From Folding Bikes to Electric Aircraft: The Design Philosophy of Mark Sanders

Chris Whyte (: 00:01

Yeah, it all gets edited. The ums and ahs will get edited out. You know, don't worry about kind of using a bit of blue language. We're all adults, so that's fine. If you make any mistakes, just let me know or I'll pick it up. can mark the on the timeline so my editor can can sort it out. otherwise, yeah, we try and keep it as free flowing as possible.

Mark Sanders (: 00:12

Bye.

Mark Sanders (: 00:24

Great stuff, great stuff.

Chris Whyte (: 00:28

So Mark, welcome to the show. Welcome to Why Design.

Mark Sanders (: 00:32

Oh thanks Chris, it's lovely to see you again. I love your pod, it's absolutely brilliant. I mean the key question, why design?

Chris Whyte (: 00:35

Yeah, likewise. It's been a while.

Chris Whyte (: 00:41

Well, we'll dive into that very shortly. So, but no, it's great to have you on the show. And yeah, thank you so much for making the time, especially given my traveling recently, it's been difficult for us to connect, but it's great to sit down with you for those that are watching this on YouTube or kind of wherever it is that you might watch your podcasts. You can see you've got an eclectic mix behind you. Folding bikes as a sports car, there's a good plants and tech. And then I you've just told me that there's all sorts of stuff behind the camera as well.

Mark Sanders (: 00:44

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 00:50

B.

Chris Whyte (: 01:10

or crammed into a small space in pool, isn't it? yeah, great, great start. So I'm going to do my very cringey brief intro and then we'll dive into the question you've already alluded to. But so again, welcome to the show, Mark. So you're a designer, engineer and inventor whose work spans everything from folding bikes to kitchen tools to electric ultralight aircraft.

Mark Sanders (: 01:16

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:37

You started your career as a mechanical engineer within Rolls-Royce, moved into industrial design with the RCA, and you've since built a portfolio of over 100 commercialized products, as we're saying, some commercially successful, some commercially not, but you've certainly built up quite the body of experience there. And people may know you best for the Strider folding bike, but as we've discussed, your work is really defined by an obsession.

Mark Sanders (: 01:53

Sorry.

Chris Whyte (: 02:06

with reducing part count, simplifying function and making products that are more affordable and more useful to more people. So we're to run through some of your highlights and your lowlights from your career, talk about what drives you and reflect on how to make invention a lifelong craft. So how was that as an intro? Awesome. Let's do it. So yeah, we're going to in this episode, we're going to dive into

Mark Sanders (: 02:25

Yeah, sounds good. good. Let's dive in. Yeah, brilliant.

Chris Whyte (: 02:36

Whether designers can build a career through invention alone, the power of concept, simplicity, low bill of materials and value engineering. What it means to create designs for all and why so few people do it. Some of war stories from folding bikes, failed products, patents and the joys have been locked in a factory. And your approach to staying small, staying hands on and staying curious. So it's the big question now then Mark. So as I ask everyone at start the episode.

Why design? got you, yeah, where did it all come from? Where did your fascination with engineering and invention come from?

Mark Sanders (: 03:07

Why this?

Mark Sanders (: 03:12

Well, I mean, as a little kid, I was taking around steel factories by my granddad. He'd probably be not allowed now because he was like four feet from the pouring metal. I'm sure that had a bit of an effect on me. But the first time I actually remembered why to design was, think, when I was about 10 and the film 2001 came out, which I absolutely loved. And I thought, hang on, this is the future.

people have actually designed that, know, the lady that walks around and then does that and then walks along. And, you know, the pen floating in space. thought, hang on, people actually create the future. I'd like to do that. And so that was the first inkling. And so I kind of, just love making stuff as a kid and, you know, usual designer story, you know.

anything from electric synthesizers to model aeroplanes. I spent ages with model aeroplanes, RC planes. You build them for two weeks and then bring back a bag of bits at the weekend when they're all smashed up. You learn about building pretty damn quick. School sent me towards engineering.

Chris Whyte (: 04:25

Mm.

Chris Whyte (: 04:31

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 04:40

which was great and I managed to get myself a sandwich course, which was brilliant at the time and scraped into Imperial College, which was pretty good, pretty good. And then, yeah, I had this nagging feeling when I was there because we used to spend our lunch hours going across to the Royal College of Music and a bit further on, the Royal College of Art.

Chris Whyte (: 04:53

Yeah, some good alumni have gone through there.

Mark Sanders (: 05:09

And it was mainly, I guess, through the kind of hormones that are flowing through you. 19, you there's a much better ratio in those places. And so we used to go across. I was just intrigued by what was happening at the Royal College of Art. know, was freedom of expression, you know, compared with engineering, where the answer is always in the back of the book. And it felt a bit more constrained.

and so that, that kind of set me up for the future. and, that kind of, want to be involved with the whole product rather than just the engineering aspects kind of drove me through. so after a stint at Mars, on Mars, I mean, on the planet, the, the, confectionery company, designing vending machines, I came across these mythical like creatures.

and they were called design consultants. And I'd never heard of them before. And in fact, the company was great company, DCA. And what used to happen was DCA had come up with all the concepts, the core concepts of how to make a new vending mechanism or whatever. And then it was passed down to us kind of in-house engineers to try and make it work. And I soon realized that

Chris Whyte (: 06:13

Already, yep.

Chris Whyte (: 06:19

Okay, yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 06:37

That core concept is absolutely crucial for everything that flows down the line. Absolutely everything. If it's got too many components, those components stick. If the mechanism is bit dodgy, you've got to fix it somewhere down the line. So right at that early stage, I knew that concepts were really important. And so thought, how do I become one of these design consultants? And so I went for an interview with

a lovely company called Moggridge, Bill Moggridge, who actually was one of the founders of IDEL. And I said, you know, hey guys, they're advertising for a mechanical engineering job. And I said, hey guys, you know, I really want to get into this kind of consultancy and concept stage and aesthetics and all this sort of stuff. Can I come and do the job? And they said, yeah, sure. You know, you'd be great. But what other options have you considered? I said, well, I've got this small inkling to go to the RCA. letting

Chris Whyte (: 07:14

Got you, okay.

