Dan O’Mara: Turning Robotics Education on its Head | Sense Think Act Podcast #19

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks to Dan O’Mara, who is the founder and COO of Circuit Launch and Mechlabs. Circuit Launch is a space for hardware entrepreneurs to work in Oakland, California, and Mechlabs is a project-based course to learn robotics. This interview is mostly about Mechlabs, but talks about the origins of Circuit Launch, including how it is not a maker or coworking space and its business model. For Mechlabs, we talk about several of its aspects that make it different than a university education in robotics, including how there are mentors not instructors, how projects are scoped, and how people are invited to work on what is most interesting to them. We also talk about the future of Mechlabs and how it fits with current universities.

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• Mechlabs’ website
• Circuit Launch’s website
• Dan’s LinkedIn

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Audrow Nash is a Software Engineer at Open Robotics and the host of the Sense Think Act Podcast

Audrow Nash is a Software Engineer at Open Robotics and the host of the Sense Think Act Podcast

Sense Think Act Podcast is a long-form, technical podcast about all areas of robotics that is hosted by Audrow Nash and sponsored by Open Robotics

Sense Think Act Podcast is a long-form, technical podcast about all areas of robotics that is hosted by Audrow Nash and sponsored by Open Robotics