- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to the stage
the Executive Vice President of AFA,
Major General Doug Raaberg. (distinguished music)
- Good morning, please have a seat.
Thank you, the Air Force Association
is once again excited to host the finals
of the Third Annual Spark Tank Competition, get ready.
The spirit of innovation has sparked us
to join AFWERX at the Spark Collider
at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas 10 through 12, March.
As small businesses meet DOD and
venture capital stakeholders to match
defense problems with viable solutions.
So back by popular demand, this morning's Spark Tank
calls for Airmen to pitch their innovative ideas
to a panel of distinguished judges
for funding and senior level support.
I am pleased to introduce our hosts
for today's competition, Lauren K plus 12 Knausenberger,
and Tony Perez, over to you two.
- [Announcer] Good morning AFA!
(upbeat music)
Let's get ready to rumble!
Are you ready for Spark Tank 2020?
Let's put your hands together now.
Loud and thunderous applause for our hosts and judges,
Lauren Knausenberger and Tony Perez.
- Thank you Orlando! - Thank you, thank you!
- Thank you, thank you.
- Hey, Queso, it's great to see you up here buddy.
But I host this every year with Alec Baldwin.
What are you doing here?
- Lauren, you have to understand.
Alec is pretty expensive, and we have a lot
of satellites and rockets that we have to buy.
- Oh, okay, you know, rockets are pretty darn cool, though.
So I can get on board with that.
- Yeah, and so you don't have Alec, you have me.
Elon Musk is gonna be here later today
to celebrate Space Force's launch.
(audience whoops and applause)
- Yeah, you know I love it, I love Elon.
And in honor of Elon, I even brought my nuke Mars t-shirt.
(audience members laughing)
(Tony laughs)
You know, Tony, it always amazes me
the pockets you guys have.
What else do you keep in there?
It's like Mary Poppins. (laughter)
So today once again we are here
to celebrate our Air Force risk-takers and idea-makers.
Those bold Airmen who reject the status quo,
and have come up with innovative solutions
to help us bring our very best to the fight.
- And in only two months we had over 200 ideas submitted
by Airmen from all across the Air Force.
And today you're gonna see the six finalists here
on stage pitching their ideas to our celebrity investors
to get investment money, bureaucracy busting
and the coveted Spark Tank 3D-printed trophy.
- And now it's time for Spark Tank 2020.
- Let's meet our celebrity investors.
(dramatic music)
- Our first judge is a billionaire investor,
with annual R&D spend exceeding
that of Amazon and Apple combined.
She's climbed Mount Kilimanjaro,
is an instrument rated pilot,
and has completed astronaut training.
So this makes her qualified in both
the F-16 the Falcon Heavy.
But no matter how you look at it,
she is going to bring the Air Force to new heights.
Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome
our 25th secretary of the Air Force,
the honorable Barbara Barrett.
(audience applause)
And now, Toni Whitley-Townes is the president
of Microsoft Regulated Industries,
responsible for over $14 billion in business
and 2,000 people worldwide.
She was once a semi-pro soccer star in Canada
and after 10 years, she is still
trying to finish her original screenplay,
a contemporary love story titled Belolo,
which means Heaven in a Nigerian dialect.
Please welcome Toni Whitley-Townes.
(applause)
- Our next judge is the Chief of Staff
of the Air Force, General David Goldfein.
I don't know if you know this,
but he was on the six year plan at the Air Force Academy.
As a cadet, he left on his 10-speed bicycle
to follow Harry Shapens Band as a roadie.
You know, it's like the Justin Bieber of the 1970s.
(laughter)
After a year on the open road
with his trusted dog Minibear, he returned to the Academy.
Please welcome the Chief of Staff of the Air Force,
General David Goldfein. (applause)
And our next judge has watched Top Gun over 20 times
and done an analysis to determine
if an Air Force F-15 could take out Maverick and Goose,
let's meet Gene Kim, he's an award-winning
CTO of Tripwire, and the author
of some of our favorite books, to include,
The Unicorn Project, The Phoenix Project,
and Accelerator, please welcome Gene Kim.
(applause)
- Legend has it that Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force,
Kaleth O. Wright, wrote the Ten Commandments
of Servant Leadership, and that he walks on water
every day to serve our enlisted force
of over 250,000 Airmen. (cheers)
He also reads two books a week,
has an outstanding golf handicap,
and still has time to root for the Dallas Cowboys,
Chief, great to see ya. (distinguished music)
- All right, so it's about time
to start this year's competition.
While it is a competition, it's really about
turning these ideas into reality.
Last year, John Maas took the Spark Tank trophy,
and with his idea to take chemical detection
and make them ready all the time.
His idea took an operation that required 300 batteries,
changed by Airmen everyday, and streamlined it.
So with that, please look at John's video.
(upbeat music)
- Spark Tank has just been an amazing experience for me.
You don't see an idea that I had
get the support that it needed,
and go through that process of trying to make it a reality.
Nothing here gets done without a team.
So I'd like to thank a couple people as well,
especially my wife, she's been there
the entire time, both ups and downs.
Supervisors, commanders, the AFWERX team,
they're like family to me now.
And also the Air Force Civil Engineer Center,
and the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center.
That crew has been instrumental
in taking that concept and making it a reality.
So we've got some of the smartest Airmen out there right now
they're innovative and they're creative.
And sometimes their ideas, they feel
like they're not being listened to.
But I can tell you right now, processes like this,
like Spark Tank, give a voice back to the Airmen.
So don't be afraid, talk to your supervisors,
talk to your commanders, get those ideas out there.
Get support and get 'em funded.
(applause)
- All right, well done John, and John,
I think you're here with your family today, where are you?
Can you stand up?
Alright let's here it for John.
(audience cheers and applause)
All right, so we're back here today.
As always, our team members, they're going to have
three minutes to pitch our team of celebrity judges.
