C-Tech and Harken have developed a new style stud and receptacle design that is more robust than the traditional system. It features an extended stud shoulder with a clearance fit so that the bending moment is moved away from the thread root diameter.

The design also ensures the load is consistent regardless of receptacle rotation, especially on upper battens where receptacles rotate on the studs through tacks and gybes. Only C-Tech receptacles are compatible with both high-load and standard Harken studs. 

C-Tech staff Alex Vallings, Lyn Holland, Chris Kitchen, Alastair Campbell and European sales agent Fraser Brown will be at the METS, Marine Equipment Trade Show in Amsterdam, 13th - 15th November. Come and visit us in Hall 2 (New Zealand pavilion) Stand 230.

A number of new products will be on display and we would love your feedback.

Register for METS here https://registration.n200.com/survey/1zd0rxltnx6ek?actioncode=NTWO001283JXM&partner-contact=3oy9u7ga5eb8k

Emirates Team New Zealand sailing on Bermuda’s Great Sound for the second day of testing in the lead up to the 35th America’s Cup Hamish Hooper/Emirates Team NZ

C-Tech began life in 1997 as a small back yard operation in co-founder Alex Valling’s shed. 

Fast forward 20 years and C-Tech has a lot to celebrate. Their composite technicians have produced over 50,000 custom designed carbon spars, and they’ve had a successful partnership with Emirates Team New Zealand for five consecutive America’s Cup campaigns.

C-Tech and Emirates Team New Zealand first worked together during their 2003 campaign to supply sail battens. Despite radical changes in America’s Cup classes, 15 years later C-Tech continues to supply wing components, rudders, dagger board cases, dagger board tips, fairings, lifting posts, accumulator tubes, struts, prods and ‘bike components’ for their 2017 challenge. C-Tech has also supplied most of the other America’s Cup teams with their prods and a number of compression struts.

C-Tech’s Clean Room

Emirates Team New Zealand’s 2017 challenge has been one of the most dramatic in their history with C-Tech. 

Days before America’s cup qualifying was due to start Emirates Team New Zealand damaged a rudder. C-Tech got the call to build an emergency replacement. The C-Tech crew pulled together and rostered a 24 hour shift to get two weeks work completed in five days. 

Two weeks later just hours after Emirates Team New Zealand’s capsize on the Great Sound during qualifying meant another phone call to the C-Tech team. Within hours the emergency order order of fairings and struts were being built. They were completed and shipped to Bermuda in record time. 

C-Tech operates from new premises in Avondale

Emirates Team New Zealand Shore Manager Sean Regan commented of C-Tech “They have taken on a key role building specialised componentry as part of the build group for our current AC class yacht. The team at C-Tech ensures the constant last minute changes to design and construction are communicated, planned and implemented efficiently to ensure the parts are completed on time and quality controls remain at the highest standard”.

C-Tech has welcomed the change in America’s Cup sailing format, C-Tech co-founder Alex Valling’s explains “Over the last five campaigns we have seen a massive change in technology - foiling has turned sailing on its head. There has been a huge amount of learning needed from the teams, which has given us a fantastic opportunity to learn with them, and keep abreast of the latest developments and manufacturing techniques.” 

C-Tech built Emirates Team New Zealand’s new rudder

So where to next? 

Latest developments at C-Tech include a significant increase in expertise and diversification of skills. A plotter and a new laminating and wrapping machine, along with the addition of a world-class clean room mean C-Tech is able to embark on more ambitious projects than ever before. 

As the team enters the next chapter of business growth, one thing is for sure, change is the only certainty, as the composites industry is constantly advancing with improvements in technology. C-Tech is set for the challenge.

Emirates Team New Zealand sailing on Bermuda’s Great Sound for the second day of testing in the lead up to the 35th America’s Cup © Hamish Hooper/Emirates Team NZ

Emirates Team New Zealand sailing on Bermuda’s Great Sound for the second day of testing in the lead up to the 35th America’s Cup © Hamish Hooper/Emirates Team NZ

C-Tech 18ft Skiff is a top competitor on the international and national circuits

Volvo 65 Battens by C-Tech © Yvan Zedda

C-Tech now employs 37 staff

C-Tech manufacture and supply carbon tube

C-Tech’s Tim Willetts takes time to reflect on changes in Moth class rig design and development over the past six years. A lot has happened behind the scenes that is giving the top sailors the edge by staying ahead.

