well for that. Everything's planned ahead. They have pilots, ready for it and, everything's scheduled. Uh, with events that are not planned, especially for emergency services, piloting is a lot more difficult because, making sure you have a pilot there ready to go, like with your, firefighters. If you want them to fly drones, you have, train them to be a pilot. And then obviously you lost a firefighter to be a pilot. Some fire departments, no one there is familiar with drones or knows how to fly them. so in situations like that where it's not, in the budget and planned ahead, it's gonna be a lot harder to operate something And that's where, the autonomous system's really shine in instances like that. we don't readily have, pilots available, for those situations.

Bryan 33:07

You know, I think that's a, a key piece is whatever innovation you're bringing in, it can't add to the budget. It has to fit into whatever budget's already there.

Jonathan 33:15

and they have very low budgets. So if it's not on that, on that item list, it's incredibly hard to add.

Bryan 33:24

I imagine also from a person, a manned pilot flying through all the turbulence, it comes outta that fire, that heat's gonna throw your drone flight systems off. And I imagine it's a very difficult thing. Just thinking as you guys are talking here, you talk about having a basically a long duration surveillance drone that's waiting for potential fire starts and then you have your racer. That goes out when you've got an indication. And lightning is a big cause and we've got lightning maps that are available. You can just go online. I, I'm not remembering the website right off the top of my head, but there are a handful of places and you can see the lightning strikes real time. And you can see the boom, the thunder, when it's gonna reach your house. And it's, it's actually pretty entertaining and exciting. I imagine that would be an easy thing for you guys to have a computer that's tracking the lightning that's happened. And you can put a drone up a lot sooner than you can put a person up in the sky, fly that thing and, you could even have it optimized exactly the path that it's gonna go through and look for these lightning strikes. Did they turn into a fire, send out a eraser, go do that. It doesn't have to be this long duration surveillance that's up there for hours and hours. It can, and it could even be one way if you have recharging nodes set up around throughout the forest. are you guys, am I digging too deep into what you guys are doing or what's,

Jonathan 34:44

no, I mean, you're, you're right on it. I mean,.Yeah. I'm trying to not be as secretive, even though we learned to be incredibly secretive as you mentioned. So, we do have an advantage in that field and we know that we can do it better than the other guys because of the experience. So, so yeah, you have to tackle it in both ways. A high elevation drone can cover a lot of acreage, but it can't be very accurate at determining what that fire is. It can just say, Hey, there's a possible fire. But now a high speed drone can't do the monitoring, but it can go incredibly fast to whatever has been identified and then tell you that is a, real fire. And also, now that you are at that really low altitude, you're also being able to tell very specific. Is there people around it? Is this a fire pit? You get a good video that now the fire department can actually use to say, okay, yeah, this is a legitimate fire. And you wanna use stuff like that. Like what you mentioned, you wanna get data from that stuff, but you wanna leverage it with as many things as you can so that you can get, enough data to be real, or just minimize the time that it takes for somebody to saying, Hey, this is a legitimate fire that wasn't caused by a guy who's just trying to barbecue a hotdog out in the middle of the woods right now.

Bryan 36:04

Okay, so you guys are beyond the, I don't know if beyond's the right word. You guys are past the notion that this is gonna be end to end fully autonomous. It's a matter of we're gonna get your flight path. Some human's gonna be in the loop and say, yes, go inspect point, maybe just point A, but maybe point A through Q and give you high quality data on that stuff. And then it's gonna be a human in the loop deciding what do we do with that? And maybe even before it leaves, it goes to point A to B and it before it leaves each point, the human in the loop is, hitting a approved move on or, or go further in. But the flight path could be automated. You just have a human watching and pointing which way to go. So it's kinda semi, semi-autonomous.

Jonathan 36:50

Yeah. That whole, the system itself, they're not flying yet. They're not doing anything, but they are getting, Hey, this is what's happening. Are you, would you like to proceed with this solution or that? and that's all basically information given by the user so we've learned through them of what they actually care about and what they actually need, and taken away all the stuff that's makes it hard. We take care of all that hard stuff in the back end.

Bryan 37:20

Nice. You guys are, I recall you are gonna be heading out to test some of your systems. You know, a landowner who's got a lot of space, friendly with you guys and says, come on out and let's test these out. What are you gonna be testing out there? What can we give us a little bit of a, a prelude, a teaser? And then of course, we'll, we'll post some things after you guys have done that.