Our judges will speak with them for about four minutes,
they'll get to ask some questions,
share some insights, and then
they get to tell us whether they're in or out.
- And you, the audience and all the Airmen out there,
you have a vote, so log on to the live poll
and cast your vote now.
- [Lauren] Alright let's meet these teams,
good luck everyone. (intense music)
- Alright, first up into the Spark Tank,
is the K-Wedge C-17 Loading Aid.
Like bumpers in a bowling alley,
this project makes sure our C-17 cargo
makes it down the lane safely,
without damaging the aircraft.
(intense music)
- Good morning AFA, good morning judges.
I'm Staff Sergeant Davis, I am
an aircraft metals technologist from
the first maiden squadron out of Langley Air Force Base.
- And I'm Tech Sergeant Brett Kaiser,
a proud Port Dawg from the Eighth Expeditionary
Air Mobility Squadron located Al Udeid Air Base Qatar.
Today, we're gonna highlight how the C-17 fleet
is being damaged during cargo loading operations.
Which reduces our ability to provide
agile combat support to the joint force.
We're also going to discuss our solution
which is going to propel our battlefield capabilities
as well as protect our most precious resource,
you, the war-fighter.
So the problem is actually pretty simple,
during cargo loading operations on the C-17,
heavy cargo pallets are striking and damaging
the exposed logistic rail system,
and this has been happening for over two decades.
Here's what some of that damage looks like.
We have bent actuators, bent rails,
and ever broken rails, and in 2019 alone,
there was $2.3 million dollars
in wasted airlifts and aircraft damage.
But the monetary loss isn't the worst part,
it's our loss for our logistical capabilities.
For instance, in Al Udeid, we ship human blood
and munitions on a daily basis to the front lines
and so when these rail incidences occur,
we can no longer lock the pallet in place,
so they get bumped off the flight,
which means we're delaying bombs on target,
and life-saving blood transfusions
from reaching injured combat victims,
and we simply cannot put a price tag
on the life of a service member,
or anyone else for that matter.
Which is why I collaborated to innovate,
with my partner over here,
the 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron,
and together we collaborated and innovated this.
Introducing the K-Wedge, the three-piece,
C-17 loading aid designed to protect
the leading edge of the logistic rail system, while also
reinforcing the outboard rails for pallet spinning.
It's made from 3/16th and steel plates.
And only costs $500 of made-powered material
and it only takes five hours to fabricate.
The best part about the K-Wedge is the installation.
In under 60 seconds, you can secure
all three pieces of the K-Wedge to the aircraft floor
using existing existing aircraft tie-down rings,
and a cargo strap to effectively safeguard the rail system.
And how do we know that?
Because we tested it for two months in Al Udeid,
and during that time, we launched 29 missions,
consisting of 330 cargo pallets,
resulting in zero rail mishaps and zero K-Wedge defects.
In comparison-- (audience cheers and applause)
in comparison, there were six rail mishaps
across the fleet during that time,
which effectively proves that the K-Wedge
is needed to safeguard aircraft components.
Our final request is that we get with
Ampses A3, A4, and the C-17 Program Office
to rapidly certify this for aircraft use.
And we're requesting $250,000
to review material options, modernize,
and equip the entire C-17 fleet.
It is time to do better for our Airmen,
for the next generation, and we know
the C-17 is going to propel rapid global mobility
for decades to come, so how much longer are we going wait,
before we decide to start saving
millions of dollars, and potential lives?
The choice is up to you, thank you.
(audience cheers and applause)
- And judges, over to you.
- So Kaiser, you're saying for $250,000,
we can outfit the entire C-17 fleet with these?
- [Kaiser] Yes, sir we can.
- Yeah I think this is a no-brainer.
Especially given the-- (laughter)
right, the justification that you had
for the things that we might be missing out on,
the cargo that's being kicked off pallets
especially in AOR so, man I'm all for this one.
- I have two questions, one,
other applications to C-130s, other,
is it C-17 only or can it be modified for others?
And then also, international,
'cause there's others out there that,
it's even a broader market.
- Yes sir, and so in our last slide,
we actually well there's eight other allied partners
that we can share this technology with.
And to answer your first question,
it's only for the C-17 because the logistic rail system
on that aircraft is the only one
out of the C-130 and the C-5 that are exposed.
When you flip 'em up they're just thin pieces of aluminum
and when the pallets hit the omni-directional rollers,
it just strikes the rail system.
The only other application I guess would be,
you know, we could use that for hand-to-hand combat
and it could help out. (laughter)
(audience cheers and applause)
- [Tony] All right judges, do we have a spark?
- Airmen need to be able to solve problems
in their daily work, I think this is ingenious,
it gets a spark from me.
- Yeah I agree, I'm seconding, absolutely.
- You get a spark from me. - You got it.
- You get one from me but for our
Acquisition and A4 community, I really do
want to look at this beyond the C-17.
I think this has got broader application.
And I really want to look at it for an international market
because I think what you've got here
is much bigger than what you're thinkin'.
- [Kaiser] Yes sir, thank you very much to all of you.
- Thank you very much. - Good job gentlemen.
(audience cheers and applause)
- Walking into the Spark Tank,
is the Robotic Process Automation Team.
Deploying an army of bots to do mundane tasks
that Airmen just don't want to do anymore.
And give those Airmen time back to the mission.
- I'm Tech Sergeant Sharad James Overby.
- And I'm Captain Melinda Monahan,
and we're joining you today from
the Air Force Personnel Center
to introduce you to the Digital Airmen.
- For 12 years, I've been a personnel
of the United States Air Force.
For my entire career, I've been doing
nothing but manual and repetitive processes.
Not only that, it frustrated me to the point
where I tried to retrain out of my career two times,
just so I could feel like I was of value to our Air Force.
(laughter and applause)
But that's just me, at AFPC, we have 2500 Airmen
who are doing those same types of processes
serving nearly two million customers
who are Airmen, retirees, and their families.