There have been two clear periods of development where ideas were explored and the performance of the class improved. Willetts who is passionate about the Moth says it is a unique and exciting development class to work with. 

‘Because the Moth is so sensitive to weight and small design changes, it has been an excellent opportunity to work with the world’s best and learn. The class enables a fast turnaround between new ideas, design and testing which has accelerated progression’ This fast paced environment has kept the Moth at the forefront of international dinghy development, and it remains one of the highest performing classes on foils.

C-Tech has been lucky to work with many top Moth sailors over the years. It’s team of sponsored sailors going into the 2017 Moth World Championships at Lake Garda includes Paul Goodison, Rob Greenhalgh, Dan Ward, Scott Babbage, Rob Gough, Philipp Buhl and Jim McMillan. A significant proportion of the fleet is also using C-Tech components.

2010-2015: Figuring out the Flex Curve – Two Extremes

During this period design trends were extremely varied, every sailor had a different idea and each were chasing a different path for speed. There were two main schools of thought; the first running a mast with a more flexible tip, much like a traditional skiff rig; and the second running an even flex curve where the top and bottom of the mast bent evenly.

C-Tech entered the game with a strong background in skiffs, so it was a good match for us to get started with the flexible tip rigs. The first mast designs were essentially a dumbed-down skiff rig. Although the rigs proved to be very fast through the water, it came at the cost of upwind height and the rigs were only faster in narrow wind ranges. 

The other development path was going for a more even mast curve. Because the sails were manufactured using lower grade materials with a reasonable amount of stretch and give, they worked well with these masts and were quite forgiving with varying seam shape, luff curve and mast stiffness. While this set up performed particularly well in the lower half of the wind range, there was a disadvantage in the upper wind range where the sail would open at the lower leech first which was not desirable.

During this time there was not a huge amount of science behind the design trends compared to today, the process was more trial and error. We worked closely with Kevin Ellway from Ellway Aero-Hydrodynamic Design, who is designer of the Exocet Moth and has had a large part to play in development of the Moth class in the UK. ‘I introduced the use of IMCS mast stiffness and flex ratings as an objective method for comparing masts – it comes from windsurfing. It’s not great, but was better than having no standards at all!’ says Ellway. ‘The change from high flex to 0 occurred with the advent of skinny (42mm OD) masts which replaced the 50mm+ diameter masts used on the Bladeriders. Astonishingly, the same sails were used for both types of mast despite the huge difference in flex curve.’

Over time sails tended to move towards less seam shape and more luff curve, and sailors were using multiple sails on the same mast. It was not uncommon for a sailor to turn up to a competition with 1 mast, 4 sails and 2 sets of battens. 

With 8 possible combinations it made picking the right gear difficult. And as we know, the less rig options you have the easier the decision is! These decisions were to be made on top of what foils to use. Your day could be over before you even started the race if the wrong gear was selected!

During this period the Moth fleet was on a massive rig development learning curve and eventually we figured out what was working, what wasn’t working, and the science behind it. With the improvement in materials and more sophisticated design software the schools of thought moved towards each other and resulted in the beginning of the current rigs we see today.

2015-2017: The modern 4.5% Flex Curve Era

The move towards a rig with a small flex curve of 4.5% made the most of the even curve mast, yet the softer tip ensured the leech opened first at the head when things got overpowered. The breakthrough for C-Tech came in 2015 at the UK Nationals where Chris Rashley used the brand new C-Tech 15° bent boom and 03 mast and completely dominated the series winning 11 out of 12 races. It was clear the new rig set up was a step forward. 

Ellway comments ‘Chris Rashley and I, in conjunction with Lennon Sails, moved to sails which have more luff round and less seam shape – this came from my CFD work. A consequence of this is that the sails are more mast specific now than they used to be.’

As sail membrane materials became stiffer and more stable, so too did the masts. A number of things happened.

This increase in overall stiffness meant there was less give in the whole rig set up so the boats became more difficult and tweaky to sail upwind. The vang purchase increased from 24:1 to 54:1 to get enough leverage to control the leech of the sail. Sails have less luff curve and more seam shape and the cunningham has become a critical control for tuning the rig. The stiff rig is very sensitive to small cunningham adjustments and can significantly affect the performance of the sail.

