I'm Scott.
I'm Russell.
And I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball, where three marquee makers and a guest empty our heads of startup and
tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for free.
Anything that we say is yours to keep.
And this week, oh, this week, I'm so excited I get to introduce you all to my friend, Adam.
Addie is a senior at Hope where she is an econ major and theater minor.
I got introduced to Addie because she is an intern in my department over in the IT department.
So honorary nerd by title, I would say perhaps. But a theater nerd is definitely a genre of what we do here.
She also has a bunch of other interests. She's a guitarist.
She leads a markets and morality reading group and we're just so excited to have her here. Addie, welcome to Spitball.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
This is gonna be fun and this week to get us warmed up Scott you I haven't heard this yet
But we got a letter from a listener. Tell me about a letter from a listener
We have to turn a lot of them away though. Just so everybody's listening. We're finally gonna do one of them
This one made it past all the filters
In us what would tell us so Aaron wrote in with this little blurb and I would like to spit ball around this guy
Ahem, so last year we had a very awkward New Year's party where we brought out cards against humanity
The host wife ended up being extremely embarrassed. The host was drunk. There were lots of kids everywhere. It was a shitstorm
This year we're deciding to play it safe and do karaoke instead, but I want to add a little of the chaos from last year
So let's add a twist. I want to do songs against humanity. So
Then he'd let me out. Okay karaoke
Yep, here are 50 clean life events that you could use as the black cards the player cards in the karaoke game
And then he just lists like falling in love graduating from school winning a contest losing a pet
Just all these scenarios are inspired by classic song themes and making them relatable to groups
everyone plays a
Song card on top of it of what you think relates to that theme and then if you win you have to sing it
And that's as far as he got Wow. I need an example
Wait, you have to like make up a parody on the spot?
Or sing the actual one, I think?
Oh.
That one makes more sense to me.
Okay.
[laughter]
So much.
Honestly, people are like, "What's your karaoke song?"
And I don't know.
If I had to like, gun to my head, pick something,
I'm not really sure what the sweet spot is for that.
Tequila.
Yes.
Solid.
You guys see those videos?
Yeah.
It's so funny.
You can pick Tequila as a song and it's...
[singing]
And then just one word.
Tequila.
And then you're done for like another 32 bars.
I guess this is what I'm getting at is
I guess this would take the hard part away
of like trying to pick the song.
That's where I always crunch, right?
- I mean, that's kind of the worst part of karaoke, right?
Is where you have that one person who's like,
I have practiced this, I know this inside and out
and I'm gonna go up there and just kill it.
I wanna see the, you know, the 55 year old drunk guy
on the cruise just trying to, oh yeah.
- Work his way through some Cardi B.
- Yeah, exactly.
I thought it was like a stack of cards and you draw one
and it says replace every time they say love
with like a fart sound.
And you have to sing the whole song.
Like.
- Like a Mad Lib.
- Yeah, like you're watching the karaoke lyrics
and you get points, you could turn it into a whole game.
Like if you mess up, you lose points, you gain points.
You know, I don't know, there'd probably be other cards
like every time they say a swear word
or you have to do the beep sound or something, right?
Karaoke bingo?
Yeah, something like you have to switch the words around or...
You have to do Eminem's rap god, but you have to switch around every third syllable or something.
That's right.
Okay.
Sing this song only with mom's spaghetti, right?
Just the entire song is mom's spaghetti.
You are actively trying to mess up the person singing karaoke.
Let's make karaoke even harder for them.
Yeah.
No, that's where I thought this was going too, like an actual karaoke game.
And then there's just like blanks for you to fill in.
Right.
You just have to like guess or something.
Oh, Mac 2 thematic rhyming words.
That'd be so hard to do on the fly though, right?
It would, but it would be funny.
Oh, people are submitting this.
I wonder, all right, swear jar.
What if we had a lyric generating app or something that was like on the fly doing the parody
and you had to sing it because it's on, you know what I mean?
Like, either you get to pick the song or it's another,
People are voting on what they're submitting is the weird combo and then you have to immediately get up and sing the weird parody
That's been generated on the fly for about
Trucking or whatever on the spot, you know, that's a great idea
That could be really fun. That would be really have a theme you have a song that you know how the song goes
You don't know what the new lyrics are gonna be
You just got to go up and wing it and you can turn up a raunchiness sensor
You can turn up a funniness sensor like you can even make a jackbox game or something where people are like submitting ideas
and then you have to like sing whatever the group has come up with.