Jonathan 37:42

So we wanted to be able, we, we don't have funding for this project. So right now we're looking for funding for this project. And the only way that we felt that, we can show how a lot of these solutions can work is by literally taking stuff off of our walls, tearing it apart, modifying it a little bit, and showing at least on a smaller scale, exactly how this stuff is going to react out in the real world. We wanna basically be able to show, what, the overhead, the speed, the carrying an item out to a fire, identifying that fire. So a lot of these, these things, even though it won't be autonomous, but we're happy to have been working with some of the world's best pilots that can act as the autonomy for now, to be able to just prove our case. And again, this is what we need the funding for, is to be able to concentrate on just that task.

Bryan 38:37

you know, it makes me laugh. You say you've been working with the world's best pilots who can act as the autonomy. And when I run across AI startups, they put AI in their name and all they're doing is just having humans do what eventually AI is gonna do.

Jonathan 38:51

Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bryan 38:56

they, somehow still get funded here and there. And the, the, facade of AI continues on. I, I believe we're gonna be there, probably, later than people think we are. But probably sooner than some of us think we're gonna actually be there.

Jonathan 39:11

Yeah.

Bryan 39:14

So.

Jonathan 39:14

Don't get me started. You know, I'll get crazy

Bryan 39:18

Yeah. Yeah. Um, lemme do a little bit of a pause

Jonathan 39:31

you might not wanna record that. Yeah, definitely know

Bryan 39:35

I already have that note in my head that Derek's getting edited out right there.

Jonathan 39:41

but that is one of the things that an investor would love. The fact that, whatever we learn, they needed a solution. They didn't need, you know, our best, they needed a solution and a lot of, they solved their problem and they were very happy with it. Exactly. Yeah.

Bryan 39:55

If you can actually repeat what you said, but just say it without,

Derek 40:03

Yeah. So when our clients come to us, we give them the solution that they essentially pay for and what they need. So we often, there's bigger and grander ideas we have of different ways we could solve the solution. We have to fit it within, their means and their budget. And so we get, lots of other ideas of, ways that you can, solve solutions that never get carried

Jonathan 40:22

out, but stay within their company so that we can use'em different products. Mm-hmm.

Bryan 40:28

You know, I guess that that actually is probably what has primed you guys as engineers coming to the wildfire space with drones is... you've learned that you can have these grand engineering ideas, but the job, part of that job is budget. You can't put all those ideas and such in. as you see with the, with the agencies, you can't add to their current budget. You can't add another person onto their headcount. If you take a person for a pilot, you're taking a person away from the fire.

Jonathan 40:55

Exactly. And it's just, it's fire, it's budget and the manufacturability of that item also. So like, it has to be designed in a way that can be affordable to remake. A lot of these things are being engineered just, to a point that you're like, there's no way we can actually make that product in mass or it's gonna cost way too much money. So you have to think of it that the cost of that item is gonna go down so low that it'll be easily adaptable.

Bryan 41:26

Let's go to the regulatory piece again. there's the f a, there's the local, the city flying over, people, flying over at night, all these things. Going out to wildfire there's less regulation, less danger to work with. But you guys have crossed a lot of these hurdles that a lot of drone companies have never made it pass. So what's been your experience in, in solving the regulatory problems, in solving the, the city problems and the people problems of getting your drones to fly?

Jonathan 41:55

We've learned that, through some of our clients actually, trying to overcome some of their problems that, for example, what places you can fly for the faa, but at the same time that you could get special permissions to be able to fly in, in a different, I guess different areas or different, airspace that has been known to be a no-no. So you can, and we have overcome those situations and been able to now fly over people or in a city, places that, have chemical plants, pretty much in every kind of location. Just doing our job. And we know that right now with the wildfires, that's not a big thing, but eventually it will grow into that. being able to take those advantages, for them.

Bryan 42:38

One thing that wildfire is at night, the human pilots cannot fly. And I know Orange County has a program and they've had some really good success with putting suppressant on fires at night. But every wildfire commander out there, if they could get suppressant on the fire at night, that's the easiest best time to be catching the fire. That seems like an opportunity where, where drone can go in, you don't have humans flying already. And of course you're not gonna compete if the humans are already flying with their night vision goggles. But there's enough firefighters out there that just don't have that capability. So you guys can go in, you've already flown at nights in urban areas. Flying at night out in a forested area should be, no problem.