We have seen definite performance gains upwind particularly in certain wind bands. Up-and-coming sailor Jim McMillan says ‘After switching to the C-Tech O3b UHM mast I have definitely found an improvement in my upwind speed and is the lightest mast on the market’. The trade-off is that the boats have become far more difficult to get them in the groove – and adapt to changes in the conditions without falling out of the groove. In some cases a sailor is at times better off on an older set up that is more forgiving. Because the boats have high average speeds – if you are not moded correctly you can get severely punished.

Downwind however, has seen big performance improvements with the stiff set up. With the rig and sail shape stiffer and more stable you are able to really ‘grunt’ up the boat and the speed shows round the race course.

The other change with the new set up is sailors are now carrying 1 main, 2 masts and sometimes 2 sets of battens. The masts have the same flex curves and just different stiffness’s to accommodate for wind strength or sailor weight. It has led to some changes in battens.

In lower wind ranges battens used are generally the traditional ~40-45% draft position allowing the leech to round up a little to generate power. For upper wind ranges a lot of development has been necessary to get the sail optimally performing. With very high vang loads there is a high tension load through the sail from the tip of the mast down to the clew of the sail effectively driving the sail to fold at that point. To resist this and help with a straighter sail exit, battens have been stiffened in the back half. They now have an effective draft position of ~35%. There is still developments and improvements to be made in these areas but the trends are clear. We are still working on the trade-off in performance downwind with the draft forward battens.

More High Modulus Fibre and Kinked Booms

Since 2015 when the masts and sails got significantly stiffer, booms, wing tubes and mast posts have had to become stiffer as well. We are now using a lot more high modulus (HM) fibre in our products and in more and more cases ultra-high modulus (UHM) fibre. All the wing tubes have become smaller and more aerodynamic, meaning there is no other option but to use (U)HM carbon fibre to maintain stiffness.

In 2015 kinked booms were developed to allow more space for sailors to move and therefore improving boat handling, kinked booms have also allowed a longer leech which provides a small aero benefit.

C-Tech has further developed the boom to incorporate a tapered aft section, optimising the booms stiffness to weight ratio accounting for the changing loads across the boom. 

C-Tech 15° HM Moth Boom - Chris Kitchen - © C-TECH http://www.c-tech.co.nz

Cleaner Aero

With everything on these boats being pushed to the limit, weight is a massive factor. If you can reduce the weight it means a smaller foil and less drag – therefore more speed. We recently worked on a project with Paul Goodison to clean up the aerodynamics with super light weight wing bar fairings. ‘I was looking at trying to make my Exocet more Aero and the main area was a rear bar fairing,’ says Goodison. ‘C-Tech were able not only to add an aero fairing but also reduce the weight by using UHM carbon.’

Design of rear wing bar fairings to clean up aero on the boat - Chris Kitchen - © C-TECH http://www.c-tech.co.nz

Future Developments

C-Tech has worked on a number of development projects with its clients including two Moth wing masts. Both projects showed promise in narrow wind ranges, but the challenges were in the control systems. More development is required to get these rigs up to a viable level; our sailors have chosen to go a different track for now. We are comparing them to the current pocket luff setup that has been seriously refined over time with a huge amount of people and resource involved. The question is who is bold enough to take on the task of developing the wing mast rig to a point it overtakes the current set up.

Another exciting rig we have been working with is that of Rob Goughs. He has developed a wishbone rig that he may be using for the Moth Worlds in Garda. The biggest advantage of this rig is the fact you can achieve a significant end plate effect at the foot of the sail which is what we have seen on the A-Class catamarans and Americas Cup foiling cats. There are other advantages of the rig being spreaderless (less weight and windage) and also getting away with a lighter boom. 

Rob Goughs Wishbone Rig will turn heads - Rob Gough - © C-TECH http://www.c-tech.co.nz

With a project like this it is essential to accurately build what has been modelled on the software simulations. Rob comments ‘I have been super impressed with accuracy of the mast production to the spec provided and the level of finish on the section is first class. It's an absolute pleasure working with C-Tech, the team is knowledgeable and very willing to help people who are thinking outside the box.’

We will be watching closely to see what Rob pulls out of the bag, but also keeping in mind that there is a lot more development that can be done on this set up. 