Yeah.
That'd be so cool.
Oh man.
I love that version.
You can keep it short too.
It could just be like the chorus, right?
Like after a minute of karaoke, you're kind of just like, "Oh, I don't
want to be up here anymore."
Right?
Nobody wants the four minute cover of Aunt Linda's whatever, right?
Like just, yeah.
Hit the greatest hit, verse, chorus, you're out.
Everyone gets a laugh and you move on.
That's right.
Yeah.
And not hard to do either.
Yeah.
There's so many YouTube videos uploaded of people's fan
creations of karaoke tracks.
There is an infinite supply of here's
that karaoke version of any song you could ever think of
that people are just making and uploading.
All you need is that plus a lyric.
Like just put lyrics in front of people,
and singing the hard part of generating the music.
No, that's not your job.
That's the singer.
There you go, Aaron.
I hope that helps.
Yeah.
I'm thinking of all these new cards like sing, swing low,
or like the Sweet Chariot song, but in a falsetto or whatever.
Just like completely-- and you're a dude, too.
That would just be so funny.
Coming for to carry me home.
That's why I got-- is falsetto the high one?
So like-- oh, so it's a song.
Yes, it is.
You got a song, and then you have
like you have to sing this in the style of Mickey Mouse.
Yes.
Or whatever you want to be.
Scooby Doo.
Yeah.
That would be you need like 2am sleepover energy for that I think.
That's for sure.
Or just a bunch of theater kids.
Oh true.
Just the actors.
We're not like that.
When you get deep enough you start differentiating.
Exactly.
Thanks Aaron.
Yeah thanks Aaron.
Alright who wants to kick us off this week?
I got a dumb one I can go first if you want.
Yeah Leo what do you got for us this week?
Okay, so it's been several weeks now of me pitching like serious hardware and stuff that I actually want.
So I got a silly one.
I read about an IoT project, an Internet of Things project, a little microchip or a Raspberry Pi or something that someone did at their startup a couple of years ago.
I think it was in Ann Arbor.
And it was watching what devices connected to the Wi-Fi network and keeping a list of whose device belonged to which employee.
And then every morning when the door would open,
it would look at who most recently connected to the wifi
as they were walking up to the building
and it would play their walk-in music.
It was like customized, like pro wrestler or baseball style,
like I'm gonna start with, you know,
sweet Caroline or whatever every day.
And like, it was like this big moment.
Everyone had like a laugh about it.
And I don't know if it would get old after two years,
but it was a cool, fun idea, right?
I've looked, there's a couple of different ways to approach it that people have done
with their like hacky little side project.
You got your tile tracker, air tag tracker style, BLE stuff, you've got Wi-Fi based,
whatever.
But there is no productized version of this.
So I want to start a little box, a walk up music in a box thing that is either for a
home or office environment.
So it could say, for example, something useful like, "Hey, grandma is in the driveway.
just arrived at the door, kids, or I don't know, so-and-so just walked in the door or
whatever.
You got your like smart doorbells and ring doorbells and stuff that can kind of sort
of do some of this, but none of it's music and none of it is whimsical and fun.
I think there's a market here for like cool doorbell that is passively announcing without
people having to press buttons or anything based off of where the people are that it
knows to look for.
I don't quite know what to call it, but...
Or even it has like a defined purpose yet other than whimsy. You call it party bell like doorbell, but party bell
You walk in no, that's so cool. It's it'd be so great to have my kids excited about the babysitter arriving, you know
I mean
That'd be sweet
So it's got a sensor on it that it knows when the door physically goes ajar too. So it triggers a start there
Oh, I love that. It cues it up to be ready so that it's timed perfectly, right?
You need a little like door open/close sensor. Otherwise it fires when they're talking outside and you're like, "Oh, you missed it!"
Right.
That's so simple. It's so good.
What would be your walk-up music?
I'm picturing like, too, every time I walk in I just want that, not the laugh track,
but like the clapping of a new actor on the sitcom and you just stand there for a second.
Yeah! Woo!
Applause break.
I was just gonna ask, what would your walk-in music be?
Oh, that's the other one.
Someone cheering and clapping is funny.