That motivated us to come up with our solution,
robotic process automation.
RPA is a software that mimics
the activities and actions of a worker on their computer,
and then it automates the process that they're working.
Not only that, we created a process AFPC approved concept
to automate the permanent change of station,
orders authentication, and has already saved us
15,000 man hours, and we developed it
at a cost of less than $5,000 and under 20 hours of work.
Not only that, we have authority to operate
on the Air Force network, so we're ready
to deploy these bots whenever we have the work.
That's just the beginning.
Imagine if we develop 10 of these bots a month,
we could have 1.8 million hours saved annually,
and we could liberate
616 Airmen from these antiquated processes.
(audience cheers and applause)
Plus, saving the Air Force $72 million.
- And we don't just have to imagine this,
we have a digital Airmen right now at AFPC
authenticating orders as we stand on this stage.
That's proof of the potential of this technology.
And think about right now, all the times
you find yourself doing the same task,
day in and day out, it's repetitive work,
or maybe you're at space command,
and you're looking at 5,000 applications
to hire just 31 positions, and you're thinking to yourself,
how can I do this better?
Or maybe there's a bot for that?
Well you're right, there is.
At AFPC alone, we have 700 processes
that are manual that are ripe for automation
and what we need to to is to establish
a Robotics Center of Excellence at AFPC
to go ahead and start getting after these projects,
so that our Airmen are not worried
about these processes or the paperwork,
but we're actually taking care of our customer,
all of you out in the crowd, and you on this stage.
So that's what we want to do.
Our ask, we need $900,000.
This will allow us to hire the right people
in these critical roles, and to pay for the software,
equipment, and training necessary
to ensure that we're able to relentlessly
develop and deploy these bots.
The return on investment is so much more
than what you see as 72 million,
it's the intangibles right?
So we're improving accuracy by reducing human error,
we're empowering our Airmen by allowing them
to stop doing those mundane tasks,
and allowing them to do the art of what they want to do,
which directly enhances our customer experience,
increases readiness, and modernizes our work at a low cost.
So judges, audience, are you ready for the Digital Airmen?
(ding) (audience cheers and applause)
- It sounds like it improves the experience for you guys
and kudos to you, I think you developed this right,
you learned how to code, man that's--
- [Sharad] Yes sir.
- That's pretty amazing, but what does it do for
the Airmen out in the Air Force?
Does it allow them to get their orders faster,
does it improve their experience of the war fight?
- Yes sir, well it allows, our proof of concept
already has increased our orders production
as well as RPA can help Airmen get their pay faster
and all these other transactions.
And the great thing about RPA because
it eliminates human error, those mistakes
that we make, and I know I've made a couple
that's resulted in people not getting paid,
I don't get that right now. (laughter)
It eliminates those errors,
and also fixes those errors at an increased pace.
- Is it scalable to other parts
of the Air Force, Finance and--
- Absolutely, we're actually working with
Staff FM right now, they're already looking
at the same technology we're using in the personnel world,
so imagine if we set up a Center of Excellence,
we're able to define what the governance looks like,
determine best practices and help
scale that for other communities such as FM as an example.
- This is phenomenal, first of all,
congratulations for having learned robotics
and RPA on your own and bringing this innovation.
Let me just ask a couple quick questions.
We talk about the 2500 Airmen that are part of this,
that we're gonna liberate and I love the word there.
We'll think about that one for a while in Tech,
so liberating, so what will be the new skill set
or task or focus of those who were no longer
part of this sort of mundane process?
- So for our current fill at AFPC,
we service all Air Force customers,
and we spend a lot of time just clicking,
copying, pasting and putting things
into spreadsheets instead of let's say,
we have members who have special needs family members,
who need to only go to certain areas
around the United States, we need Airmen
who can communicate with them and their needs
to put them in the right place
so that their family can get help
instead of those Airmen copying and pasting
and transferring data to different systems,
when a bot can do that.
- So direct customer service, okay,
so let me just also ask cognitive,
on your bot framework, how cognitive
is this capability that you've built
in terms of being able to predict let's say,
the more sophisticated aspects of your AI platform,
where are you right now in your maturity?
- So there's no AI but we built in if-then statements
and conditions so that if it can't find
a certain condition that it's looking for,
it can do another action and go from there,
and we can even build it to a point where
if it finds that it needs human interaction,
it can stop and cue a technician that hey,
can you come and see this?
And that technician could take care of that
and then restart the bot and the bot
can keep going on 'til it finds the next error.
- Ah that sounds pretty good for a first step though.
So look from, you're in the Microsoft wheelhouse right here
we love this so-- (laughter)
I have to admit bias and we, whenever we come
to this decision, of course there'll be
a smart question down the line here but,
we'd be happy to support and beyond even this conversation.
'Cause we think you're on to something.
(audience cheers and applause)
- So I have a daughter who's in the Air Force.
She keeps me grounded. (laughter)
And she has this great quote, she said dad you know,
I don't know what Hell looks like,
but I know I'm there if I have to file
a voucher on DTS to get out. (laughter)
Right, and have to do 60 hours of computer-based training.
So, I think you're really onto something.
The question is sustainment, right?
How do we sustain this because you know,
the forms are gonna change, processes are gonna change,
right so one of the challenges is if we get this
where it is and then send a snapshot of time,
short of Dr. Roper's discussion right?
How do we keep this fresh, have you thought about that?
- And we'll have to keep it fast 'cause we're at time.
- So not only can this software,
the boss can keep fresh with the new
technologies coming out, it can interact
with digital systems, and let's say
we have our digital transformation going through
with our new technologies, it can interact
and bridge those technologies
so the member doesn't have to go
from this source to that source,
as well as new processes come up,
we can automate those new processes as well.
And also, as we go through and automate these processes,
we find out the best practices and most effective ways
to automate in the future.