After the worlds C-Tech has a development plan to investigate some ideas that improve performance. Either by reducing weight, reducing windage, increasing power or just making the boats easier to sail. This plan includes looking at a better layout with higher hound positions, spreaderless rigs and shorter masts. You only need to look at the latest Exocet production Moth to see the extensive use of C-Tech high modulus carbon tubes and spars to grasp the extent the class is going to for weight and stiffness gains.

The latest Exocet production Moth features a lot of C-Tech HM carbon tube - Sam Barron-Fox - © C-TECH http://www.c-tech.co.nz

Software analysis of a higher position on the Moth rig - Chris Kitchen - © C-TECH http://www.c-tech.co.nz

C-Tech is excited to continue to helping the development of the Moth class and push boundaries where possible. Willetts says ‘aside from the challenge, it’s the feedback from our customers that really drives the team at C-Tech. When you get comments like that [below] from sailors and designers at the top of the game it really creates a buzz within our team’.

Rob Greenhalgh: ‘I am very happy with all of my C Tech products to date. The spec is always as expected and the finish is superb with no additional work required. Attention to detail and service have always been top level’

Kevin Ellway: ‘I have always been a staunch advocate of C-Tech. This goes back to sailing Cherubs. The C-Tech prepreg, no crimp layup manufacture method and the fact that you don’t end up with steps in the laminate in the mast’s taper area means you get a higher stiffness to weight ratio. Even more important is that C-Tech masts are more consistent. When we measure the bend on other masts, we found big variations in both flex and stiffness.’

Tim Willetts summarises ‘While the team at C-Tech has had the great privilege to work with so many world class sailors, and have made some great steps forwards in the last few years, we are really looking forward to the future of the Moth class as a great test bed for further innovation and development. When you see the calibre of sailors competing at these worlds it is easy to see why we are so passionate about the class.’

For more information about C-Tech Moth products please contact us at c-tech@c-tech.co.nz

C-Tech is always looking to grow capabilities and stay at the cutting edge of technology delivering premium products to its customers.

The West Auckland based composite engineering company has recently added a new CNC router to complement their extensive range of dedicated laminating machines, plotter, world-class clean rooms, ovens and autoclave.

Installed in a purpose-built room, the Routech R200 5 Axis CNC router has a machining envelope of 5,300mm x 1,370mm x 800mm. The router gives C-Tech the ability machine foam cores, moulds, jigs, prototypes, 2D sheets and complete post-production processing in-house.

The CNC machine has filled a gap in C-Tech's manufacturing assets and enables the company to tackle more challenging and complex projects.

C-Tech also now has the capability to take most composite projects from tooling through to the final fitted-out part.

Although the 5-Axis router has only been operational a few months, it is already busy and integrated into the processes for masts, battens and tubes ensuring accurate machining of parts for tooling and fit out. The router is improving lead times and efficiency in the workshop keeping staff and customers happy.

The primary materials being machined are composites, plastics, timber and tooling board, however, depending on the project the machine is capable of working with a variety of other materials.

Key appointments

C-Tech has made two new key appointments co-incidental with the new technology.

Sam Bullock joined C-Tech in May to run the 5 Axis CNC router. Sam is New Zealand’s top Kite Foil racer and has an impressive sailing CV. After completing his Mechanical Engineering degree, he worked at Styrotech gaining experience on machining, moulding and materials and adds a boost to C-Tech’s capabilities.

Thomas Mellano also joined C-Tech as design manager in May. After completing his mechanical engineering degree, Thomas worked at Karver in the early days helping develop their product range. He then spent several years at Safran in the aerospace and composite divisions working on process development, quality control and product design for business jets. He has returned to a smaller (non-corporate) company to follow his real passion for the marine industry. Thomas brings experience and skills from the aerospace industry to our production processes, engineering capability and 3D modelling.

To enquire about using the CNC router for your project please contact c-tech@c-tech.co.nz.

A very successful result for the Kiwis at the 2018 JJ Giltinan Championship. Congratulations to Mutley, Matty and Triple on board Honda Marine for the win! Also a very solid performance from the rest of the Kiwi team - Maersk a close 2nd, Knight Frank in 7th and C-Tech in 8th.... all with C-Tech rigs of course...

