Dustin Walper

Founder of @ValstadShip. We're building the machine that builds the ships.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

We're hiring an Operations Lead!

Come help us change the way ships get built in America.

https://t.co/xSIk1kquZj

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Anyone have a good direct primary care/concierge doc reco in Austin?

I've used One Medical for the past few years, but they've become hot garbage post-acquisition.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

New sr. welding technician started today.

He's already blazing through tests on metal cored wire - flux core is great for dealing with rust/mill scale/primer, but the the slag layer makes it harder to automate inspection.

Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Still safer than the steel geodesic domes we had when I was a kid.

The 80s/90s were truly the Buckminster Fuller era of playground construction.

[David Hansen 🇺🇸 🇳🇿 @boxcardavid]

These seem like a liability nightmare but the mean free path of a ballistic child is pretty short

Tort law understands plinko math

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

As much as I’d like lower prices for Robotaxi, it’s worth noting that even though the cars are self-driving there’s still a lot of expensive infrastructure required to make it all work.

Cleaning, charging, maintenance, remote fleet monitoring & occasional human intervention, regular mapping of service areas, not to mention the enormous capital investment in R&D and the production line. Tesla is also currently putting up its own capital to finance fleet expansion.

Would be a mistake to price it too low early on. Anecdotally, many friends already express a strong preference for Robotaxi based on the experience rather than price.

[mantequilla 🧈 @gheeunit]

Hey @elonmusk respectfully there is no reason why @Robotaxi fares need to be this high just because Uber and others are charging the same if not higher.

Dynamic pricing for rideshares done by autonomous vehicles should have never been a thing especially when they’re doing the work of transporting people around instead of a human. That should mean significant cost savings for both you and the rider regardless of time, date, location, or event.

Fix this then you will seriously toss traditional rideshare to the grave for good.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@SkinnyfatTony @grok How much grok would a grok bot grok if a grok bot could grok bot?

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Accurate.

[Jason Bacon @beerundbacon]

Men if you are over 30 your frontal lobe is fully developed, you are going to be this retarded for the rest of your life

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

She enjoyed the hell out of that jet ski.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Me when people come to visit the Valstad office.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@MatthewChang Have you seen how heavy ships are?

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Awesome Defense Tech roundtable at UT Austin this week.

The kids are alright.

[zach @zachglabman]

Factory Friday

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@zachglabman You reach acroooooss the Pacific and you drink China's milkshake!

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Just gave @zachglabman a tour of the Valstad space.

Glorious mustache.

We're officially in the "There Will Be Blood" era of Reindustrialization.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@gbtechnologia Likewise my man!

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@schulzb589 Just automated visual inspection for now, but def. have thoughts on phased-array UT.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Testing the new welding sensor package we assembled & integrated in-house.

Weld camera + leading and trailing lasers.

The dataset we’re building is incredible. Will be able to completely automate inspection as well.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

Lots of new followers, so I should probably explain what we're doing at @ValstadShip:

We're decomposing the common operations required to build ships, and building autonomous systems to carry out those operations at least 10x faster.

Let's make America competitive again.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@rickyhorwitz This is primarily for use on our own production line… not currently planning to sell it independently.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@BoCamaro High-mix manufacturing is fundamentally different than what most of this hardware was designed for.

[Dustin Walper @DustinWalper]

@BoCamaro I'm not aware of "a dozen different robot companies" that can autonomously assemble, weld, and inspect large, high-mix sections of ship structure.

I'd recommend walking around a couple of shipyards in the US to get a sense of how "solved" the problem really is.