Mark Sanders (: 07:36

as greasy engineers in almost through the back door. Because normally the way of getting into the RCA is quite a jump, but they have this joint course where engineers could come and retrain. And Bill said, actually, if I were in your shoes, you better go to the RCA. And he was absolutely right. It absolutely transformed, I wouldn't say just my career, but my life. Met so many lifelong friends.

and not just friends, work colleagues and several of the people you've interviewed, know, Michael Korn and Mark Bickerstaff and just so many people and had a

Chris Whyte (: 08:11

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 08:15

hehe

There is a common thread, isn't there, RCA and Imperial through top design talent.

Mark Sanders (: 08:21

Yeah,

Yeah, know, IDEO, you know, there's a lot of people who gone IDEO and then Apple and places like that. you know, I think, and I absolutely believed in this core thing that design should be an overall activity rather than siloed into aesthetics or manufacturing or mechanical electronics, you know, think of the big picture and then work on it. And so that was a breakthrough really for me. And, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 08:30

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 08:54

It was the stepping stone to become that creature I wanted to be a design consultant.

Chris Whyte (: 09:01

fantastic. That's really, really interesting kind of origin story, if you like. So and you mentioned when we previously spoke that I talked about existential angst being a big motivator for you. What does what does that mean? What kind of and what role did that play in those stages?

Mark Sanders (: 09:25

Yeah, suppose. Yeah, to be honest, that's played a role all the way through my life. mean, the reason we went to see 2001 of Space Odyssey was a kind of celebration of my granddad's funeral. know, I'm not a combination, I know, but it kind of got me thinking like that. And I suppose I've always had this feeling that life is not a practice run. It's for real. You know, it's it's the wonderful light

Chris Whyte (: 09:39

Okay. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 09:55

between the two oblivions, which is what I believe in and make the most of it. It's your life, live it. so I think one thing I try to do and I try to kind of impress on students and people I've talked to is think about what generally what that 10 year old yourself was at 10 year olds gave you flow.

Chris Whyte (: 09:59

Hehehe

Mark Sanders (: 10:24

really pick your imagination as a youngster. You what did you love doing? What could you spend an whole afternoon doing without even noticing the time? That's your flow. And if that happens to be making stuff and designing stuff, you're great to go as why design? Because frankly, you'll never work another day in your life. I mean, I hate to say that, in fact, most of the projects I've worked on

even though some have paid very well. I do for nothing. I just love them so much, you know?

Chris Whyte (: 10:59

That's awesome. That's fantastic. talk about your, you know, your kind of career timeline now, some of the turning points, you've obviously you touched on them in terms of that journey from apprenticeship and Rolls Royce studying mechanical engineering, and then the time it clicks or Mars, I think you said, I'm guessing from those early more mechanical roles, what what did you then carry on? What lessons you carry on?

Mark Sanders (: 11:02

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 11:29

from the mechanical engineering side into the world of product design, design consultancy.

Mark Sanders (: 11:35

Yeah, I think the ability to basically hold your own in a group of engineers and designers because being able to speak both languages, know, the aesthetic language of form and why something works and what it relates to and all that kind of thing, along with being able to talk about stress analysis and things of a purely mechanical nature and

I think that that has been really, really useful. And it certainly helped me with the kind of projects I've been involved with, which generally do cross those two areas. You know, for me, the word that sums it up and works for both kind of camps, if you want to separate it, is elegance. Elegance has really strong meaning among sort of engineers, scientists and mathematicians, but it also has a really strong meaning amongst

industrial designers and artists. And so as a word, why can't we strive for elegance in everything we do? know, an elegant mechanism and elegant form. And so it's always been my touch point, the word elegance, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 12:49

I love that.

Fantastic. No, I love that. Because it's does. So that Venn diagram that's right in there, right in the sweet spot, isn't it? so talk us through how well you mentioned, obviously, you were inspired to go to the ICA, or you were kind of instructed to go to the ICA. So like, you should do that. And did you then go back to to Margridge? you get a job there afterwards? Or what was the path after that?

Mark Sanders (: 13:01

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 13:19

No, not after that. I started on my own effectively and I was really lucky that at that time we were given a whole year to develop a product in the final year. And I was commuting at the time between Windsor where I lived and London. And I tried everything from cars, took congestion, train, fast, but you got the last mile.

bus still stuck in congestion and it was, I think it was about 25 miles. So was, you you could cycle it, but you get pretty, you, nobody will want to sit next to you if you did. And so it got me thinking about cycling. I've always cycled since I was a youngster. You know, I used to, it's a takeoff as a kid and just cycle around the hills of Sheffield between Sheffield and Rotherham and get the train and then come back.

Chris Whyte (: 13:50

Hehehe

Chris Whyte (: 13:59

No.

Mark Sanders (: 14:13

And so cycling is just to me, it's a form of freedom. I don't think of it as a race or speed or anything. And so I chose the project to do a folding bike. There were a few around at the time. Brompton had started. There was a Bickerton, which became Dahon and they got together. But I felt there was a gap in the market, something that was really, really simple that brought together.

both the aesthetic and engineering. And in fact, that was the role of the project. You know, I had to satisfy the guys at Imperial who were engineers and the guys at the RCA who were both engineers and designers. so the aim was to do a really simple, clean, elegant folding bike. And that's where the Strina came. it's...

I was chuffed with at the time, you know, it worked. mean, it introduced a lot of new innovations which hadn't been done before, you know, three tubes in a triangle and one of the tubes is actually the steering, you know, so it's, it's actually, you know, doubling up its, its use. One sided wheel mounting, clean belt drive, internal cables, instant fold like a McLaren baby buggy, you know. And, you know, we've got good publicity, then.

This is one of the horror stories. The cycling world just descended on it. like, like, you know, you can't have small wheels on a bicycle. mean, that, that, dumpton, that's not going to last. That's not a proper bike. That's just got little clown wheels and you can't do the same. And, you know, as part of the research, I talked to all the kind of, um, you know, people in the bicycle industry, the cycling touring club and this sort of thing. And they all said the same thing. Look, mate, the diamond frame is the way to go.

