Ryan Watkins, Analysis Engineer with NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), will take the stage on Tuesday, April 1 and Joe Scarbo, President of Scarbo Efficiency Corp, will have interaction the viewers on Thursday, April 3, as keynote audio system for the 2025 AMUG Convention. The occasion happens in Chicago, Illinois, from March thirtieth to April third, 2025.
Watkins’ and Scarbo’s work traverses from the Baja Desert to Aspen Mountain to Pikes Peak and out into the photo voltaic system. From the stage, they may encourage by intriguing automobile designs and exhilarating area exploration experiences. Their recounts of previous and current tasks will convey the messages of pragmatic decision-making coupled with innovation to push the boundaries of what’s attainable with additive manufacturing.
Ryan Watkins’ keynote presentation at AMUG 2025 could have the central theme of ‘linking design with additive manufacturing’ in creating 3D printed, crushable buildings for high-speed affect attenuation purposes. He’ll talk about the distinctive context that required NASA to develop this new class of crushable buildings and the manufacturing and design obstacles that had been overcome to realize this aim. Possibly extra importantly, he’ll inform the story of expertise infusion within the comparatively conservative area of aerospace engineering, highlighting his successes and failures alongside this journey.
In his keynote, Joe Scarbo will take the AMUG Convention stage to convey how, when, and why his firm used additive manufacturing in its most up-to-date efficiency automobiles. Below the Scarbo Classic (SV) model, his crew has created the SV RSR, which raced within the Pikes Peak Worldwide Hill Climb as Ken Block’s Hoonipigasus, and the SV Rover, which ran within the Baja 1000. Following the Baja race, the SV Rover transitioned into the world’s first street-legal Hypertruck, powered by a 1,100-horsepower supercharged V8 or a 1,000-horsepower electrical drive.
Each SV automobiles include quite a few additively manufactured components. All through his keynote presentation, Scarbo will current his ideas on why additive manufacturing was—or was not—the appropriate course of; ideas which are grounded in his mechanical engineering, welding, machining, and racing pedigrees.
Ryan Watkins’s background
Ryan Watkins joined NASA’s JPL 9 years in the past after incomes a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. He has labored on flight tasks as a structural analyst and cognizant engineer, main the design, construct, take a look at, and integration of launch restraint {hardware} for NASA’s Floor Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) and NASA-ISRO Artificial Aperture Radar (NISAR) missions.
In his present position as a Analysis Engineer within the Supplies Growth & Additive Manufacturing group, Watkins focuses on integrating superior supplies with computational design, akin to topology optimization, to allow and help future NASA missions. This work consists of generalizing topology optimization to complicated materials methods, additively manufacturing and modeling lattice buildings, and 3D printing form reminiscence alloy methods. He additionally works to develop and foster JPL’s topology optimization capabilities and combine the requisite workflows into flight undertaking practices. In 2024, his software program, UnitcellHub, was named JPL’s Software program of the Yr and was open-sourced to the general public.
Joe Scarbo’s background
Joe Scarbo, a ‘gearhead’ and racer for his complete life, based Scarbo Efficiency in 2008 as an engineering consultancy specializing in efficiency automobiles. In 2013, the corporate shifted to low-volume manufacturing of motorsport merchandise and full automobiles. At present, Scarbo Efficiency Corp consists of 4 companies that provide design (for each automotive and non-automotive merchandise), efficiency after-market elements, and bespoke automobile manufacturing. Since its inception, Scarbo Efficiency has constructed greater than 30 automobiles for different corporations.
Scarbo’s love for racing and automobiles began when he was simply six years outdated. That keenness led him to earn a B.S. in mechanical engineering and tackle a job, whereas in faculty, designing and machining elements for the Arciero Racing household. Following faculty, Scarbo went to work as an in-house mechanical design engineer for the Volkswagen Motorsport off-road race program—Baja racing with the Toureg TDI— and continued to work on elite tasks with international leaders.
Drawn to the chances of additive manufacturing, Scarbo took a place with an Orange County, California, agency that leverages the expertise in design and prototyping work for its purchasers’ tasks. That have opened the door for Scarbo to develop into director of mechanical design for a client electronics firm, the place he leveraged additive manufacturing for design and testing. Whereas the work was attention-grabbing and the expertise helpful, Scarbo’s ardour for motorsports lured him to rededicate his time to Scarbo Efficiency.