- Okay, judges do we have a spark?
- We got a spark. - Got a spark.
- Got a spark from me.
- All right, well done guys, well done.
(audience cheers and applause)
Good job guys.
- Next into the Spark Tank, now the Chief
didn't know in advance that his aircraft
could be intercepted by a missile,
why should pilots train against static threats?
Introducing the Dynamic Threat Emitter Team.
(audience cheers and applause)
- Good morning Spark Tank, I'm Captain Coil,
I'm here with Lieutenant Treece,
we're intel officers at the 56th Fighter Wing
at the Luke Air Force Base where it's our mission--
(audience cheers)
to train the world's greatest fighter pilots
and combat-ready Airmen.
We're here with Wylie Standage Beier,
he's a PhD student at Arizona State University.
And we have an idea that could revolutionize
the way that we train in the dense threat environment.
- This threat environment he's talking about
consists of these, this is a surface-to-air
missile system that uses a radar to detect aircraft
and guides missiles to a target.
We use systems like this, commonly referred to as UMTEs,
or unmanned threat emitters, to replicate
those threat radar signals and train our pilots.
At Luke Air Force Base, we have the largest number
of F-35 pilots in the world,
and we need to get them ready for the next fight.
For instance, the Strategic Competitor Threat Environment
consists of multiple different threats,
many of which are mobile and can pick up
and move within minutes.
We need to incorporate that mobility
and quantity into our training.
But we can't do that, for example,
at Luke Air Force Base, we have a training range
with air space the size of Connecticut.
But we only have four threat emitters to work with.
And at five to six million dollars a piece,
it would cost upwards of $100 million
to create a realistic threat environment.
Trust me, we hear our pilots complain about it all the time.
It's a problem, we need to supplement
our current inventory with something
that's more affordable and that we can put out in quantity.
And that's what sparked our idea.
- Yeah so there we were, creating another training scenario
putting the same threats in the same place,
and I looked over at Treece and I said, dude,
we gotta get some more emitters.
- Yes we do.
- You want to try to build one?
- We can try!
- So we did some research, we reached out
to Arizona State University,
they agreed to help, Wylie came down,
we put together a team at Luke Air Force Base,
and within months, we built this.
We call it the DUMTE, the Dynamic Unmanned Threat Emitter.
It uses a software-defined radio
to digitally recreate radar waveforms.
Our interface allows us to manipulate the signal
and change the threat within seconds.
And not only is it compact and mobile,
but it's also cost effective.
We expect to put 50 DUMTEs out on the range
for the cost of just one of these
modern threat emitter systems.
The main difference is that ours operates at a low power.
But the beauty of our modern avionics
is that they're designed to detect low-power emissions.
And I'm not just talking about the Air Force F-35.
The Marines, the NAVY, our coalition partners
fly them as well, even aircraft like the F-22
or some of our ISR platforms could benefit
from an innovation like this.
But we need your sponsorship to
break through some of our barrier.
We're looking to partner up with AFRL
and we're asking for $1.5 dollars
to get us through testing, research and development,
and the fielding of several minimum viable products
that we can start using to determine requirements
and transfer this over to the war-fighter.
As we start to think about and train
the multi-domain operations, imagine the possibilities.
We have the opportunity to cost-effectively
increase our lethality, our survivability,
and our readiness, and prepare the joint force
for a fight against a strategic competitor
in a dense threat environment.
(ding) Thank you.
(audience cheers and applause)
- [Tony] Judges, over to you.
- I'd love to know what the process was
to find components where you build something
for less than five million dollars.
- We found them on the internet.
(laughter)
In fact, prototype number one was built
solely off parts straight out of Amazon.
(laughter)
- And I love the fact that you worked with Universities,
what did you learn out of that experience?
- Well, it's actually a funny story.
It kind of happened by accident, we were doing some research
on whether or not this was possible,
and we got onto the website, we see these
innovation buses rolling around town all the time.
They talk about ASU is number one in innovation,
so we called them up, we found Dr. Bliss,
we saw his bio on there and we saw the work
he'd been doing with software-defined radios,
so Treece and I just cold-called him one day and,
we got the right guy, 'cause he agreed to help.
He said what we were doin' is important
and that we should be able to do this relatively easy.
- Good for you, it's awesome.
- Yeah so I want to ask the Mag Com commanders
what you're thinkin' about this.
- [Man Off Screen] It's a great idea,
I wonder how to deploy it.
- Well the theory right now, and this needs some testing,
but the theory is that we can just scan this
over a sector of airspace, and then,
the sensors on the jet will be able
to pick it up and locate it.
That's a big deal because the pointing
for an antenna like this, becomes very very expensive.
So we're banking on the idea that this should work in theory
and the science behind it tells us that it should.
- Yesterday I told a story about
one of our obligations to produce in confidence under fire
because folks get to a point where they say okay,
I've been there, this is not new.
This is potentially a game changer on
producing that kind of confidence,
so you get a spark from me. - Thank you sir.
- [Tony] All right, judges do we have a spark?
- You're helping train Airmen, cheaper, faster, better,
and leveraging a university to do that,
gets a spark from me. - Spark here as well.
- [Kaleth] Spark here. - It couldn't be better.
Thanks so very much, great job.
(audience cheers and applause)
- [Lauren] All right they're short winded today.
All right well done. (intense music)
And next into the Spark Tank is
the Battery Cell Extraction Tool Team.
Civilized Airmen don't open their wine bottles
with brute force when they have a corkscrew,
introducing the Corkscrew for battery cell extraction.
(applause) (intense music)
- Good morning sparks, good morning
air and space professionals, my name is Rob Tingle.
- And I'm Roy Pechowski.
- And we are citizen Airmen from the 446 Airlift Wing,
Joint Base Lewis-McChord Washington,
here representing Air Force Reserve Command.
