How Text-to-CAD Works

• It’s the final week to apply! Design a 3D-printable household hack for a chance to win $500 in print credits with Makelab. Submissions are due by 2/02—apply now.
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Interesting Links 🏭

Text to CAD, where you use natural language to generate CAD models has been a hot topic of interest. We’ve been curious about how they work for a while and recently found an open-source repo, CQAsk, that breaks down the mechanics of how they work. It’s a combination of two components in the backend:

• Language Model: A language model (i.e. GPT-4, Llama 2, Claude) interprets natural language input—“create a cylinder with a radius of 5mm and height of 10mm”—and translates it into structured commands.
• CAD Engine: In this case, CadQuery—a Python library for parametric CAD scripting—takes those structured commands and generates the 3D model in standard formats like STEP or STP. CadQuery is built on OpenCASCADE, a geometric modeling kernel widely used in open-source CAD tools. You’ve probably used kernels like Parasolid in programs like NX and SolidWorks, a proprietary file format developed by Siemen.

Last step, create a frontend with a framework like React and you’ll have an interface where users can input natural language and prompt CadQuery in the backend to generate models! A startup from YCW25, Adam, recently launched their text to CAD editor with a suite of additional features. Zoo, another seed-stage startup, built a custom kernel that outputs editable models through point-and-click or code.

• Around 75% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. stem from fossil fuel combustion in the energy sector. Agriculture contributes about 12%, with land use, forestry, and industrial processes each adding around 7%. Broadly speaking, the US is representative of the global climate problem. In Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future, Saul Griffith argues that the U.S. can replace fossil fuels with renewable energy through rapid electrification of the energy system using existing technologies.

• At the turn of the century, Boeing dissolved their drafting group. There was no longer a drafting department, and in many ways marked the slow evolution in the digitization of drafting. This was the same year Boeing introduced the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, automating many of the functions handled by its document control department as well. The Death of the Draftsman is a collection of musings from an engineer with 50+ years of experience in design spanning all major eras of CAD. Today, an engineer spends a disparate amount of time doing the work formerly done by a draftsman and far less actually engineering.

• Vanadium flow batteries are a good non-volatile alternative to lithium-ion especially in industrial applications like grid scale storage. They consist of two tanks of electrolyte solution, one with vanadium in a higher oxidation state (V5+ and V4+) and the other with vanadium in a lower state (V3+ and V2+). The ionic flow within the battery makes the conservation of charge within the battery rather intriguing. Positive charge flows through the membrane to balance negative charge leaving and entering the anode and cathode respectively during charge and discharge cycles. Two commercial systems: Australian Vanadium (pilot scale) and Invinity Energy Systems (commercial scale).
• Geothermal heat pumps, also known as ground-source heat pumps, leverage the Earth's relatively stable subsurface temperature to provide heating, cooling, and hot water as an energy-efficient alternative to traditional HVAC. Borobotics, a Swiss startup, has developed an autonomous drilling machine for geothermal energy that burrows up to 500 meters deep, suitable for small-scale installations in residential areas. Measuring just 13.5cm wide and 2.8m long, their machine can also seal boreholes if it encounters water springs or gas reservoirs. The current focus is on small building HVAC, targeting European sites with depths of around 250 meters where subsurface temperatures average 14C.

• The U.S. Mint is releasing dollar coins for every state as part of a multi-year series called the American Innovation $1 Coin Program. The Alabama coin features the Saturn V rocket and the New Jersey coin highlights the invention of the light bulb.
• Researchers have identified a security flaw in Central Europe's renewable energy grid where unencrypted radio signals are used. This vulnerability uses software defined radios like the Flipper Zero (fun example), which can intercept and replicate Radio Ripple Control signals, potentially disrupting about 60GW of power.
• The Hottest Trend in Space is a Defense Pivot by Payload. If I had a nickel for every space company that pivoted to national security, well, I wouldn’t need to raise another round.

Some fun links and trends in the space sector:

Startup News 🚀 

• Earth AI has raised a $20M Series B to continue development of its AI-driven mineral discovery platform and fund efforts in their drilling technology development. The company uses predictive modeling to locate mineral deposits, validates them with in-house drilling, and sells the rights, often multi-billion dollar contracts, to major mining companies. The round was led by Tamarack Global and Cantos Ventures.
• 1X Technologies has acquired Kind Humanoid to expedite the development of humanoid robots, combining Kind's AI and design expertise with 1X's focus on home applications. Kind Humanoid had only 4 employees at the time of the acquisition. The intent of the merger is to enhance the natural interaction capabilities of 1X robots to become more advanced home assistants.
• Neko Health, co-founded by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, has raised a $260M Series B to develop AI-powered body scans for preventative healthcare monitoring. Reports indicate that Neko has used the funds to acquire an unnamed sensor startup, along with commercial expansion in Europe and the US. The non-invasive Neko Health Scan employs advanced imaging and AI algorithms to analyze millions of health data points in minutes. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

• Spaceium has secured a $6.3M seed round led by Initialized Capital to develop space refueling stations, utilizing proprietary cryogenic fuel storage systems that prevent boil-off. Orbiting spacecraft will also be able to visit the fueling stations for routine maintenance from their robotic arms with the intent of extending the length of space orbit missions.
• Bedrock Energy, a geothermal heating and cooling company, has raised a $12M Series A led by Titanium Ventures. The company specializes in installation of geothermal heat pump systems using internal tools for subsurface thermal simulation and a construction platform for geothermal borefield construction.