Do you pick your own or does it just like it just I think this is good for you
And I'm assigning this to you forever and you can never change this now the box just decides
Like the sorting hat
And your wonderwall congratulations
You look like a wonderwall
That's fun you have to pay a subscription to pick your own or like a playlist that cycles through you don't have to commit
Just one I would definitely have a Rick Rolls mine to start for sure. There it is
Can you imagine walking in in the morning 8 a.m. Dude, dude, dude, dude, dude
It's so good just see your co-workers I twitch a little everyone again I
Wouldn't get sick of it everyone else. That would be not fun
Right imagine you go out to your driveway to bring out the garbage cans at 6 a.m. And you walk back inside and just
players I have a tiger yeah I brought those cans baby letting the dogs out at
2 in the morning oh no or your phone dies and it wakes back up or something
right that's right I gotta get something from the car yes obviously my very fancy
productized party in a box would have do not disturb hours and whatever other
features you need or it wouldn't until you pay a subscription free plan it just
plays a random great security system yeah doesn't recognize someone walking
in plays that certain song that's interesting right
no no no at the door the danger zone I'm thinking more like some like really cute
nursery rhyme because at that point like do you want to do crime right like you
If it's creepy enough, I might spook him away.
Really eerie music box sound off pitch in the distance.
Now we got a real angle.
It's security alarms.
I was going to rob this family, but then I got a little spooked.
Yeah, that's perfect.
They played Ghostbusters all of a sudden.
I walked in the door and I had to leave.
My life of crime is over.
(humming)
- Well, listen to right in with what your walk-in music
would be in the office if you could pick.
- Oh wait, yeah, the office one, sorry,
I forgot about this, but you could use the RFID tags, Leo,
that people scan in to buildings,
and that immediately would recognize that person.
- Yeah, tap into the ID system.
- And now you have to sell it to every security system
in the planet to add this special feature.
what all your customers are craving, we swear.
Walk-in music box.
We'll deal with integrating Spotify and Apple Music
and you deal with giving us ID system.
- We just install it for free.
It costs you to uninstall it and to turn it off.
(laughing)
- So you know product's good, you're holding them hostage.
- That's security for you.
- That's right.
- All right, Scotty, what do you got for us this week?
I went back through my list and I saw this one
and I had no idea what I was talking about,
but I think I remember now.
In my notes it just says Theranos for bread,
in parentheses, easy bake oven.
(laughing)
- Theranos for bread?
Bread.
- Let's just stop there, that's amazing.
- All right, next pitch.
We get it.
- Right, it's easy.
- Let's go.
- I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
What is Theranos for bread?
I want a-- baking is--
everyone had that phase during COVID
with getting really into sourdough and other things
or just in baking in general.
And baking is just the same couple of ingredients
that you put into a specific order, add heat,
and it spits out whatever you're making-- muffins, bread,
whatever.
They have these-- you can buy a large machine that
will auto-mix a bunch of drinks for you.
It has all the liquors up there, pours it in, shakes it,
and you're there.
Can't we do that with baked goods,
where I set a timer on my phone to say,
I want muffins at 630 AM.
And like a coffee machine, it just starts at 4 AM
and starts making muffins
'cause all the ingredients go down the thing, it mixes it.
- Whoa, even for batter, Scott, or go.
- Oh, you sell them pre-made batter
into just the giant packs or something.
- Batter pods.
(laughing)
- A Keurig.
- A Keurig for muffins.
- They'll sell better than Theranos for bread, I admit.
They already sell boxes of dried versions of that.
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
It just adds water with it.
Oh, yeah.
Shoot.
I think we spitballed the same thing at the same time.
I was thinking the bags, you just fill it with water,
and now you have your products.
But actually, you just said it, Scott.
You just take the dry goods home,
put it in batter mix 2028.
You got four pods lined up for blueberry muffins, pancakes,
Waffles and you know pizza dough
Okay, that's a good one
I mean things that have to prove you can have the thing like go to a certain temperature then get mixed around then go to
Another certain temperature blind bake that pie crust do this do that. That's kind of fun. It's got to be self-cleaning
I think that would be the biggest
It sets itself to 800 degrees for a couple of hours after and you're good
Just this is glowing appliance
Do not touch the easy bake. It's the hard bake oven
How big would this be would this be marketed as a countertop thing a full appliance
It'll be marketed as the size of a toaster to actually work. It's gonna be the size of a refrigerator
So they make bread makers
That are similar in concept, but those bread makers are just like a bin, right?
It just feels like a trash bin that mixes around a hook.