An exciting year to come defending the trophy! #fizzon



Read the full story here

In no time at all New Zealand composites company C-Tech have gone from making some of the world’s fastest battens to building substantial chunks of (very) fast boats

Main picture: Tom Slingsby practising on Sydney Harbour for the 2018 Moth Worlds in Bermuda. Last year in Garda he finished fourth overall in a hyper competitive fleet topped by fellow Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison. Given the skiff flavour of much of the racing in Australia and New Zealand, it is not very surprising that many of the best Moth sailors were very early converts to the C-Tech products – which have continued to evolve as both the boats and the fastest sailing styles have continued to develop

When Alex Vallings set about building composite spars for his skiff two decades ago he had little idea that his efforts would blossom into a specialist facility building custom components for America’s Cup campaigns, superyachts and spacecraft – not to mention 50,000+ spars, battens, tubes, poles and booms. His primary interest in the hot cauldron of skiff racing was in ‘making cool things go fast’ – and 20 years later that goal remains the central philosophy of the company he founded.

In a world where loads are constantly increasing but the competitive edge demands lighter and lighter components, C-Tech have carved a niche in precision composite engineering, taking them to the limits of material properties.

When C-Tech was established it operated out of a farm shed to the west of Auckland. Now its fourth premises is a modern 2,000m2 factory, with a 600m2 world-class temperature-controlled clean room, an autoclave, 10m flatbed plotter and recently installed five-axis CNC cutter. The factory was purposebuilt for C-Tech seven years ago, but already it looks as if further expansion might be required.

‘It really began with making 49er wings and foils for Mackay boats,’ says Vallings. ‘At the same time we were developing spars and hulls for 12ft skiffs. Then in 2002 we started getting into making carbon sail battens. I went to Europe and watched the start of the Volvo Ocean Race and listened to sailors complaining about battens breaking.’

That got him thinking that C-Tech could step up into bigger boat battens, so he worked up a prototype and presented it to Team New Zealand, who were busy preparing for the 2003 America’s Cup defence. ‘After trialling a full set of the C-Tech battens they reckoned ours were lighter and stronger than those they had been using, so they agreed we would become exclusive batten supplier. This was the beginning of the large square-top mainsails and batten technology had to take a big leap forward to support the leeches.’

Alinghi had also tested the new battens, so in the 2003 regatta C-Tech battens were on both sides of the America’s Cup match. For the 2007 Cup cycle all the teams specified C-Tech mainsail battens.

There is much more to battens than meets the eye. At the top end the C-Tech battens are high-tech, hollow and tapered rectangular structures of varying stiffness, individually designed to match the sail’s curvature and chord-depth.

An in-house software program for batten design provides predictions that allow sailmakers to evaluate stiffness, camber and weight before confirming batten specifications. This is particularly important on high-end projects for performance yachts and very large superyachts.

Also widely used on the grand prix circuit, including the Volvo Ocean Race, is the PlateBatten range. These are like a modern version of pultruded battens, but made with a pre-preg autoclaved system, which is much stronger. The C-Tech product has the taper built in on the centreline, rather than ground off afterwards, which eliminates outer skin delamination issues under bending.

In 2007 the AC rule also allowed headsail battens, spurring C-Tech into developing inflatable versions that could withstand the constant bending and abuse inflicted during tacking duels. The Cup projects enabled C-Tech to invest in a new plant to improve their processes, while the kudos of working in the Cup also attracted attention from the superyacht market, where their Air Battens found an application on large furling headsails.

As part of their constant R&D, which is both internally driven and responds to customer demand, C-Tech later came up with a better headsail batten solution with their C-T Flexifurl battens, which comprise two curved composite plates encased in a durable webbing cover. They resist bend up to a certain point and then kink, but spring back. ‘It sounds pretty simple in principle but there are a lot of technical challenges in producing something that rolls up when the sail furls and takes a lot of abuse as the sail goes through tacks. Another challenge is that headstay foils are getting smaller, so the sails have to furl ever tighter. You need to find a balance between stiffness and furlability.’

Although inflatable battens are no longer on the product list the technology has been applied in another superyacht application. Improving on the solid bucket spinnaker snuffer, C-Tech came up with an inflatable ring system: the C-T SnuffAir. The advantages are that, with the snuffer deflated, the huge sails are easier to stow; and when they are hoisted fully inflated the soft structure poses no danger to crew, or to the expensive paintwork of masts, communication domes and so on.