(audience cheers and applause)
We are pumped to be here today
to show you what can happen when you empower
the Airmen to innovate solutions
to the problems impacting mission and morale.
Sitting here in front of you is just one example
of the types of solutions that we are working on
every day at our metals technology work center.
For decades, batter technicians have struggled
with using brute force to remove
these battery cells during disassembly with T-handles.
This typically ends up in one or more Airmen
pressing this 80-pound battery to the floor
while another is asked to pull up as hard as they can.
This often results in cell damage.
Just the slightest off-angle pull
can snap an otherwise serviceable, $1,000 battery cell,
contributing to the $135,000 in annual
cell replacement costs at our location.
More important than cost savings though,
what about the quality of life for your proud maintainers?
This procedure is ergonomically terrible for the technician.
We even had an Airmen split their forehead open
when they were pulling with all their strength.
It's just not how we should be doing business.
Now, sparks, direct your attention
to the batter cell extraction tool.
This compact, leverage-based solution
gives the technician mechanical advantage
completely eliminating the risk of damage and injury.
A single technician can now
perform this task in half the time.
We had a visit to our location from
our C-17 coalition partners, and they loved
this prototype so much they asked
if they could take it home with them.
(laughter)
Well, if we had additive manufacturing capability
at our location, we could've already
rapidly deployed this solution to over 20 locations,
supporting over 300 aircraft, and save
the Air Force over $360,000 annually.
With your support, to get this out to the fleets quickly,
the return on investment is less than two years.
The rest of the time can be spent
on our other valuable joint-operation innovations,
many of which continue to sit at other locations
3-D print to use, while we wait
for them to get accomplished for us,
which brings us to our ask.
- Judges, we're here today asking for a one-time investment
of just $750,000 to purchase a state-of-the-art printer,
3-D printer, that will not only expedite
the build on this battery cell extracting tool,
but other tools and support equipment as well.
With additive manufacturing capabilities,
we'll not only eliminate the three to 12 month
current backlog we're experiencing at our own shop
with outsourcing parts, but we'll encourage
innovative Airmen to up-channel their ideas
without that typical delay that will crush their creativity.
With your investment and our innovation vision,
we'll immediately be ready
to face future challenges head-on.
Thank you. (audience cheers and applause)
- Let's talk scale, so one printer,
how is that gonna, against what you think
is the demand out there, walk us through
why you think that will meet the demand
in terms of supply, will one 3-D printer do it?
Or is this just gonna be a local fix?
- Well at the point right now sir, during our research,
we don't have the excess capacity
out in our Air Force to handle other people
bringing mass quantity projects
to take their 3-D printer usage.
So this will help us get this tool out to the fleets,
but it doesn't just end here.
And it's not just an aircraft maintenance application,
this helps with our sheet metal technicians
do break housing protectors while
they do scheduled maintenance.
But it also helps pilots.
We helped prototype an iPad mount
for them to hold their flight charts,
digital flight checks on the flight deck,
and it doesn't end there.
Aerometical panels keep cracking under stress,
so we can help our flight docs
and our nurses complete their mission.
Any Airmen with a spark that comes to us,
we will help you turn that spark into fire.
(audience cheers and applause)
- So, it sounds a little bit like
this is more about the 3-D printer than this tool
because you're saying you can do so many other things,
but in terms of being able to mass produce these,
is that all you need is the one
state-of-the-art 3-D printer?
- With the 3-D printer, we can have this tool
pushed out to every location that needs it
in less than two months, and begin
that return on investment.
- How are we gonna spark more ideas like this
and more uses like your iPhone holder?
- Great question ma'am, we're already doin' it.
AFWERX, our local innovative agencies,
and our PA teams are pushing out what we've been working on.
And we actually have a space available,
the McChord Innovation Lab is ready to go,
we have the spot taped off in our shop.
All we need is the equipment. (laughter and applause)
- So it sounds like what you're looking for though
is to get the 3-D printer, right?
And then manufacture these plus
what you held up plus all the other things that you want
in your shop to be able to get this out to the field.
- [Rob] Yes sir. - Yes sir.
- I think you've got us sold on this.
I do want to have our folks work with you on,
how do we scale this quickly?
Because I'm not sure that one 3-D printer
is going to do what you're lookin' for.
And we want to get to a point in our Air Force
where we are doing 3-D printing
as part of our expeditionary force right?
We gotta think about printing parts,
when the big one goes, right,
we've got to assume that our logistics
trains that we gotta attack.
And so what that means is we're gonna have to be,
we're gonna be taking a risk and printing the parts,
in Estonia, in you name it, where we're deployed forward.
So, you got a spark from me, I do think
we've got to step back and take a look
at the way we get about this to scale it quickly.
- Yes sir, thank you.
- I love it, I think it's exactly,
a just, phenomenal example like Dr. Roper talked about,
unleashing creativity at the edges,
allowing Airmen to solve problems, spark from me.
- [Rob] Thank you Gene.
- You got a spark here, particularly
with the 60 day turnaround, I think that's about
the best I can here in terms of deployment so,
you definitely get a spark here.
- [Rob] Yes ma'am, thank you ma'am.
- Spark here. (applause)
- Well in that case, please help us turn this check
into a reality. (laughter and applause)
(intense music)
- Entering the Spark Tank now, the Team Mercury,
streamlining multiple weapon-loading checklists
into one smart checklist.
A TurboTax for weapons loading, smart indeed.
(intense music and applause)
- Good morning, I'm Master Sergeant Gabrial Valenzuela
from Spangdahlem Air Base Germany.
(audience cheers)
And this is Iem Brothers, a user experience designer,
representing Bespin.
Judges, I bet if I asked you to assemble this chair
with a simple set of instructions, it'd be easy.
However, what if there were stacks and stacks
of these instructions all around this chair,
you had to locate your steps, assemble them,
arrange them in order, and then assemble this chair?