You know, Scott, I was making bread in my dorm room.
Bread makers look like the swimsuit dryers
at the local YMCA.
You know, that you hold down.
You just eat.
They are identical and same inventor.
Believe it or not.
He spins, dry your swimsuit, make bread.
Don't mix it up.
Yeah, you're right, though.
This really is just a bread maker
with another device on top that pours in the right amounts.
So you don't even have to think about that.
our 3D printer with the AMS filament changer.
You've got your like four slots up top,
but that's just dropping in ingredients
and mixing them around, you know?
Yeah, Russell's got in the background there.
So spools of different ingredients are up top.
- Spools of flour, sugar, and yeast.
- Yeah.
I like bread pods.
That's fun.
- Honestly, like the, but you're so spot on, Scott.
Like I was making waffles.
I made pancakes yesterday
and I just made two scoops of flour, baking soda.
It's just be nice to have all of that in.
I already have them as glass jars.
You throw them upside down, you put them in a giant box,
and then you hit like a microwave, pancakes,
and you have a little cup, and it dispenses pancake batter.
And now I don't have to mix the flour, the baking powder,
the sugar, okay?
And then everything, it's just,
I see it as a dry ingredient mixer.
- Sure. - Maybe that's what I think.
It'll be two stages, two different appliances,
because we've got to upsell them.
But think about it, right?
You have to get a mixing bowl.
You got to get a...
I was just going to say, our local coffee shop sells day old muffins
for like a dollar or whatever, because they're just not as good
the next day, right?
And what are you going to do?
Get out the pie tin and everything to make two muffins?
Like, you either have 20 muffins that are great for a day,
or you have like nothing, right?
This is a great, like, I just want one pancake.
What am I going to do?
like mix together enough batter for one pancake?
No, that's what this machine does.
- I still can't get past the Keurig
where it's just one muffin and a little plastic guy,
you shut it in, and 15 to 18 minutes later,
a muffin pops out.
- It's really kind of close to an easy one.
- Markets people who live alone.
- Yeah, exactly.
- The bachelor oven.
- Oh, I've lost so much weight by not buying,
I've been making one cookie at a time.
I do it six times a night, but it's...
(laughter)
- But I have to wait a half hour between each?
Our air fryer replaced our toaster oven
because we have one that kind of looks
like a giant toaster oven, right?
And you are very close to the form factor
I'm picturing here.
If you could get little baking tray thing
that goes in it and some way to dispense into it,
you're there.
You have everything else you need to make this happen.
This is within the realm of feasibility.
I love it.
- That's actually just an attachment to an air fryer.
Like you could do like,
you get the air fryer basket or the tin.
It goes into the thing
and it just pops right into your air fryer.
- You know how the best cookies are like homemade,
tenderly with grandma's love.
This is like the opposite of that.
This is like big tech,
making automated cookies in the comfort of your own home.
Corporate how it's made assembly line, but for one I have worked on the Little Caesars pizza makers before which are
There is no grandma love in those things
1,000 degrees blown air right onto the pizza to cook it as fast as humanly possible bigots of marinara coming down
It's like everything in a box. It'll do all the things in a box
You try to burn us a lot for being such a colossal
It's like the Titanic everyone loves it
The BB oil spill but for Lego
(laughing)
(saxophone music)
- All right, Russell, what do you have for us this week?
- All right, so taking off of Scott's theme
of Theranos, bread maker, easy bake oven.
It's a very common theme.
- Oh, that theme, the theme, yeah, totally.
- I got kids books, live theater,
and those bracelets that light up at concerts, okay?
- Interactive kids theater.
- You know those K-pop concerts where they got,
or like, is it Taylor Swift?
- Taylor Swift, yeah. - Something, right?
You got matching color bracelets, okay?
Now, I went to a kids' book theater show
like a couple weeks ago with my kids
and they frickin' loved it.
I would go, it's 45 minutes,
I paid like five or $10 to be there
and it was the perfect amount of time
for them to be engrossed in something
and I could just sit in what feels like silence
for 45 minutes, right?
- Yes.
Disassociate for a few, get some candy crush out.
- Yeah, it's better than watching a TV show or a movie,
right, throw 'em in front of that,
you just feel like a terrible parent,
so you don't do that.
But then you're like, oh, this is a little different.