Jonathan 43:20

So yeah, we've, been lucky enough, to get some of those licenses. We're legally allowed to fly at night in any place. and have, have developed relationships with, the different agencies so we can quickly get approval to fly in a, in a hard to, to fly place. I don't know if I should, I can mention the government agency that's working on, on the highways basically for the, for the drones and airplanes and that kind of stuff. But there's agencies right now I guess, that are working on, on solving these problems, that will allow for human and drones to be able to be at the same space. Cuz that's also another issue as you know. You can't have a drone out there if there's a helicopter or a plane already in that site. But now we've also, we've filmed, we've chased planes, we've done, an insane amount of work that qualifies us to, be able and makes co pilots comfortable to having us in their same airspace. So a lot of the, I guess a lot of that, real life experience that we've been doing for other things will all apply into, being able to help with this. Yeah. And you mentioned,

Derek 44:28

With Wildfire fight at night, and Yeah, it's a great way to do it because yeah, during a day, a lot of it's handled all through radio communication. There's no, automated system to handle all the aircraft in the air and handling that airspace. It's all manual, and so they generally don't wanna throw a drone into that cause that just complicates things further. So yeah, night flying, works well. But also, we have the experience of, we have, been flying with, manned aircraft in the air at the same time and on radio is talking to them. So we also have that experience of, what that environment looks like, and how it's handled and, know ways that you can do it safely. Basically, you know how to do it. And just, a lot of it's experience of, experience in that environment of, you know, what's the terminology, what kind of information do they tell you? Uh, how do they fly? And then, knowing where you can position yourself so you're, outta the way the most and, things of that nature.

Bryan 45:16

That seems really key because any fire you're gonna be in, whoever's in charge of aerial operations is gonna be in charge of you guys. And if the pilots are not comfortable with it, it doesn't matter how good your technology or automation is.

Jonathan 45:27

Yeah. 100% Our plan is actually to make this brand new company, that will be dedicated to the fire stuff and the Ostro air part of it will just be, an r and d lab for everything else because obviously the other stuff, helps fuel the technology, that will keep, the fire technology just being ahead of its time

Bryan 45:54

Joining with other companies, teaming up with others, you guys want to build your own business. There's, another guy I talked to with Kaizen Arrow, Ziv Maram is his name. And they do heavy lift drones. They've got their 500 pound lift drone, everything's already to do a thousand pound lift drone. At that, much weight, you could actually do suppressant and drop that on there. So his business is, they're doing other services for heavy lift drone stuff and it seems to be established. What are your guys thoughts on, I guess, partnering with other people.

Jonathan 46:30

So I feel like, um, we've worked on or have been a part of, 2000 pound lifters. But that's, that. I don't think that's the solution, really. That's the problem. So I would love to talk to him and just see where he's going and what he's trying to do, and see if there is something that, we can help out Cause to us, we just wanna solve that problem. And, that's what makes us happy. Once we, once we grab onto something, we just want to focus and get it done. And, right now, we're just dead set on this is, we're gonna solve this. So the heavy lifter thing, uh, it's, it's cool, but again, you're, you're dropping, you're doing something that, manned systems are doing right now, way better. So

Bryan 47:16

don't know if way better is the right word at all.

Jonathan 47:19

Well, well, I guess, I mean, you gotta think of it this way, right? I, I'll tell you what, I told a commander, one time that he asked me, uh, okay, Jonathan, we need to lift 500 pounds and take it from this point to this point is to fly for that long. And, that's the solution that I want. And I, and he wants me to build something custom. And I'm like, just gimme a Huey helicopter. I'll make it autonomous. So there's, there's no reason to create a drone for a lot of these things. A drone is an autonomous vehicle, but if you could take a vehicle that exists and works great at doing that one job, then why? You know, you could take off the man out of it like you were, what you were saying, like when I said manned system, I mean, it's a, a vehicle that exists that's being flown by a man and turn it into an autonomous vehicle. So why create a whole new thing that flies less, that, uh, has a whole bunch of different issues when you can solve the problem by just making a man vehicle unmanned.