That would be a lot more difficult.
This is the same pain that our Airmen go through
on a daily basis when loading weapons on aircraft.
Oftentimes, they have to sort through upwards of
840 steps just to find the minimum steps
that's required to load an aircraft.
But, we have a solution, we've developed Mercury,
an agile checklist system, capable
of utilizing input conditions of filters,
and a range of steps from multiple technical orders
to give our Airmen a single streamlined checklist.
How do we do this you might ask?
Well our team from Spangdahlem
collaborated with Kessel Run, MGMWERX, Bespin,
and the 187th Red Tails out of Montgomery, Alabama.
And in just six months, we evolved Mercury
from an idea to a prototype.
And recently, our solution inspired the U Safety Commander
to invest $342,000 to take our software to the next level.
Today, we have a fully functioning, accredited software
with authority to operate on DOD servers.
And, we can load five of our 25 munitions on AF-16.
Best of all, this is scalable across all weapons platforms.
Or any other career field for that matter.
Judges, with Mercury, we can load aircraft 36% faster,
which means we cut 28 minutes
from the overall load time of an F-16.
Implemented across the F-16 fleet,
we anticipate a cost savings of 682,000 man hours,
which equates to $27 million annually.
But the real value is its impact on combat readiness.
That's 28 minutes quicker we get our F-16s to the fight.
That's 28 minutes less our aircraft are exposed
to enemy attack, Chief, right?
That's 28 minutes less our Airmen
are in a chemical environment, and it goes on and on.
Additionally, this will advance agile combat employment,
by reducing load times and by simplifying weapons loading,
it facilitates a multi-capable Airmen initiative.
Judges, I'm here to ask you for $1.4 million
to add the remaining 20 munitions
and further develop implement and test our software.
But in reality, I'm here to ask you for $1.4 million
for 28 minutes, because that can be the difference
between life and death, or victory and defeat.
(laughter and applause)
- I love this because just what software's for.
My understanding is that there's actually
someone who really wants to use this,
but can't right now, can you tell us who that is
and why they care so much about it?
- Sir, that's great that you asked me that question,
because absolutely, our weapons community
have been wanting this for decades.
Matter of fact, Iem weren't you just at
the 187th with us a couple days?
Did you get some feedback there?
- Absolutely so we were able to bring this
to the flightline at the 187th out of Montgomery
and put it in the hands of the weapon loaders.
And they took the app, I said we'd like you to load
an A-9 and A-120 and hand it to 'em.
They're able to build their checklist
and do the load without delay.
And some of the quotes we got from the users was,
man that was awesome, that reduced the complexity
greatly from what we're used to, and wow,
that was so easy, I love this one can I have it?
In fact when I was getting ready to leave,
it was hard to pull away from the hands of the team Chief,
she wanted to hold on to it.
- And who specifically said they wanted it?
- So that's all of our weapons loaders sir,
and I'll tell you why they don't want to put this down,
is because their process right now is so broken.
I mean on a monthly basis, they get evaluated,
and oftentimes they fail their evaluations
based off checklist errors or because they go over time.
That's right, we also hold them to a time standard.
It's the same stress that our Airmen go through
when they're performing a PT test.
We're essentially tying them to a ball and chain
and asking them to go run. (laughter and applause)
Sirs, ma'am, we have to cost effectively modernize,
and we've done it right?
This is how we free our Airmen from that ball and chain.
Additionally, this will increase safety
and munition reliability, because they don't have
to navigate through these complex checklists.
We want them focused on a safe and reliable operation.
- Where would you take it next?
- Ma'am we're gonna take this,
first we've got to get F-16s ready.
We're gonna test, implement, and make sure
this is completely reliable, after that,
it's easily scalable across any other MDS.
Matter of fact, where's Tech Sergeant Benevitas, stand up.
That's my F-15 guy at Seymour Johnson, Chief right?
There you are. (laughter)
Chief Flag, he's a global strike
Mag Com Functional Manager.
I have teams right now ready to work in parallel with me
to get this software to the rest of our aircraft.
- Is this applicable to your dual-capable aircraft
that you have in the inventory, the F-16s?
- Yes sir, this is applicable to any aircraft,
even our foreign partners, they're using
the same technical data that we're using.
So absolutely, this will work across the board.
- So given the scalability you're referencing,
what does 1.4 million get you in terms of that iteration?
That investment results in what level of scale?
- So that investment in addition to the angel investment
that our USAFA Commander gave us, gets the F-16s right.
- It's just F-16s.
- Yes ma'am, we have to add the remaining 20 munitions,
and further implement and test it.
- So the time saving is not that your changing
the method of loading, the time change
is that you're no longer using paper checklists,
is that the major time savings?
- Yes sir so not only that but, 10 years ago,
we took our paper checklists and we converted them
to PDF and we put them on a tablet.
I mean it made it worse, and it's more time consuming.
- Okay, so the one thing we're looking at right, in ATC
is maintenance training next, pilot training next,
using visual reality, did you think,
is there any application there to be able to marry
what you're doing here with that kind of training?
- Absolutely sir so, since the inception of this software
we'd like to open it and we want so many features,
and we're looking into that right now and sirs, ma'ams,
listen we're talking about multi-capable Airmen today.
But we don't know how to get there.
This is how we get there, we simplify their daily tasks,
so that we can expand their bandwidth
so they can do more with less.
- So you got a spark from me with a caveat
and that is I'd like to push this in U Safety
because that's where the lead is,
but I'm gonna ask ATC to take a look at this
in terms of scaling across the Air Force into our training.
- [Gabrial] Yes sir. - Nice job.
(applause)
- Thank you guys.
And our final team into the Spark Tank,
the Portable Magnetic Aircraft Covers Team.
Why should our coolest, fifth generation Raptor
get rapped in burlap and styrofoam,
when it could be adorned in sexy raptor athleisure?