So I guess the concept is you create a company
that helps provide the goods and scripts
and all the good stuff packaged up
and even partners with these kids' books to sell,
you know, either a special stuffed bear
with the light in it and the kids have to raise the bear
and like interact with the show a little bit more.
'Cause it's one thing to watch it,
but it's really hard to get,
like the kids aren't like engaged
or they're not like super excited.
You wanna kinda shush them at times almost it feels like
'cause like they'll scream and the actors are like
literally like 10 feet in front of you.
Anyways, get them involved.
Like, when it's blue, raise the bear, right?
Or when it's green, shout, blah.
Right?
So we're Rocky Horror Picture showing it for kids.
I love it.
[LAUGHTER]
My first Rocky Horror Picture show.
Oh, man.
That's it.
I wasn't on board till that's got the rules.
[LAUGHTER]
I was more thinking you'd keep all the stuff
after you throw it on the stage.
Instead of throwing it on stage, you'd have a Clifford,
a Clifford stuffed animal.
And you would sell those.
You'd get a goody bag or something.
And it has all the things that they pull out at the right time.
Yeah, and the Clifford lights up during the show.
And that's kind of what's cool.
It's going to $5, the parents on the hook for the $40 light up
bear.
And I just think it would make a killing.
You could probably do like 40 of these shows a day,
or like not 40, probably eight maybe,
'cause it'll be super easy.
It's a theater in a box, it's 45 minutes,
and you just make a killing on goods.
Kids fill up seats.
Like they just, you wanna go to a movie by yourself?
No, you have to pay like four seats instead of two, right?
So it's like everything's double.
But I guess that's what I'm thinking.
It just, but I don't know much about the space, you know?
I just participated in it for a little bit, so.
- Addie, the expert.
- Yeah. Oh, we're, especially with like children's theater,
which the theater truthers call theater for young audiences.
Always trying to get more audience participation.
So this would be great.
Are you saying this is like something you buy
and then you take into the show with you
or like a different concept entirely?
- Part of the ticket.
Part of the ticket. - Part of the ticket.
Okay, yeah.
- Buy the ticket, the ticket, or man, that'd be so cool
if you could pick up the animal ahead of time,
like it's your ticket.
- Oh, yeah. - Anyways.
-There's like a book that you're reading in the days leading up to the event
that's like teaching them about the story or whatever,
and then the actual event expands on it somehow
or concludes the cliffhanger or something.
-Yes, it'd be cool. -Oh, that'd be so cool.
-Leo.
-Yes, and imagine if you're an author for Pete the Cat.
I don't know if you guys are like, "Pete the Cat's one of these books."
You could just make a new book and sell thousands of copies.
If you just travel through all the theater,
and this is a perfect little--
- Design the book specifically for this.
- Oh yeah, what is it?
I'm guessing, I don't know if like,
how they buy, do they buy plays or something?
Do you buy set designs and all that stuff,
as a package, do you know?
- No, not really.
You buy the rights to perform the play
and then you have in-house designers
for costumes, set, everything.
- Wow. - Usually.
Even at like community theaters. Yeah, they just go minimal
Do you want to reduce your craft to just reading from?
Russell's really cool kit and putting up the set design that they sent you
Do you want to take everything that you're interested in and just automate it?
Listen theaters are struggling, right?
Hey, I mean I'm with you
I think you know if that would help then I mean there's definitely like when things go on tour
It's got to be exactly the same in each spot.
So something like that, like in a box, a lot of theaters would probably like be grateful
for it.
Oh great, now we don't have to like actually design this.
It's already done.
We just need to like find people to act in it.
So it could work.
Get kids in at a young age too.
Totally.
With touring companies, how much is the responsibility of the theater that they're in and how much
is the responsibility of the company coming in?
Yeah, really depends on the show.
Most of it, from my understanding with like professional Broadway touring, is it's pretty
much all the responsibility of the company. They may need a few things like the lighting grids,
or stage structure changed ahead of time if it can be, but they bring all their own lights,
sound, set, everything. And they load it in in like eight hours. Yeah.
- Dang, okay. Not dissimilar to what you're describing, Russell. You could have this,
you know, be a touring thing that goes from town to town or whatever. Something to put butts in
seats for your theater that's kind of hands-off. - Oh yeah.
- Yeah. - Oh yeah.
