Ask HN: How can you retrain in a field requiring expensive equipment? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can you retrain in a field requiring expensive equipment?

14 pointsmasterchief16611 comments

Suppose you come up with an invention involving a highly specialized, equipment-intensive field you’re unfamiliar with, such as plasma processing or high-temperature metallurgy. You’ve already consulted experts who agree the idea is plausible, but haven’t found anyone with the relevant expertise willing to help develop a PoC. How could you acquire the necessary hands-on skills to test the invention yourself?

I’ve considered switching jobs, postdocs, master’s programs, a second PhD, and shared research facilities. However, jobs and postdocs may require existing expertise, master’s programs may offer insufficient hands-on training, and independent equipment access can be prohibitively expensive (and even then, access alone may not provide the necessary training).

Are there any other realistic ways to retrain in experimental fields that require specialized equipment and can’t be learned at home?

Postdocs are really weird and random. I mean, I probed a little and think it might have been a little hard to get a quantum computing one circa 1998 -- it might have been a little early but I think it would have been easy to establish a career in that if you got at the right time. [1] I wound up getting one where I had a lot of latitude to work on "complex systems" and "quantum chaos" and wound up accomplishing little at a brand new institute in Germany which had a lot of startup funding.

About ten years later I got offered (but didn't take) a postdoc at one of the most prestigious centers for the semantic web on the strength of a good, if popular, talk and a single conversation and I wasn't even looking.

That is, if you find the right personal connection you can get a postdoc without having to have the right formal qualifications or run the gauntlet of a selection process. If your viewpoint is a stable and safe academic career you might be just setting yourself for exploitation but if you have a passion for something and are looking for a fulcrum with which you can move you world that might be your path.

[1] ... good timing may be the royal road to academic careers

The social walls between undergrads-grads-postdocs-asst-profs-fullprofs seem kind of unhealthy (ie, they contribute to that timing crap)

Ime the walls are, not absent, but much lower at both ends of the prestige spectrum-- and perhaps that's a reason the timing is more under their control [cue tangential thoughts "petty bourgeoisie of specialised skills", "an ideally free market of academic status" etc]

If that is true, one should see more scandals at both ends (some anecdata ..)

If there's a community college/HYPMS feeder HS teacher nearby with access to vapour deposition equipment.. OP needs to hit it

Magic words: "I know a guy".

You'd be surprised at what specialized equipment some people have. There are individuals who have professional equipment in their garages. There are small shops that have big-shop equipment - not all of it, but certain ones.

The problem is, if it's an individual, you have to know them, or someone who knows them. For a small shop, they may not have much of a web page, and if they do, it may not say all that they can do.

I would google for what you need in your city or state. I would also go to Reddit or Facebook, and find groups about your area, and ask who in the area can do what you need.

You're still going to need money to pay them, though. As lp92 said, VC funding may be part of the answer for you.

Write a technical paper. Email college professors, see if you can pay them as consultants to review the paper.

Once you have reviews and other people say its plausible, you can go present to VCs and acquire the funding.

I learned everything I know about CNC machines and plasma cutting and 3D printing from local hackerspaces and makerspaces.

Why do you need to retrain? You've got a specific idea to test, just keep exploring the edges of what's possible on a low budget as a side project, and keep your day job. Cultivate friendships and knowledge of equipment at your local hackerspace, and you'll be quite surprised what can be done on the very cheap.

If you want to keep things private, you can get 5 axis desktop CNC machines for about $5000, really good 3d printers for $2000, electronics to measure/control just about anything dirt cheap thanks to jelly bean parts and super-powerful microcontrollers.

If your idea/invention can actually make people money, then VC funding would be an option. Either that or you need to bootstrap the startup costs.

Also, building subscale POCs could be a good option depending on your idea and help cut down costs significantly, especially if you can use or modify COTS parts to make it work for the POC.

For example, when Rocket Labs was starting out they salvaged components from junk yards and so on to keep costs down like paying $5 for a used valve and refurbishing it rather than pay $100 for a new one (Peter has talked about this in various interviews).

What sort of equipment? I've seen surprising stuff put up on ebay, but you still eat some pretty big costs + freight shipping.

Otherwise it'll be tough. I've wanted some fancy niche Rhodes and Schwartz products in the past, but I had to come to the realization that it's probably not accessible to me.

Making friends can be surprisingly helpful to get access to niche devices

yeah i'll agree, not everyone's cut out for a master's, particularly in an engineering field, and particularly in a field thats not in their undergrad either. its very tough ando nly a special few can do it.

Starting is the simplest thing that might work.

If you can't buy, build.

It will probably be very very hard.

Most everything is.

You can make plasma with a grape in a micowave.

You can get high temperatures for metallurgy with a hacked furnace.

Sure you might not get great results.

Sure there's a good chance you will fail.

If those possibilities put you off, it's just an idea.

Shopping and grad school are forms of procrastination.

Good luck.

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