Our Founder Ben NowackBen's Dad let him use a table saw at age 3. He built his first motorized plane in sixth grade with an RC car he found at the local dump, a DIY glue propeller, and some foam-board from staples. By the ninth grade he was building drones for the University of Massachusetts Boston, designing autonomous research boats, and going for his pilot's license. During this time he uploaded videos to Youtube showing off (what he thought was) amazing footage taken with his home built airplanes. He could fly them over 10 miles away, and built one that went over 150 mph.
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In high school Ben started the Youtube channel BenNBuilds. It started with an X-ray machine, then he liquefied air, then he built a Fusion Reactor. He would often spend 18 hours per day in the basement working on anything and everything. Ben continued to do local contract work, most notably he went to Hawaii with Peter Brown of Whale Wars to install environmental protection cameras the two had designed and built. If Ben didn't know how to do something he would read about it for a few hours then go figure out how to make it. After a couple years of skill building he eventually realized if something had been done before he could do it too. Eventually that wasn't enough, what about the things that hadn't been built yet?
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Ben went to college to pursue an engineering degree. It was the easiest way to work on cutting edge tech. He was accepted as an intern at SpaceX during his freshman year. Later that same year he was a contestant on Mythbusters: The Search on the Science Channel.
Ben continued to work in the aerospace industry throughout college. There is nothing as fun as solving highly constrained engineering problems all day. Then you get to see your hardware make it into orbit!
Between classes he was off running ultra marathons, ice climbing, and backcountry skiing. At age 20 he reached the 20,320 ft high summit of Mt. Denali after spending 23 days on its high altitude Alaskan glacier.
His next internship was as employee 4 at Park and Diamond, a company developing folding bicycle helmets. Within a year he had become Senior Engineer. He was able to probe into unknown underlying physics, create new analytical tools and procedures, and put them to use. Ben parted ways with Park and Diamond to return to school. He launched the company Shark Drones while finishing up his final semester of undergrad.
Ben continued to work in the aerospace industry throughout college. There is nothing as fun as solving highly constrained engineering problems all day. Then you get to see your hardware make it into orbit!
Between classes he was off running ultra marathons, ice climbing, and backcountry skiing. At age 20 he reached the 20,320 ft high summit of Mt. Denali after spending 23 days on its high altitude Alaskan glacier.
His next internship was as employee 4 at Park and Diamond, a company developing folding bicycle helmets. Within a year he had become Senior Engineer. He was able to probe into unknown underlying physics, create new analytical tools and procedures, and put them to use. Ben parted ways with Park and Diamond to return to school. He launched the company Shark Drones while finishing up his final semester of undergrad.
Why Shark Drones?
Ben's parents met each other lifeguarding on Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the 80's, eventually moving back in the early 2000's to raise their kids near the ocean. Hanging out on the beach and playing in the ocean had always been a part of Ben's life. He fondly remembers surfing at sunrise before going to his first grade math class, and spending hours on end getting slammed by hurricane shorebreak. In recent years sharks have become a real problem on the Cape. Late in the summer of 2018 a great white shark killed Arthur Medici right off one of the local beaches. He was tended to by off-duty lifeguard friends of Ben's family, including one of Ben's cousins. The tourism industry suffered the following summer as many people did not feel safe going near the water. Locals who have been surfing their entire lives began staying away from the beaches as well. With his background in aerospace engineering, drone building, environmentalism, and working at a seed stage startup, Ben realized that he could help Cape Cod and the world's coastlines while preserving the shark's natural habits and environment.