For sure. Probably don't need a very big cast either right? Can you describe what
this was that you went to with your kid? I don't fully understand it. Yeah there's
a book. There's a book series every parent who I don't know goes to any of
these library books they've probably heard of it like it's a black cat who
has white shoes and there's like songs and all that stuff. Sorry that's the
children's book Pete the Cat. He had a play in Grand Rapids Civic Theater. He.
I don't think it was he, I think they just got the rights to it
And they performed some I think like a variety of different songs around books that they've written
So it was like six different songs around his VW bus
His white shoes and all that stuff. My buttons, my buttons, my two groovy buttons. That's yes
Leo knows this, the groovy. Yeah, he's groovy, right? Yeah
Yeah
who is one in like 14 months was just like awestruck.
Like, they're singing and moving around
and she just never, like it's just such a unique experience.
- Awesome.
- Yeah, that's cool.
- Five bucks too, like.
- Five bucks too.
- So good.
- Yeah.
- But I think what was missing from that though,
it was missing like when I got there,
and then, oh, so, okay, sorry.
I went to another play two weeks ago or three weeks ago
before Thanksgiving break,
and it was "The Princess and the Pea," okay?
Two hours, not 45 minutes, and it was a lot of plot.
You had to pay attention
and know what they were talking about.
It wasn't really a smattering of songs.
And so he definitely,
my kids did not have as good of a time there.
It wasn't as interactive, you know?
And I should've just left after the first hour.
(both laughing)
But I guess that's what I was dealing with.
I was struggling with,
And I just got thinking like, man,
if they just gave a couple little things
to keep them engaged during the boring parts,
the talk, a lot of talking dialogue.
- The plot.
- Yeah, 'cause you're probably like,
yeah, the plot, right?
Like for kids under five,
they need like, the toy needs to shake or something.
This could be way more engaging for my kids
if I just had a couple things,
like that light up bracelet,
or even some game show elements, you know what I mean?
I love the idea of like game shows,
traveling game shows or something.
- You remember those buttons that they had
in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" audiences
for like the poll the audience,
they had an ABCD at every seat and just a little remote.
You want that for, or like the classroom remote clickers
or Kahoot or whatever.
- Dory the Explorer at that point.
- But for the whole--
- You gotta ask the audience.
- Yeah, what kind of things could you do with that?
- Give them all laser pointers.
(laughing)
and give the person on stage sunglasses, a welder's mask.
[LAUGHTER]
And they just chase around the red lights
the entire 45 minutes.
That would work.
That'd be great.
That's fun.
Have you heard about how those Taylor Swift bracelets work?
Is that well-trodden territory at this point?
I have always wondered that.
There's bracelets with a single light on them, nice and bright,
and people hold them up.
And they have an IR sensor.
And there's people with IR spotlights up way up
the rafters who are like directing a big flashlight of infrared on everyone and
that's what the bracelet is looking for and lighting up so you get these like
spotlight patterns and stuff across the audience because there's literally
someone operating them all manually through the air it is not like a RF
whatever it is just a dumb enough. How do they do like a full massive blast
everyone at once? It's gotta be. Spotlights. Yeah no it's like a... Oh IR that's crazy
It's super cool. It's low-tech you can have a big-ass like flashlight basically like a disco ball strobe sort of thing
Yeah, super cool
Anyway, it's something like that, but for kids. Yes awesome TB Barnum's traveling kids book circus
TB BT either
PT
You can be PD or whatever PD Barnum, that's it that's a different guy. I'm a totally different guy
You can have the whole spin-off. I'm PGB Barnum
And then when you're ready to upgrade your brand then you can come out with a rocky horror picture show edition the adult version after dark
Twilight rocky horror picture
Everybody gets vampire teeth in a bag
Werewolf ears
Okay, Addy, what do you have for us this week?
All right, so at college, a lot of us, a lot of people I know are seniors now.
I'm a senior, which means we have to start going to the grocery store and cooking our
own food.
Boo.
And a lot of times in West Michigan in the winter, it's not very pleasant to be outside
and carrying lots of bags to and from your car, and then you've got to put the cart away.
It's just so annoying.
So this would actually be a good thing for all seasons, some sort of self-returning grocery
cart.
As in, in the parking lot, you just leave it outside your car and then it either steers
itself or something comes by and gets it back to the cart return.
You know those big things that workers use to steer 50 carts at once?
Maybe that just kind of drives around and picks things up.
can be remote control that but a Roomba yes it's literally like the Roomba for
the parking lot this would have issues with cars that would need to be I love
the idea of a grocery cart that could find its way home I just want to see
these like just like one just like going down the highway it's got to make it
Back to buyers.