Chris Whyte (: 15:47

hahahaha

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 16:06

Um, anything else is just, you know, it's just a niche. It's not going to catch on, you know, that Brompton will be gone tomorrow. And you're back at the wrong tree basically. And then the reviews came out and it was like, Ooh, you're sitting up like a Dutch bike or you should be laid forward like a proper mountain bike or a racing bike and all this kind of thing. And I was to be honest, from a real high of thinking I'd innovated something, I felt a bit.

can't deflate when all this negative feedback came. Anyway, I got over that and the thing is still in production over in Taiwan so you can't complain.

Chris Whyte (: 16:46

Yeah, just on the website now, there's quite a few different models, obviously different colorways, and it is still striking that design because, I mean, I've just come back from Eurobike and there's all manner of different bikes on display out there. Also, there's a big push into cargo bikes, but it seems like every other folding bike, it looks like a rip off of a Brompton. You go down the one island, it's like...

Mark Sanders (: 16:54

Yeah

Chris Whyte (: 17:16

it's just another another Brompton in some respects. So but this is yeah, it's different. Do know if it's selling well? Is it is it still kind of going strong?

Mark Sanders (: 17:24

Not particularly well, think. However, if you add up all the fakes that are made in China, there's probably plenty of them made, but the official one kind of trickles along the bottom. It's probably about, I don't know, a fifth of what Brompton do. It's more popular in Asia than it is over here. It's a bit weird for UK. Well, right in a triangle, that's a odd.

Chris Whyte (: 17:31

Bye.

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 17:42

Yeah, well they are.

Chris Whyte (: 17:54

Absolutely. But then, when you first see someone riding a Brompton, that that does look odd, doesn't it? But now they're they're everywhere. I mean, the Brompton riding experience is is an interesting one for when you first step on it because of the center of gravity is isn't where you're used to because the obviously the wheels run. Just looking at yours now, I guess it probably has more of a traditional kind of riding stance in some respects in that.

Mark Sanders (: 17:59

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 18:22

You're not right over the front wheel. I because it is kind of out in front of you. So Yeah, interesting. So so you went so your first role was was developing that into a Into a business then into into a product

Mark Sanders (: 18:25

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 18:28

And so.

Mark Sanders (: 18:35

Yeah, but not me. I knew that my skills were in design and engineering and not building companies. And I proved that to myself several times, you know, failed business attempts. funny enough, I learned from my colleagues at the RCA that, you know, artists and people like this, about the importance of PR, getting the message across. And so,

As part the degree show, I kind of sent a lot of invites out and one was to the Sunday Times, came and photographed it, which was great because it was, you know, very visual and that attracted entrepreneurs. And one was Clive St. Clair, who I formed another relationship, another one with this guy called James Marshall, who was actually a serial entrepreneur, you could call him, and one time manager of Greg Norman, the golfer.

Chris Whyte (: 19:12

Amazing.

Chris Whyte (: 19:22

Hehehe.

Mark Sanders (: 19:34

And he was a lolly chap and he was the guy that actually built the first Strider business. And I learned so much from, you know, following his, his coattails, you know. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 19:34

Alright, okay.

Chris Whyte (: 19:44

So you licensed the idea to him and he took it on as a business then.

Mark Sanders (: 19:50

Yes, that's right. And later the license did actually come back to me and it went through a couple of hands and ended up in Taiwan. So I don't own the IP to Strider. I get small royalty on it now and I don't get any influence in this design direction, but hey, there's little to change.

Chris Whyte (: 19:52

Fantastic.

Chris Whyte (: 20:08

Hahaha

Chris Whyte (: 20:12

Well, no, but it's also from our previous conversation. It feels like you've kind of carved out a bit of a career kind of or a career licensing kind of invention. So Strider was just the start of the journey, wasn't it really in that? So perhaps you can talk us through how you kind of carved out that I created was it you know, is it okay, we've done this job now, we've licensed out, let's move on to the next or what were those kind of

guess early days of mass design like that.

Mark Sanders (: 20:43

To be fair, early days of mass design were acting as a design consultant, you know, because royalties and things like that, A, you don't get much and B, you know, they don't feed the little beaks. So you've got to go out there and earn some money. using things like the Strider and other kind of

emotional things. I managed to get quite a bit of consultancy work, you know, working for some big companies and some small companies, all sorts of things from medical equipment through to kitchen gadgets and stuff like that. But to answer your question about how does a designer get into inventing and licensing and things like that, first of all, I think all product designers are inherently inventors. They're inventing

to order if you like. So a client will come up with a brief, obviously, and then the designer will try and fulfill the brief. Now the only difference between that and the sort of classic invention is that you come up with the brief to a problem you've perceived either yourself or someone's told you about or you've experienced, and then you...

design the product to go with it. Now the snag with that is really quite fundamental human nature really. Because when you approach a third party, a manufacturer,

It's your idea. And manufacturers, humans like to be involved with all the ideas they work on. And so we get this thing called not invented here syndrome. And I understand it, you know, you say, for example, you know, I had pure pure, you know, fancy example, this say I had a V.

Chris Whyte (: 22:52

hehehehe

Mark Sanders (: 22:55

best folding bike and I took it to the likes of Bronx and said look guys check the specs all right you know it's everything you ever wanted you know it falls into its wheel it's 20 inch wheel bigger wheel everything it's perfect they're not gonna say right lads all your design team there your decks we've got a better idea it's just not gonna happen

Chris Whyte (: 23:19

shh

Mark Sanders (: 23:23

And I think that that reality has to sink into inventors. I'm sorry, I'm going to close the door because the redskirts has just started up outside.

Chris Whyte (: 23:31

Absolutely does.

Chris Whyte (: 23:35

It's that, was gonna say, I thought it was an engine starting. That was the design team just revving up their motorcycles to clear off.

Mark Sanders (: 23:42

Sorry about that. Can you... Just a buzz in the background.

Chris Whyte (: 23:48

Yeah, that's fine. we'll be able to rid of it in edit. Yeah, but I thought it was the designers you just told to clear off just getting on their bikes and doing what.

Mark Sanders (: 24:00

Yes. But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that ownership of an idea is absolutely crucial. And unless the manufacturing partner or the business partner has exactly the same kind of alignment of where they want to be with the idea you've come up with, it's just not going to work.