Bryan 48:22

you, know, let's, go down this rabbit hole. That was exactly what when I first came into the wildfire space is cuz one of my SpaceX buddies called me up and said, we're building the world's heaviest lift drone to put out wildfire. Come do for us, what you did for SpaceX And I said, heck yeah. That was the Sikorsky S 64, the sky crane, that funny looking one with super heavy lift. It's got the funny legs coming out of the side and I can drop 2000 gallon. It was with the company Erickson that has the, that the only company that has the, it's not the type certificate for, for that maybe it is a type certificate to get it type certified. They're the only company that can build new airframes. So the idea was we're gonna build new airframes and probably manufacture it across the country and we're gonna manufacture one that's been adapted for no human in the loop. Fully autonomous. That didn't happen for a number of reasons, and they were not engineering problems for why it didn't happen. So I, I think that comes to that, that's another longer discussion. But your question about why not do that, it's because the, well, at least the holder of that type certificate was unable to solve the non-engineering challenges to make that happen. Now we get the, the Black Hawk. They're making the fire hawk now. And Colorado's bought some and Southern California had some and they just bought a few more. So that, and that I think can do a thousand gallons. And so that's actually, that's not just spitting on the fire that actually can make a dent. It's an expensive thing. But it is also, it's retrofitting a black hawk that comes from the military.

Jonathan 50:00

Yep.

Bryan 50:00

I believe that there, there's the piece of me, the don't reinvent a wheel. And there's a piece of me that says, just use the sky crane, use the Black Hawk, and that might be the right solution. And, and the Black Hawk even has some automation already that's been developed and integrated and all that such into it.

Jonathan 50:18

Mm-hmm.

Bryan 50:20

some of those problems have been solved. But it's still very expensive to do one of those firehawk solutions. And when you put a human in the aircraft or the possibility of a human in the aircraft, the cost of every component on there goes way up. So I think it is worth exploring the possibility that starting from the ground up, a purpose-built vehicle, that, and as as Derek, you can't have it be vertical lift. It's gotta be fixed wing when you're carrying that much, that much suppressant that far. I think there's opportunity with the tools we have now to develop an aircraft that is not a 1960s, 1970s airframe and we can develop it and build it knowing a human will never be inside.

Jonathan 51:08

Mm-hmm.

Bryan 51:08

I believe that might be more effective and more, more cost effective. Now it could be a longer adoption cycle. and the adoption cycle is not something to be underestimated.

Jonathan 51:19

Yeah. No, and I, I agree with you, and this is why we were like, and when we started the podcast, right? The thing that I said is there is a lot of technology that's gonna grow into it, but you have to be able to either help or solve right now with what's available. So yes, I do agree with you that eventually this is what will happen. But do we wanna, I mean, can we build a big aircraft right now, that'll be deemed prototyped, that won't be for human. Yes, we could do that. Um, we, I will take you over to our other location and you can see aircraft being built. But that's, that's not, uh, you need to basically focus on that first obstacle. And then once you focus on that first obstacle, which is let's get, let's find that fire fast enough, uh, and cut down a lot of that and start integrating into the system, then eventually, yeah, you can go and build that other aircraft. there's many aircraft, you know, manufacturers, and can they be modified? Uh, fairly easy to be autonomous. Yes. So yeah. Will happen. But, if I said that I wanted money to modify an aircraft to dump fire suppressant, right now, I feel like I'd be, uh, wasting my time into something that I can solve, better, which is let's identify the fire, which will take a lot of the cost and a lot of the amount that has to be carried by these vehicles to be less right? Instead of bigger. So, I think that's, that's why we wanna focus on this one part. And once we solve that, I'll tell you, okay, we don't care about identifying anymore. Now we, care about, how to take, you know, what's the next step. So carry a load or carry this. And if you tackle each task, into its own, then you can actually do a bigger impact than going, trying to go into the 10 year ahead of what will be.

Bryan 53:15

You know, this is You're, you're, you're making me laugh cuz you're throwing me back to 2004 when Elon Musk was speaking at this little space conference thing and some guy in the back raised his hand and the guy was dressed all in black and he was this Mars advocate So he asked Elon, he says, what are your plans for Mars? And this was Elon only had, I don't know if they even had a single failed flight at that point. They and Yeah, I, I was there for the third failed flight. But it was a long way away from, from success. And this guy asked, what are your plan for Mars? And Elon just answers, we're not thinking about Mars The guy responds, well, surely you have a notebook, or you're putting down your ideas and sketching out your long-term strategy. He says, we're not thinking about Mars. We're just thinking about getting Falcon one to fly. We need to get that to orbit. Nothing else matters until that's done.

Jonathan 54:08

Exactly. Yeah. And that's, I mean, there's plenty of notebooks in there with tons of information on how to work on a lot of other stuff, but that's not what we're gonna be focusing on right now.