(humming)
- How inspirational.
- Like the can of soup that rolls out of the market
back to the house.
- Most of the time the carts are sitting
waiting to be charged.
They're very bursty.
It's very well suited for the electric motor paradigm.
- Yes, exactly.
- You could just take one scooter wheel, right?
At the front of the cart and it just has a 360 turn radius.
- Caster on the front, a powered caster.
Yeah.
Self-driving cars, if all started in like predefined, well-mapped areas, it wouldn't
be hard to map, like, just the grocery store parking lot very, very accurately.
They don't have to go far.
Very true.
And then the added bonus of you not getting flamed by your friends for the social shopping
cart theory that you're a horrible person if you don't put it away, so.
Also that.
Do you guys put your shopping carts away?
Eddie, why are you asking that question?
Of course.
[LAUGHTER]
Are you a monster?
Are you a monster, Eddie?
No, I'm not.
But it angers me when people are.
Me too.
So solve the problem with automation,
just like everything else in our modern world.
Yeah, the evil corporate speaking me says,
oh, I can replace that with a robot?
Oh, let me buy a $400 million worth of robot wheels
instead of paying workers to do that.
So that sounds perfect, Addy, for world domination.
- Let's all invest in robot wheels.
- Just trying to stay ahead of the curve, you know?
- Big robot car.
- They don't get sick.
Yeah, robot cars don't get sick.
They can put their own.
(laughing)
- Don't need health insurance.
- They don't need paid time off.
Perfect, you know?
The white, oh, sorry.
The overlord company CEOs are happy, so.
Have you seen those suitcases that follow you motorized through the airport that are now banned?
No.
Imagine that in the grocery store, right?
Like, you're just walking around and it's following you.
That would be really cool.
You got a little keychain that it knows where you are or something, I don't know, a little clip to follow.
It'd be kind of nice to--I know that some of those shopping cart maneuvers around tight corners and tight aisles can be a little dicey,
So maybe this is a traffic nightmare waiting to happen, but it would be kind of cool to just like walk around grab stuff
Toss it over your shoulder and not really think about like positioning the cart just right. It's just it every time. Yeah
It'll probably next version. It'll check it out for you, too
No
they I was looking into this because this is one of my original ideas but they already have shopping carts that like as you put
Like a can of food in it scans it
There's like scanners all around like the top rim and then you can like check out on a little like keypad at the top
So nice, I mean it driving for you is just taking it the next logical step people steal shopping carts
I would steal so many of these
Just free casters motors powered the whole AI vision system inside this to scan my food easy
I hit 30 miles an hour on that bad boy took the limiter off. We've taken it off some sweet jumps
One of my favorite moments when Russell and I were at Stark Garden and some guy was pitching a smart traffic cone
He's just like I want a traffic cone that'll automatically shift into positions on highways
You can deploy them if there's an accident or something. It'll go around he had all these use cases for it
He had prototypes and he was so excited and then one of the judges was just like what's to keep people from stealing that because I
Would steal that as soon as I saw that I would steal that all of them that you have and the guy had just nothing
to say
I would steal that.
I would love to have one self-driving Meyer cart.
Although, if it's got the smarts,
then it probably could have a little position beacon,
lock it down, make it annoying, have a little siren.
I don't know.
Lime scooter tech, you know?
Actually, that's probably what you would--
Famously goes very well for lime scooters
at the bottom of rivers and stuff.
Well, it could deter shopping cart theft,
because it beeps and the wheels lock or whatever.
Could do something like that.
e-bike sort of thing yeah yeah this would be great at Costco cuz I bet a lot
of people their carts are like heavy you know keeps them shopping longer right if
you grandma yes good for grandma you combine it with you combine it with the
like little motorized things that you can have for people with disabilities or
whatever you stick a seat and a wheel on the front of that bad boy like a train
behind you yeah make them so they can link up with each other I mean that's
what they're doing in the parking lot and drag race them hell yeah we just are
this Wally this is just we're living in Wally I've got two kids I've got two
carts I'll see you kids in a half-hour you make a race out of this see who can
make a lap around the whole store the fastest on your cool motorized shopping
cards running over people can you imagine a go-kart lap around a store
dang that'd be so fun that's like if it's an empty store after hours that
would be a good track wouldn't it you're like slaloming around
nevermind would that be fun these stores are looking for something to do it to in
the morning boom go-kart double feature get the forkless
- Actual bananas behind you, you know?
