AwesomeCast 779: Keeping Podcasting Weird: On the Road
Sorg and Katie are officially on the road, broadcasting from Michigan after a week that started in Oregon, passed through Portland and Cannon Beach, and landed them at Formula SAE Michigan.
The episode opens with a big recap of Baja SAE Oregon, held at Washougal MX. Sorg and Katie talk about the atmosphere around the event, the muddy GoPro shots, the rock crawl, sponsor activations, and how much fun it is watching student engineering teams solve problems in real time.
One of the biggest tech highlights was Oshcut, an on-demand manufacturing service that lets users create custom sheet metal and tube-bending parts. Sorg describes how a Baja team was able to work with Oshcut to potentially get a critical part shipped overnight so they could keep competing.
Katie also highlights one of the standout student teams: CETYS Mini Baja from Mexico. Their fox mascot, excitement over Oregon’s scenery, and enthusiasm for the event made them one of the memorable stories of the weekend.
On the pop culture side, Katie brings the adorable story of Pedro Pascal visiting Grogu in Times Square, complete with a 3D-style Mandalorian and Grogu billboard moment.
Dave Podnar contributes an Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month tech history segment about Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom, and how his work helped make video conferencing easier and more accessible.
Chachi’s Video Game Minute covers GameStop’s eyebrow-raising eBay offer, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick not playing video games, and the latest Video Game Hall of Fame inductees.
The episode also includes Sorg and Katie’s visit to Axiom Custom Products in Portland, where they toured a massive fabrication space filled with CNC equipment, powder coating, custom retail displays, SolidWorks workflows, and large-scale branded builds.
Finally, the road trip portion takes over with Cannon Beach, Haystack Rock, puffins, Mount Hood, Sasquatch magnets, Portland Airbnb weirdness, and one very memorable bird painting.