And I've been so lucky with some of the products that I have licensed where that alignment has actually happened. And a lot of it has been through chants, you know, meeting at shows like, you know, Eurobike and Taiwan Bike Fair and things like that. And even, you know, moving from one manufacturer who wasn't so keen on a to another manufacturer who was, things like that. But I think

the message would be is to work in partnership with potential manufacturers. Well, in fact, not so much manufacturers, brand owners and founders, because let's face it, manufacturing these days is easy. You know, you can get anything made anywhere. It's...

The key first question that all these manufacturers ask is, how many containers do you want? And if it's like, we're just thinking of a few to start with, the phone goes kind of dead, you know, it's all about volume. So it's more about who's got the marketing experience and the brand to push it through into the market. And so working with people with brands and

Chris Whyte (: 25:24

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 25:28

Yeah, it's right down the pecking order. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 25:48

people who already have all this set up is probably the best way. And the best example of that in my career has been working with Joseph Joseph, because they actually, we met over a very early product, I did a folding cutting board, but they used to come to me and say, Mark, we want to get into,

and they came up with several scenarios, but we want to come up with a, for example, a can opener. And I know you've done a can opener before, but we want to have to be ABCD. so working with them to do this invention rather than inventing independently and proposing it works so much better. And so rather being paid to act as a consultant,

work with them in partnership and they're lovely guys to work with because they're both product designers and they are so enthusiastic about product design and it became a synergy you know I proposed something which they said a little bit crude can you put a nice button on there or make it and honestly it was really a kind of joint exercise and I think that

meant that the ownership of the products that came out of that kind of journey were owned by them and me, more them than me in fact. And I think that's a a better way of thinking about licensing and inventing.

Chris Whyte (: 27:34

So that that scenario you've just described there that sounds fairly typical of like a freelance gig or a design consultancy briefing, but with the added element that you're going to create some IP and you'll get royalties or you'll be able to license that IP to Joseph Joseph. in what would your advice be then to someone listening that kind of is stuck in that that that zone of kind of taking a brief and delivering it and then the

the client owning all the IP as opposed to partnering? How do you make that leap, I suppose?

Mark Sanders (: 28:11

Yeah, for some of the bigger companies I work with, like Titleist, the golf company, I propose that to them. said, look, I'll work for a much smaller fee and maybe you could pay a tiny little royalty, you know, because I knew their sales were pretty good. And they said, no, we'll just don't do that. And I think that that tends to be the, the root.

Chris Whyte (: 28:30

Mm-hmm.

Mark Sanders (: 28:40

Again, down to its ownership. They want to own the whole thing. But in the scenario you've just described, think certainly for smaller companies, if you said to them, look, I won't charge you any design fees or charge you just cost of materials, but we then share the project and you pay me a small royalty. That's sharing the risk. It's sharing the

Chris Whyte (: 28:43

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 29:09

ownership, it's sharing the involvement. And I think that will probably work. But to do that, you you still need to keep the beaks fed. So it still relies on, in my case, a lot on my wife who had a full time job in the NHS. And, you know, the thing is the career of, I wouldn't advise it, the career of an inventor as an income that does that. have whole years which have worked on things and gone.

Chris Whyte (: 29:34

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 29:40

nowhere and so you've got to factor that in.

Chris Whyte (: 29:41

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 29:45

Yeah, I think it's having a blended approach, it? It's having enough projects that have got the potential to pay out at some point, but making sure you can keep the light side and keep the beaks fed, you know, with the standard kind of consulting work. That's advice I always get from consultancy owners who have a royalty or an IP strategy as well.

Once you've got a handful of those running as well, it can create a lot more certainty for the business. If you've got regular kind of royalties coming in, you know, it's a lot easier to manage your recruiting for one, you know, because you're not so at the beck and, or the behest of the markets and the pipeline. But no, that's really interesting. So let's move on, shall we? to simplicity, billing materials and...

Mark Sanders (: 30:38

Yes.

Chris Whyte (: 30:42

design for all. So you've told me that you believe good design should reduce complexity and cost. So how do you approach concept design with simplicity and cost in mind? And what's the real world impact of reducing building material in manufacturing steps?

Mark Sanders (: 31:00

Well, yeah. sorry. One more point on that last thing is if you're a consultant and your work's going like this, use the trough, fill in the troughs with own work, which could possibly be licensed or if you're entrepreneurial, you could turn into a side business.

Chris Whyte (: 31:01

two-parter.

Yeah

Mark Sanders (: 31:24

Sorry, that's a final bit of advice for, you know, trying to juggle consultancy and inventing, but coming onto your about concept design. I mean, for me, concept design is the core of design and I spent hours and hours on it. I mean, for example, I love doing the Strider bike so much that years later, after seeing my son riding his bike and having a lot of fun, I came back to

Chris Whyte (: 31:25

Good tip.

Chris Whyte (: 31:31

Good tip, yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 31:54

designing bikes and, and, uh, got a lot of fun out of that. over the last 15 years, I've come up with lots and lots of different concepts for bikes, mountain bikes, folding mountain bikes, full-size bikes that fall into their own wheels, blah, blah, blah. And just enjoyed that. Some have been actually commercial jobs. Some have been just, and each one is, is, is a different concept.

What I try and do is immerse myself in the area and then just learn everything about it and then just cut right down as many ideas as possible. So it's down to quantity. It's a bit like the brainstorming process. But if you have a massive amount of concepts you can choose from, you tend to choose the best ones.

But those concepts often, this is what I've been doing with the bikes, have to go almost into production before you can prove that they're any good. And frankly, a lot of them weren't. So that's the catch to that approach. I mean, biggest benefits of this concept design are, I mean, it's a total win-win-win scenario. know, there's less bits to design, that's one thing.

Chris Whyte (: 32:58

Right, okay.

Mark Sanders (: 33:19

by making it simple. Simple to assemble, fewer parts, less to go wrong, more reliable, lower bond cost, which is super important. And especially that last point, the affordability thing is what allows products to sell and actually do why we design. We design to

enable more people to have a better life, I think, ultimately. So if you're only designing for the elite rich, it's not more people. So affordability has two ace benefits. You can either make a product that sells in huge volumes at a very small margin, or you can choose what a lot of people do, is to sell it at a high margin.

to a few people and spend a lot on marketing and branding and things. But the key to both of those is the low bomb cost and the simple concept that makes that possible.