Sleek high performance clothing for our surface's
most badass air dominance athlete.
(intense music)
- Good morning, I'm Lieutenant Meyers, a maintenance officer
this is Tech Sergeant Cabon, a Raptor crew chief,
and the idea inventor, and Major Scarvantimuren,
a Raptor pilot, and we are here today,
from the First Fighter Wing,
to talk about portable, magnetic aircraft covers, or PMAC.
Every aircraft in the Air Force has a full set of covers
for its intakes, ports, and exhausts.
We call them Dash 21 and they must
be installed when the aircraft is parked,
kind of like hard covers and they're meant
to protect against damage.
Anywhere our aircraft go, this gear
must accompany them at every stop.
And so multiple stops means multiple
sets of this big, bulky gear.
A Raptor deployment normally requires three sets per jet.
And that's roughly the size of a HUMV.
And because pallet positions on airlift are at a premium,
we're forced to choose between parts
that can actually fix the jets, and these.
Additionally, Dash 21 cost entirely too much
and can even damage the aircraft.
We have to wedge these intake covers into place,
which can damage the aircraft's sensitive coatings.
It'd be kind of like if you had a car cover
that was made out of sand paper.
Another great example is the beta port cover.
This $7,000 cover fails in a matter of six months.
Causing an additional $7,000 worth of damage,
and a jet that takes two days to repair.
In every sense, these covers are doing more harm than good.
And we're reminding of this any time we have to move
our aircraft, which can sometimes be on pretty short notice.
Hurricanes Florence and Michael strengthened so quickly
that we had less than 48 hours
to move our aircraft to safety.
Unfortunately, our logistical tail with our Dash 21
never caught up, and so we were forced
to secure our $8 billion fleet
with garbage bags and masking tape.
- PMAC solves the logistics, maintenance and cost challenges
associated with our current Dash 21 gear.
PMAC is made out of water proof material
and adheres to the aircraft using magnets,
whose strength will be very depending on
where they are on the aircraft,
in order to not damage sensitive underlying components.
Inside each side weapons bay of the Raptor
is a one cubic foot storage area we call the birdcage.
An entire set of PMAC to protect the aircraft
will fit inside the birdcage, so what we're going to do
is take this ridiculous plug, that fits in this ungodly bag,
and turn it into this foldable material
that will go with the aircraft its meant to protect.
PMAC will solve the logistics problem.
Like Lieutenant Meyers said, our current Dash 21
adheres to the aircraft using
friction and force, causing damage.
PMAC rests upon the aircraft, causing no damage.
Finally, in partnership with an already-awarded
super phase one vendor, we've realized
40% cost savings in manufacture.
And if we had this rolled out Raptor
nationwide last calendar year,
we would have already saved $200,000 in airlift costs alone.
You combine those three things and General Goldfein,
you're going to get more jets to the high-end fight.
This truly is a joint coalition
and dual-use civ-mill solution
that has endless capability and scalability worldwide.
What we're asking for is $500,000
in order to perfect the magnet strengths,
get the dimensions on-point, get this flight certified,
and get this scaled to multiple MDSs
so that we can get this out to the war-fighter, thank you.
(audience cheers and applause)
- Do I stand correctly that the plugs
can actually smudge the paint meaning like
the anti-reflective coating makes
a stealthy aircraft not stealthy?
- Yes, I come from a maintainer's perspective,
'cause I am a Crew Chief, and I have to fix these
when these go down, I don't want extra work,
but as far as a weapons system,
they can see us if our stealth coating is abysmal.
- And so there are missions you can't do
because it's not just cosmetic damage,
this impairs the mission. - Yes sir.
- So, quick story, not to eat up your time,
but there I was, Captain Goldfein,
Charlotte Air Force Base, right?
On an operational readiness inspection,
and I was starting my airplane
and it got a standby gen fail or something.
I had to jump into a spare, so I looked at my watch,
I had six minutes to get an A+, all I had to do a roll,
I ran to the jet, climbed up the ladder,
didn't strap in, started the jet,
pushed up the motor, all of a sudden, bang,
the whole airplane started shaking,
I shut down, Crew Chief just shaking his head.
I said, did we do it?
He said, yes sir, we just ate the intake cover.
So my question is, is this digestible?
(laughter)
- That's an excellent question
because the first thing anybody asks is FOD.
FOD, that's at the forefront of us and the partners
that was awarded to the phase ones, a question.
So we're implementing FOD protection into it,
and so one of the ideas is running a lanyard
to the groundage straps on there so
if you crank down that engine it will hold it there,
by that time you'll see them flapping so, you'll know.
- [Goldfein] Well the message to the crowd is
you can be an idiot, and become
Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
(laughter)
- So this fits snugly inside so this,
how does this attach, how does it attach to,
does it inflate or I mean how does,
from that little folded up thing there?
- I was wondering that correlates
into what I just handed you, I'm sure
you guys were just looking at it like, what is this?
- A beer coaster!
- Yeah actually it is a coaster,
but it uses programmable magnets.
There's a new technology called polymagnets,
works like a pixel, these are maxels,
so you can control the strength.
So if you have some sensitive electrical component
behind the panel or whatever you're adhering it to,
you could control it not to affect anythings, see that.
That's the magnetic field that you can see there.
So you can program the magnetic field
to specific characteristics.
There's an image in there, I know everybody can't see it
but it's in the magnetic field.
- Do you look at this, you have some pictures
of international or other planes so you have looked at this,
there's nothing that limits this to an F-22 right?
You can get it in pretty much any intake?
- Yes sir, we actually went out to Nellis
during Red Flag, it was the perfect opportunity
so went around, looked at the B ones
like 16s, 15s, and we found applications
and designed ideas for all of 'em.
So it's definitely scalable
not just to aircraft, spacecraft.
I know that's big right now so.
(laughter) So definitely.