Meanwhile, when the America’s Cup moved to multihulls, C-Tech became even more involved, supplying both Oracle and Alinghi for the 2010 Deed of Gift Match before stepping up a notch for the AC72 cycle in San Francisco, with many of the jib battens and wing components including the control systems and quadrants from C-Tech.

For the AC50s in Bermuda the company’s involvement ramped up yet again, producing complete foil sets for the Emirates Team New Zealand SL33 training catamarans. Work on the AC50s included complex, high-loaded structures such as daggerboard cases, bearings, spine tubes, rudders and foil tips, along with wing control systems, fairings, hydraulic pump boxes, tubes and accumulators – even the bicycle set-ups. ‘They started with aluminium bikes and then, when they were happy with all the positioning and ergonomics, we made up the carbon components.’

C-Tech also drew public acknowledgement from team CEO Grant Dalton for delivering under extreme pressure when things went wrong in Bermuda. ETNZ broke a rudder before the Challenger Series began and the C-Tech crew worked night and day for two weeks to get a replacement out to them in record time.

‘That happened again after their capsize,’ Vallings recalls. ‘There was extensive damage to the fairings and we built another set and also had to replace a cant strut for one of the daggerboards. We worked pretty much non-stop from the Tuesday of the accident. I had a friend who was flying up to Bermuda, so I got him to hand-deliver everything to the team by the Saturday morning in time to go racing again.

‘The work we did with Emirates Team New Zealand has been good for us – it has put us at the leading edge of foil design and technology. We have been able to apply that experience to other projects. For example, we are currently working on lifting dagger foils for a production 10m catamaran.’

Above: still lots of careful hand work involved but C-Tech’s modern 2,000m2 factory is a very long way from where the company started out hand-making sail battens 20 years ago. The facility now includes a 600m2 climate controlled clean room as well as an autoclave (below) large enough to cook foils and components ranging from Moth wands to hydraulic pump boxes and foil cases for Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup-winning AC50s; C-Tech also supplied many of the key elements of the team’s cyclor and wing-control systems

With the 36th America’s Cup moving to C-Tech’s home ground in Auckland, Vallings envisages yet more work ahead. The return to soft sails takes the game right back into C-Tech’s arena of advanced batten technology and sail hardware. ‘The new capacity that will come with our CNC machine will also expand the range of things we can produce.’

All of which is a long way from the origins of C-Tech in high performance dinghies and skiffs. But the company is determined not to stray from its roots. It continues to produce masts, booms, prods, aerofoil hiking wing frames, rudders, dagger boards, wands, battens and components for a wide range of high-performance boats, including the foiling monohull Q23s on Lake Garda, Moths, skiffs (from 12-footers to 18-footers), OK dinghies, Contenders and sport boats. ‘There is always development going on in these classes, some of it involving ultra high-modulus composites,’ says Vallings, who still competes at international level in the 18ft skiff class and this summer won the 12ft skiff Interdominion title.

‘In the Moths we are producing the new bent booms, where the vang loads at purchases of 54:1 are getting up pretty high. We are seeing loads of over 1.3 tonnes on an 11ft boat, which is asking a lot of the materials.

‘More recently we have brought some more experience onboard with Tim Willetts, formerly with Southern Spars and Hall Spars, joining us. He has taken our spar building to a new level, with more refined and better build techniques. With masts we tend to stick to our area of special expertise and focus on dinghies, skiffs and sport boats. Probably 35-footers are as big as we want to go at the moment.’

Although it seems there is a dichotomy between this small boat sailing and the bigger projects, there is in fact considerable crossover. ‘A lot of the people sailing skiffs and Moths, like Tom Slingsby, Paul Goodison, Peter Burling and so on, are also involved in other high level sailing projects. They know about our precision component manufacture, attention to detail and involvement in the latest materials and systems. Innovation is what we are about – and it is also fun.’

With the company’s roots firmly in the marine industry, it is also attracting work in a wider field, including communications and aerospace applications. This has led to developing much larger tubes, up to 1.4m in diameter, and represents a potential market for expansion. ‘At the moment the split is about 75 per cent marine and 25 per cent other projects, but we constantly get all kinds of enquiries,’ notes Vallings.

‘Every time the phone rings it is about some fun project – there are a lot of weird and wonderful ideas out there. It is always exciting and usually firmly within our mission to make cool stuff go fast.’