Chris Whyte (: 34:33

How do you balance having a low bomb cast, having a small bomb versus aspects like recyclability, repairability? So I speak to a lot of designers and inventors and they'll talk about reducing the bomb cast. We'll take a screw out here, we'll use glue instead, or we'll use a clip. But there's I guess, a compromise. I'm not the designer here, so please correct me if I'm overreaching it.

take a screw out, you glue it, that makes it more harder to recycle or repair. You know, you can't access the battery. But if you want to have access to the battery, you've got to have another part molded up, you know, with a clear put, you know, so how do you get to the point where, I guess you've, you've gone through these, these concept designs, you've gone through this brainstorm, and you've got to pick the one that's most optimum, that's most elegant, you know, but it's also most affordable. What? Yeah, how do you balance that?

Mark Sanders (: 35:09

Thank

Mark Sanders (: 35:15

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 35:33

Well, I think the key comes in the word testing. mean, the product has to have a really, really long life cycle so that it isn't Chinese crap that goes into landfill next year, but it lasts 15, 20, 30 years and it keeps on working. And to do that, that's one of the things you put in the mix in the concept design. It's part of simplification.

low part count simply to make it more reliable. The more kind of features and parts you add to it decreases the reliability often, which means that some little circuit board can break and the whole thing is knackered. So that's why I just love this elegance word and going back to simplicity. And I think if I don't care how, I mean, people have been deriding plastic as a material recently, but

Plastic is a brilliant material because one part can make lots of different functions all in one part. you you're squirting raw material and you get this functional part, which if it's designed right, and this is the key, can last years and years and years. It's really durable. know, nylon, hit it with a hammer, it doesn't break, this kind of stuff. so saying, everything has to, you know, can't use

plastic and must use water and things like that. Yeah, right. I'm a material agnostic, if you like. But as part of the portfolio, think plastic is really, really useful area. And to be honest, making stuff out of mineral oil into physical products that are good for us, rather than just burning it to move, makes a lot of sense to me.

Chris Whyte (: 37:30

Yeah, I think the key thing you mentioned there is the longevity, it's the lifespan of the product. I'm with you, plastic gets a bad rep, but it's because of the single use plastic, it's where we see litter in the streets, where we see cheap Chinese products, other manufacturers are available. But going straight into landfill, being broken by that sort of post on LinkedIn.

this morning of someone had pulled apart some headphones that his kid had had for a couple of months and needed some new ones because the connection had come out. It was a very easy repair job, but the cynic in him thinks, well, if they break, it means that you've got to buy a new one. So is that designed in? know, that's where you...

Mark Sanders (: 38:17

I know, built in obsolescence is kind of the kind of elephant in the corner in modern capitalism, let's face it. The Amazons of this world, although we use them and love them, basically are trying to get people to buy more stuff. And I don't think buying more stuff is necessarily good, but it's kind of the

the core basis of capitalism. I would always say good stuff lasting longer and recycling it, reuse, recycling. I think that's another thing as an engineer and designer, we can get kids to...

rebuild things and see how they work. And I think that maker movement is really exciting because it starts, you know, it starts to get people dismantling things and rebuilding them. Hey, that's often how I design anyway, you know, doing a new can opener. You don't kind of like, you know, an automatic can opener or something. You don't start off with absolutely a blank sheet of paper. You get, I don't know, an electric drill or something that's got a motor, battery and gearbox in it.

Chris Whyte (: 39:22

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 39:39

and then you hack it around. And so this hacker community, I find it's really, really exciting, you know, take one thing and because it's teaching people about how things work and how they go together so they can do it for themselves.

Chris Whyte (: 39:54

Absolutely. Yeah, it's I love that as well the And building things to last I mean it's you know, we talk about the capitalist Society and kind of business needs to make money, but you think take bikes as an example There are there a great example of if you build it well, we build it to last there's a resale market. There's you know, there's I don't know any other industry that's maybe cars, you know that that where there is such a

secondhand market that's you know so for companies like Brompton where it's a high ticket price but long lifespan you know they can still sell new products every year because people want to upgrade but then there's a big market for really good condition second secondhand product as well which could last for decades. I love it.

Mark Sanders (: 40:42

Yeah. I suppose, I suppose my worry though is when I think e-bikes are fantastic because they're so inclusive. They get, you don't have to be sporty to ride an e-bike. You know, you can ride one, you can ride twice as far as you would on your regular bike and got pills. never dreamt of all this kind of thing. But when they cost as much as a second hand car,

Chris Whyte (: 40:51

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 41:09

Mm-hmm.

Mark Sanders (: 41:09

something's bit amiss. And my experience of working with the Chinese is that they don't need to cost as much as a second-hand car. They're made in China very, very well for about $400 US dollars with Bluetooth and GPS and all sorts of things. And that was a real wake-up call doing those kinds of projects. And yet the same product is sold into the UK at $2,400.

Chris Whyte (: 41:38

Mm-hmm.

Mark Sanders (: 41:38

That big fat margin in the middle, I think, to be honest, is a bit greedy. And it would be better for society if more people could afford to use these kind of like products that make the world better by reducing congestion and pollution, et cetera, et cetera. So again, it's this battle between, you know, classical capitalism and what's best for the world. it is not, I'm not gonna solve it here, but you can see where it's leading, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 42:08

No, but conversations, if more and more people are having conversations like this, then it should kind of trickle through to to government. I'm not saying that I'm with you. We're not going to fix anything on this this this podcast. Not yet anyway. But it's an interesting one, isn't it? Yeah, because you look at there's a different size of every argument with with electric bikes, you know, if they're designed well, they'll last. how the battery is always the limiting factor there. The battery's got a

a certain amount of miles or hours in it. So you can replace that, which is fine. But, you know, is the battery waste from there? Is that better to have that than having the equivalent of a number of cars on the road? know, so it's, there's always trade-offs, isn't there? But I think, yeah, the more people we get on bikes, whether it's human powered or electric powered or whatever, you or scooters or other modes of transport.