- Digesting one of these is a spacecraft
would be really bad. (laughter)
- One of the things that excites me so much
is seeing these cross disciplinary teams
coming together to come up with these exciting ideas,
this gets a spark from me.
- Yeah big thing about this one is deployability right?
I mean this is, 'cause home station,
as bad at it is, we can get by with these,
but this is about an expeditionary force,
Air Force has got to go forward right?
And so that fits in the cockpit
or whatever you it take on the airplane right?
So every airplane deploys with its own covers
we're talkin' here, and I think your example
of a tindle right, where you deployed forward,
maintenance trained, never got there,
and you end up having to use duct tape and yeah,
so amen, nice job, spark from me.
- All right judges, we'd love to here from all of you,
do we have a spark? - Have a spark.
- All right.
- [Cabon] Thank you very much, appreciate it.
(audience cheers and applause)
(distinguished music)
- Don't forget your gear, all right.
All right wow, I think this was the best Spark Tank yet.
What do you think of these Airmen?
(applause)
- And what about these judges?
(audience cheers and applause)
- And don't forget that you the audience
are the final judge, the poll closes in 60 seconds.
So very quickly, enter your vote.
- And judges, now please take some time
to cast your vote and get your votes ready for the finals.
- So only six teams were selected for the stage today.
But we received hundreds of awesome submissions
from Airmen through the ideation platform,
and we are going to continue to work
with all of those ideas to make sure
that they are successful or that they at least learn a lot.
- And there's many resources out there
for the grassroots innovator.
We currently have over 70 spark cells
in the total force all around the world.
These wing-level innovation organizations
are solving problems like these every day.
Additionally, we have resources like
The Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR.
If you're interested in SBIR, this March 10th through 12th,
there's going to be an event called a Spark Collider
in Austin, Texas, we invite all of you to come out there.
(audience member cheers)
- And while the judge are deliberating,
we have a message from our fearless
Vice Chief of Staff, regarding the next
big Air Force challenge where we need your help.
Let's take a look.
(inspirational music)
- Thank you for volunteering to serve
during what is arguably one of the most
transformative times in our military's history.
Our national defense strategy is clear,
our nation is in a great power competition.
The good news is that we have the best Airmen
in the history of war-fighting.
To dominate an era of pure competition,
the first thing we need to do is check all around us.
That is why I'm excited to announce that this year's
Vice Chief Challenge focuses on leveraging technology
to give you back the most valuable thing we can, your time.
Your air staff is eager to give you
a direct voice, redefining, streamlining,
and eliminating processes that bog our Airmen down
and consume your time.
Things like securing PCS orders,
navigating the nays of EFMP programs,
processing evaluations and decorations, and so much more.
We don't just want your help, we need it.
'Cause no one knows better what creates
drag in our Air Force, than our Airmen
and NCOs serving on our front line.
Speed wins, and together, we'll go faster and further,
ensuring we are ready when our nation calls.
I'm excited to hear your ideas and to see
what we can make possible.
On behalf of Secretary Barrett, Chief Raymond,
and Chief Goldfein, and the millions of Americans
that depend on the daily sacrifices of you and your family.
Thank you, the future is your to build, aim high Airmen.
(audience cheers and applause)
- All right John, it's about time to pass on that trophy.
Even though there can only be one champion,
you're all winners in my heart.
- You're gettin' soft Tony.
All right judges, we'll have you come forward
with our secret ballots here.
All right, and now it's time for the moment of truth,
when we find out who is the 2020 Spark Tank Champion.
Here we go, the Secretary says,
low cost threat emitter,
and Toni says, the Mercury project.
- [Tony] General Goldfein says, low cost threat emitter.
Gene says, Mercury!
- [Lauren] Chief Wright says,
digital airman robotic process automation.
(audience cheers and applause)
- [Tony] And the Airmen say--
- [Lauren] The K-Wedge.
And the winner is, the low cost threat emitter, isn't it?
- No, we have a tie! - Oh do we have a tie?
- We have a tie!
- Oh my gosh Tony this has never happened before.
- This is our first tie.
- This is like that Academy Award moment
when they said, what did they say?
La La Land and it was Moonlight?
Oh my goodness.
- Yeah we're the same situation here.
- Good thing we actually have a backup plan,
this is the Air Force, we have Dr. Roper in the audience
and he has agreed to help us with our tie-breaking round.
Tony, I think they might've done this on purpose.
- [Tony] I know, Dr. Roper if you could join us.
- Dr. Roper come on up please.
(muttering)
(distinguished music)
- Our judges have deliberated,
to break the tie, to Dr. Roper.
- Well one, let me say to all of the entrants,
that was awesome, I am so energized
by the creativity you bring. (audience cheers and applause)
I truly believe innovation is a battlefield
and you guys are winning it so you crushed it today.
I'll tell you something else,
the great thing about being in the Air Force right now
is you can break the rules, so I think
we buy the 3-D printer from that one proposal,
print two more trophies, and have three winners this year
for the first time in Spark Tank.
All of you deserve to have your ideas go live.
We're gonna make it happen. (audience cheers and applause)
- All right. - All right!
- So Mercury, and low cost threat emitter,
this has never happened, come forward,
we're gonna have you hold up this cup.
- Mercury team?
- Mercury and low cost threat emitter come on up.
All right John, you're gonna have
to hand over the cup to two teams, all right.
And judges, if we can get you over behind the finalists,
we'll get a nice picture here.
All right, and if we could get you right in there.
All right come on in.
(audience cheers and applause)
Yep, all right guys let's get the Secretary in there too.
(distinguished music)
You don't have to stop clapping
just because we're holding up the trophy.
(applause) (distinguished music)
- All right thank you everybody.
- All right, thank you guys so much for joining us today.
Please enjoy your coffee and come right back here
for a fireside chat with our illustrious General Thompson
and Elon Musk, we hope to see you
back here next year on stage.