- Yeah, they can have a speed limit during the day
and then it just turns off at midnight.
- Oh, we're still thinking the cart.
I was thinking actual go-karts.
- Yeah.
- Oh, an actual go-kart.
- Go-karts!
It's C-A-R-T-S.
That's the name of your product.
The go-kart.
- Go-karts.
- Yeah.
- It would take years for the novelty to wear off
of me watching the cart return itself.
I might watch that until I die.
Like, I'm just gonna sit in the car and watch it putz off.
That's the future, baby.
I'm gold they're like hitting each other stuff. Yeah, man
That would actually be a lot of fun to just see like a swarm of shopping
Are you trying to get to your car don't let it escape it has no natural predators
And you know like half of them are gonna be buggy or glitchy like you could
Denting people stuff smash even if it's made of foam, you know
I want to still--
What?
[LAUGHTER]
I want to still be bad.
Hold on.
Say that again.
[LAUGHTER]
What if--
[LAUGHTER]
Made of foam?
What if every shopping cart was made of foam for this?
It's lighter.
It doesn't scratch cars.
You don't need any sensors on it.
It just bounces around as it makes its way back.
It's like a bumper car.
[LAUGHTER]
Exactly.
[LAUGHTER]
It's the DVD box.
You know the DVD symbol going around the whole parking lot
until it gets into the car return?
Oh, sure.
And I've never seen a shopping cart that's been beat to shit. So these things will probably last forever, right?
Candy-coated shell, all right
Tired is parking near the entrance of the store and wired is parking near the nearest like return corral
That's the move. I always I optimize my parking spot for the nearest shopping corral
You could get rid of all the cart the damn cart return parking spots though. Imagine you wheel out your car
carts into the middle like where the cars drive and then it knows it all it has to do is go
Towards the store. You don't need to do any of the tracking you just push it out in the middle
This is a basic compass on it. That'll keep going
Around back just hitting the wall trying to get in for the backdoor
But that's why you have like one or two people just going going up and down the aisles collecting the carts, you know
I see. That's true. It can just link up back in the front door. That's it. You don't need the ones in the middle of the
Cars anymore, right? Have you heard of the infamous the villages down the retirement community down in Florida?
There's a lot of things that it's known for but one thing that's positive that it's known for is they have a whole
network and infrastructure for like parking lots and roads and everything just for golf carts like
Miniaturized everything it's adorable. It's like munchkin land
They've got bridges over to the golf course and stuff
But everything is built for like I'm too old to be actually driving a several thousand pound car
So I've got my golf cart and stuff
you can kind of imagine like
Lanes and designated spots and stuff for these carts to be swimming their way back to the front afterward and stuff
That'd be so fun. What an engineering challenge to have like crosswalks and stuff just dedicated to
Pedestrians and carts. Nope. I'm doing hamster tubes above the whole parking lot
I'm coming back. A network of tunnels and elevators
The cart return is just like an empty pit with a conveyor belt
Like a bowling alley return. Just buy a new cart at that point
It just incinerates it. Melts it down. Rebuilds it with Scott's bakery
It's a base cart every time.
Shopping cart, there it goes.
Don't have to worry about sanitizing the cart if it's the first time it's been smelted.
What are we even talking about in this post?
Exactly! I have no idea!
Taking shopping carts and melting it to its raw materials.
Every time.
So we can make another shopping cart.
Addie, this idea is nuts.
What the hell were you thinking, Addie? This is ridiculous.
Well, dear listener, we know you have us in your ears as you're getting the groceries
for the week.
Thanks so much for joining us.
We hope you enjoyed yourself.
And thank you very much, Addy, for joining us.
This was really fun.
Thank you!
Our website is spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel, other social media.
Hey, if you have an idea like Aaron, record it in a voice memo, send it on over to podcast@spitball.show,
or just send it as a message.
We'd love to discuss it on the show.
That's also how you can follow us on the Fediverse such as Mastodon, we are podcast@Spitball.show,
or on Bluesky at spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is Swingers by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind that one friend that you keep stealing their groceries because
you're too lazy to go get your own, let them know about this episode.
We think they really like this one.
And if you wouldn't mind, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever it is
that you get your podcasts.
It's the best way for people to find out about the show.
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We will see you then.