Mark Sanders (: 43:06

Absolutely, yeah. I'm agnostic as long as it's not a huge great tin box with one person in it, you know. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And as far as batteries are concerned, if they're looked after and kept within the magic 20 to 80 % state of charge, they'll last forever. I mean, the car behind me is 15 years old. It's electric. And it's still got 93 % of its original capacity.

Chris Whyte (: 43:07

It's just great.

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 43:34

That's incredible.

Mark Sanders (: 43:35

that batteries will go on indefinitely. I love electrical powered stuff. mean, my mechanical engineering friend called me a disgrace to the profession because I've gone to the dark side of electric.

Chris Whyte (: 43:43

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 43:51

because you're... But it goes back to simplicity, doesn't it? If you've got a motor and you've got a throttle, you're golden. Yeah. It's a much more fun way to get around a city as well. Frankfurt for Eurobike, it was a 20 minute walk to get to the Mese or a four minute scooter ride. the roads are...

Mark Sanders (: 44:03

Exactly, a loving part.

Chris Whyte (: 44:20

wide enough out there, they've got cycle lanes, you feel safe enough, it's great fun. I was in Berlin for IFA last year and just kind of whizzing around Berlin on a rented scooter as well, just absolutely great way to see the city. If I was commuting, I'd do it by bike, easy, you it's, you just miss out all the traffic and you get there quicker. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 44:44

I Yeah. And it's fun. That's the key thing about these two wheel vehicles. They're fun.

Chris Whyte (: 44:50

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So moving on then to back well, moving on and backwards a little bit to some of your own products, we've mentioned Strider and some of the kitchen products that you've meant. you know, thinking back, what kind of what other products have stuck with you for good or bad really throughout your career that really left an impression on you?

Mark Sanders (: 44:53

now.

Mark Sanders (: 45:16

I suppose one of the, the hardest projects was, working for DACA and it is quite an interesting story in as much as, I was employed by, first of one of my original students who then became the managing director of this company and then he employed me. So I employed him for a bit and then he employed me and, Alex gave me some wonderful challenges.

Chris Whyte (: 45:36

Huh.

Yeah. interesting.

Mark Sanders (: 45:46

He ran this company in Hong Kong and UK and he said, Mark, I want you to design a opener. And bear in mind, this is going back, I don't know, 15 years or so when can openers were like ugly metal bits of bent, you know, the classic butterfly can opener, ugly and harsh and you wouldn't put them against your face. And said, we want a can opener, which is fully automatic, which you just press it once and it does everything. You walk away from.

Chris Whyte (: 46:02

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 46:15

And it just left me away to go and prototype it and make it and fiddle with it. And it got them into the market. But that was one of the horror stories because just before we got into the market, I was spending a lot of time in China, know, working on the production line, helping with the kind of

jigs and fixtures to check that the mouldings were right and the motors were running at the right, all that kind of stuff on the factory production line. And I'd been there about 10 days, 15 days, and it was time to come home and I was really knackered to be honest. And the taxi, I was in middle of China, the taxi that's supposed to take me to the bus station to the airport, blah, blah, just didn't turn up. And I'm asking the guys in the factory, where is he? And they were all going blank. Anyway, unbeknown to me,

Chris Whyte (: 47:06

No, no.

Mark Sanders (: 47:15

The launch of this product was absolutely critical to the success of the company. The company, I didn't realize this at all. We're in having financial difficulties. And so they've got all these pre-orders for this new automatic cannot not waiting. and so basically the message from above unbeknownst to me was don't let Mark go until every last little problem has been solved. And, and so.

Chris Whyte (: 47:23

I

Chris Whyte (: 47:41

Hahaha.

Mark Sanders (: 47:44

But the thing is, if they told me that in the first place, it would have been fine. Anyway, I spent a few nights living in the factory dormitory with all the girls and boys and it was an experience. It was fun and I actually enjoyed it. Oh, and just to burst another myth, all those boys and girls who you see working on the production line in China and think being kind of wage slaves.

Chris Whyte (: 47:47

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 48:08

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 48:13

they're having a fantastic time. It's often the first time they're away from home and it's mixed dormitories. See what I'm And so they come to work for a bit of a rest. That's why you get these exhibitions of, you know. But honestly, they're having a fantastic time. The nightlife is amazing. Anyway, sorry, that was a...

Chris Whyte (: 48:22

I see, okay, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 48:29

Right, okay.

Hahaha.

Chris Whyte (: 48:36

Ha

Yeah, but.

It goes with the pressures though, doesn't it? You need the release as well. I just have a message from a friend who's a few hours ago, it 1 a.m. in China and he's stuck trying to fix some tooling because the customer has changed specification that affects the accessory that he's designing and they've already gone to tooling. eleventh hour plus just chaos.

Mark Sanders (: 48:44

It does. It does.

Mark Sanders (: 49:09

No, obviously it's still happening, same familiar story then.

Chris Whyte (: 49:11

but that's the stuff that you don't see.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's going to be interesting over the next few years as well, how, you know, with America's ambition to kind of become a manufacturing company again, I don't want to stray too far into politics, but it's, you know, it's very topical, but how that will translate to American manufacturing, or indeed, UK manufacturing, where, you know, you've got a population of engineers and factory workers that are kind of

willing to work all hours and willing to work living dormitories. You know, that's a that's a very rare thing if at all it happens like here, you know. So but that's the stuff how we get stuff made. That's how kind of, you know, they're able to produce such good work at such kind of competitive prices because they put so much energy and time and expertise into it that.

a lot that doesn't exist in the Western world because we've either lost the talent or we've lost the drive to do it. And I don't think, yeah. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 50:25

I tend to agree. tend to agree. And I find it shocking coming back to UK after working in China, how, you know, China, they're apologetic when the quote comes in next day. Whereas over here, it's three weeks, mate, we're a bit busy at the moment, you know. But, but I think one of the, it kind of, it flows all the way back to this

Chris Whyte (: 50:44

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 50:53

really good, elegant concept work. And that's what the West and UK in particular, and the US are particularly good at. You know, we have this breadth of thinking of which allows us to explore and maybe a bit more time to explore these more elegant concepts, which might meet market needs and human needs better than the stuff that's kind of churned out as commodities.