Derek 54:21

the heavy lifter. I don't Another thing is with the regulation, it's a lot easier to get approval to fly a five or 10 pound drone in something like this than trying to get, a 500 pound drone. And so one of the things with, regulation is also proving you can do stuff safely. So it's a lot easier if you can ramp up slowly and being able to fly, a small drone and be able to do that safely and then you, it's a lot easier to get permission for a little bigger drone. A little bigger drone, then move on that way as well. So just from the regulation perspective,

Jonathan 54:47

Because it builds comfort to the companies that you're working for. When the, when we started doing the Hollywood stuff, producers and actors were just deathly scared of these things. And you're flying, you know, a heavy camera at high speeds, through obstacles, indoors, outdoors, through, fires, explosions, all sorts of crazy things. And, and now they're all like, I'm good. Get closer, do this, do that. You know. But that's, that adopting of new technology. But if I would've brought in there a flying car, yeah, I'd probably still not have a flying car inside of Hollywood chasing one of these guys, But now I can tell you that there are producers are asking for that now. They're ready for seeing those big vehicles because they've seen that we've been able to prove that we can do stuff like that safely with the smaller vehicles. it takes a lot and it's, it takes a lot of learning. So if you just go for straight, the big guy, you're gonna miss out on a lot of things that you could have made that big vehicle better, for the situation. we want to build this thing fast. We don't wanna sit around and, our goal is to, maximize every bit of money that we have by doing, a speedy thing. if we take it too slow, we'll overdevelop and make something that's, maybe takes too much money and might not catch up to what other stuff that's already out there, No, thank you, man. It's been really cool talking to you. We were actually really excited to do the podcast with you. Yesterday we did one for Home and Garden. Yeah. Um, two days ago. And it's like, home and garden, they're interested. Sure. Whatever. We do a podcast for Home and Garden. I guess if you can afford a nice place with a giant garden here in Silicon Valley, you can afford to, fund us so So maybe, maybe it works out that way, Almost everything that we have done has come from a weird place that we never imagined. So it's more, marketing, I guess.

Bryan 56:45

Send me a link to the Home and Garden, podcast when that's, I'll be curious what kinda questions they ask.

Jonathan 56:51

it was, it was definitely all tech. But I mean, yeah,

Derek 56:54

they, woman who started this podcast on homes and gardens, and then she got a few months in and got bored. And it was like, okay, I'm gonna start covering tech stuff. that's still called Home and Gardens.

Jonathan 57:05

I'm still honored to the fact that she wanted to bring us on. And actually it kind of already started paying off because some of the people she was talking to in the background are now reaching out to us. So, hey, weirdest stuff has happened, so

Bryan 57:19

we landed our series A through home and garden. Well, thanks guys for coming onto the show. This has been fun and I, I wish I could take everyone from the show into your bowling alley that has been wrecked and ripped apart and decked out and see all your fun hardware, and then just to, we didn't even talk about the battle bot yet,

Jonathan 57:45

Uh, yeah, man. That's next week. So next Thursday, discovery Channel. You'll see our team, with a brand new bottle bot that, was created just to prove, to the world that we can make something that's very unique in a very short period of time, and access a lot of companies and talent, to be able to make a, a really cool solution that's different than what they've seen. So take a look at that for sure. Next Thursday,

Bryan 58:13

Just a little context for the listeners too. I had no idea how intense the battle bot world was. I'm not surprised cuz people get intense about those things. But these guys first time entrance and they made it to the, the World Series of Battle Bots in Las Vegas. And they'd never done any of these battles or any of the development stuff before. They just jumped on in. And it was, it was fun digging through their, their vehicle and just asking questions and geeking out about different materials and why not different materials and the way different suspensions are put together, and what parts of the design were calculated and what parts were just, oh, that looks close enough. We'll just do it And then also seeing that all those, everything that was calculated, there were decision, there was engineering behind what was calculated and what was just estimated good enough and why and how But getting into the World Series of battle bots as rookies is not a simple thing. we'll put a link to, their battle bots going on for that too. All right. Well, thanks a lot for coming on, guys. Best of luck and we'll have you on again.

Jonathan 59:15

All right. It's our pleasure. Thank you, Bryan.

Bryan 59:25

That was Jonathan Collazo and Derek Stevens, building ostrich air from racing drones to now helping solve the wildfire problem. Links to some of the recent videos are in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed listening and gain some new insights or understanding. Thanks for keeping your mind open for what you can do to help us all solve the wildfire problem