And so that linked with, I think some foundational manufacturing processes, know, things that have been used in the car industry for years and years and years that have actually been proven and got the cost down even in the UK, because UK still makes cars and they have to be affordable and competitive on a global market. So some of those processes.

must be pretty close to what's happening in the rest of the world. So why can't we use them more in other products? In fact, that was one of my latest projects, which I got funded for, thank you very much, Innovate UK, to look at using some of the foundational techniques, know, pressing, forging, stuff like that.

Chris Whyte (: 52:04

Hehehe

Mark Sanders (: 52:19

from the car industry to more wide scale products and in particular bicycles to be honest, to get the price right down even in the UK. Because I don't accept that UK has to be a high manufacturing cost country. It just has to be more clever. And so I'm talking about, you know, this is where mass production comes in robotics and

Chris Whyte (: 52:25

Okay.

Mark Sanders (: 52:45

mass production of making parts like injection molding, blah, blah, rather than hand making them, which to be honest is better done in places in Asia where wages are lower. And so they can afford to do that hand making. So I don't think so all lost in the West. I'm quite positive about it to be honest.

Chris Whyte (: 53:09

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, you know, it's, it's not going to be, yeah, it's not gonna be labor that, that kind of gets manufacturing back. It's going to be technology, robotics and clever problem solving in that respect. But all that takes, takes time. What are you, what are you most excited about then with that kind of, for the future of kind of Western manufacturing? Are you privy to anything that you see and they think, yeah.

I'm looking forward to that coming down the line or there's not there's a big opportunity there. If I put you on the spot, then I appreciate you might have to share everything but

Mark Sanders (: 53:49

Yeah, well, I can't share everything, but this grant which I got just after Covid was really exciting because it allowed me to take one of the many concepts which I've been working on for years in the bike world into a lot more depth than just thinking about the geometry. So we've got really good concept for geometry. But

grant and for my own kind of motivation it had to be low cost as well. And so that's where I started looking at you know these are the manufacturing processes rather than cut weld and bend kind of processes which are commonplace or carbon fiber or whatever. So that was half the project and the other half of project was I suppose

the fulfillment of all the different concepts that have gone in the past. Some have gone into production, some haven't, some have been offered to big companies and been not invented here syndrome, you know, but the combination of all those ideas ended up with this one particular product, which I've put on hold at the moment because the bike industry isn't doing particularly well, but it's a bike that actually folds into its own wheels. So,

Chris Whyte (: 55:13

OK.

Mark Sanders (: 55:18

The size of the wheels dictate the overall package of the bike. So for example, a 20 inch wheel version would fit in a box 20 inch by 20 inch by 10 inches. Which when you compare with other competitors, that makes it 20 % smaller, but with a 20 % larger wheel size. And to be honest,

Chris Whyte (: 55:39

Mmm.

Mark Sanders (: 55:45

The fun of working on that concept is what gives me the kind of flow condition that I just love. But I'm holding back on it for the moment because the market's not ready for it. We'll see.

Chris Whyte (: 55:58

Yeah, definitely felt that last week at Eurobike. There were fewer exhibitors. was literally two less holes compared to the previous year. I think, I mean, I'm particularly interested in, you know, e-bike and cargo bike technology, especially around kind of, you know, the stuff that looks and feels like a consumer electronic that's not necessarily a frame, it's something to...

Mark Sanders (: 56:08

Really?

Chris Whyte (: 56:26

either convert an existing bike or it's clever transportation or whatever it might be. But apparently there was a lot of the big brands that you would normally expect to see at the big bike show that didn't turn up. They their own separate kind of shows on in town instead, apparently. So, yeah, interesting times. Yeah, we'll see that they're in for some changes next year.

Mark Sanders (: 56:46

Wow.

Chris Whyte (: 56:55

which they announced at the leaders' night. So think they're going to have a bit of a shake-up next year to account for more micro mobility as opposed to just bikes and separate that out of the two. But we'll see. Yeah, challenging times.

Mark Sanders (: 57:04

Good. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 57:11

I think, yeah, I think you're right. The bike industry really needs a good shakeup. They're not consumer products, bicycles. They are machines of torture for sports people with, you know, visible threads and nasty things like chains and gears that my wife, although she's a hardened cyclist, still has to ask which one is the big gear, you know, totally.

Chris Whyte (: 57:23

You

Chris Whyte (: 57:38

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 57:42

know, non user friendly. And it's quite funny, actually, I've wrote about this in the bike industry and said, you know, where's the innovation guys and why don't we make bikes for everyone rather than just the racers? And the answer is we agree with you. I thought there'd be. And in fact, I think people in the bike industry can see this, but they just don't know how to change because change is so hard. And we've always done it this way. We've always had a diamond frame and

Chris Whyte (: 57:59

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 58:06

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 58:10

yearly colour changes and let's let's make the tyres a bit fatter let's call it a gravel bike you know

Chris Whyte (: 58:15

Yeah, I've seen the gravel bikes and I swear I was driving a ride in a gravel bike 40 years ago around around around the streets. But yeah, I mean, call me call me a cynic. But if keen cyclists are prepared to spend 500 pound on a set of gears, five grand on a new bike because it's 20 grams lighter than last year's bike.

Mark Sanders (: 58:23

Exactly.

Chris Whyte (: 58:43

Knowing what the margins are, as you've just described that they can get them down to, there doesn't seem to be much incentive to make a everyman bike other than for the the the the Catalans of the world are doing a doing a good job again. Good quality, cheap bikes to people, but still those you still got to change change the gear. So I've got to change the the chain, you know, still requires maintenance. But yeah, it's a fascinating market.

Mark Sanders (: 59:13

Absolutely fascinating. You've nailed it as well. Just nailed the whole industry.

Chris Whyte (: 59:13

Well look, we're... Yeah.

Yeah, call me a cynic, but I've been in recruitment for a long time and it does that to you. Tell us what you're working on now then. This electric ultralight aircraft, something under 70 kilograms. Tell us more, that's awesome.

Mark Sanders (: 59:32

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's crazily fun, but I've been, I've been into electrics for a long time. I built my first electric RC plane with the really heavyweight Nikon batteries and it was so heavy to make it fly. I had to fly really, really fast. You know, you don't get lift if you fly fast. And so this thing used to go like that. And, but almost in silence.

Chris Whyte (: 59:58

Ha

Mark Sanders (: 01:00:01

And it was intriguing because it was a different kind of noise. so since then, I just love electric stuff. know whether it's electric bikes. I converted a Lotus Elan into electric and that's my daily run around. They converted a smart car into electric because they had a space under the floor because it was always intended to be electric. And so I used to love paragliding.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:01

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:12

Yeah

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:21

Yeah. Right, okay.

Mark Sanders (: 01:00:30

paramotoring but we nearly felt, my wife and I nearly fell out over it because it is actually dangerous there's you know these wires next to a moving propeller and you're the landing gear is your legs so there's multiple failure modes and so I got into full-size flying and there's this category of full-size flying which is called sub-70

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:47

You

Mark Sanders (: 01:00:59

And it's generally used as it's sub 70 kilos, which is a pretty low weight. the sort of people are, people are flying these machines, but they tend to be like hang gliders with wheels dangling underneath. call weight shift machines. Not micro lights, but micro lights are like light Cessnas now. These are like hang gliders with, with,

Chris Whyte (: 01:01:16

Yeah, like a micro light.

Mark Sanders (: 01:01:29

as I said these weight shift pods underneath and they can be made for sub-70 but I find they don't fly like proper airplanes and so what I've been working on it are some full-size three axis airplanes you know with aileron, rotor etc etc mainly based on designs from the 80s when things were ultra light before people wanted cotton

and air conditioning and leather seats and all this sort of thing. That's what the weight went up and up and up. And trying to make them not only three axis and 70 kilos, but also electric. And it sounds crazy, but it's not because the combination, okay, batteries are heavy, but electric motors are really light. So the combination of battery motor come to the same weight as

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:23

Mmm.

Mark Sanders (: 01:02:28

two stroke motor and a tank full of petrol. So it's not as crazy as it sounds. And okay, you only get a 40 minute flight time, but the adrenaline, the adrenaline level for 40 minutes of flying is generally enough. you want to come down after doing that.

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:31

Okay. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:46

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:51

I'm just looking at a website where you're so there's a Mini Fox SSDR fixed wing micro light, so that looks more like a wireframe, but it's not like a tiny little trike with a hand glider above it.

Mark Sanders (: 01:03:00

Yeah!

Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:03:08

No, that's a great claim. And the only snag with that is the SSDR rules mean a higher weight. So you've got to have a, it's got to be inspected. It's got to have a full pilot's license. The propeller and things have got to be checked every two years. The sub 70 class is actually a class below that, which actually you don't need a pilot's license.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:22

Right, okay.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:35

That's Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:03:36

It is a bit nuts, but these things are so light, you're probably going to kill yourself rather than kill somebody else. But it's a really growing area of the sport because aircraft are so complicated and the rules are so complicated about flying that being able to put a set of wings on your back is a dream fulfilled in this sub-17.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:43

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 01:03:59

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:03

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:04:04

America has a higher rating so that mini-Fox you've looked at will be classed as a it's called the part 103 in America and in America that would be able to be flown without a license again.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:16

Right, okay. Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:04:18

Good play now actually, it's wings fold and it's nice and clean.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:22

So the one you're working on is similar to that, but obviously lighter. Yeah. Exciting times. And electric powered, yeah, that's the key bit. So, I mean, it might sound like a bit of an obvious kind of setup here, but what makes that kind of project kind of uniquely exciting or challenging?

Mark Sanders (: 01:04:27

Yes, an electric car.

Mark Sanders (: 01:04:46

The challenge for me is it's never been done before. And I get bored if there isn't a challenge. And the challenge is in this case twofold. It's one making a full aircraft under 70 kilos, a proper aircraft with three axis controls and making it electric. so I suppose throughout everything I've done, I just love a challenge. I hate me too. And that's the challenge for that project.

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:16

Is it have you completed that now are you still working on that? What's the status?

Mark Sanders (: 01:05:20

I've got one, this goes into the horror stories, one version which I've only hopped in. In other words, I've done hops, but its steering system was terrible. And as soon as it hopped, then what's called ground looped. In other words, it just spun on the ground, which isn't very good. You don't want to do that.

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:37

Yeah. Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:43

No.

Mark Sanders (: 01:05:45

And so I've parked that literally for the time being and working on one which is I think it's on my website somewhere right at the bottom with all the pictures. A nice big red one, call it the Red Baron, which I'm designing a new undercarriage for, which will be a tricycle undercarriage. You can steer it from the front wheel. But the challenge is making all the

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:54

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:09

Got ya.

Mark Sanders (: 01:06:14

the bits and pieces come to a total of under 70 kilos. Yeah. So if you go to my website and down the bottom, there's a thing called more pictures or more products.

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:19

Yeah, brilliant. I'm just trying to...

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:27

Well, this will be a good opportunity to plug the website then as we approach the end. So what's the website?

Mark Sanders (: 01:06:31

Yes. Mas-Design.com

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:38

Yeah, mas-design.com.

Mark Sanders (: 01:06:42

Yeah. And if there's a few pictures in the middle, it's a bit old school, down the bottom, says, there's a few highlighted products at the top, but down the bottom, it says more products or more activities. I've got it here. And I think one of the first few, yeah, more products activities. That just brings up a whole, it's just a dumping ground for lots of projects I've worked on and.

Chris Whyte (: 01:06:54

Got you. I'm on it, yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:07:10

The top left-hand one is the one I'm working on at the moment, the Ultralight. And it's based on an 80s design, which funny enough, the core design is still in production because it's so good, the basic airframe, but making it light is the hard aspect. And all the weight was in the inner carriage.

Chris Whyte (: 01:07:13

Wow.

Chris Whyte (: 01:07:25

There it is.

Chris Whyte (: 01:07:32

It's incredible. Yeah. I mean, I've got to say that's that looks like a lot of fun, but the surroundings you're in, the place where you're working just looks absolutely dream, an absolute dream.

Mark Sanders (: 01:07:43

That's the one that is ready to fly, but I'm not ready to fly it yet. It's got such a tendency to ground loop that I'm parking that for the time being.

Chris Whyte (: 01:07:50

Hahaha.

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:07:57

You don't want to be coming in hot and then doing donuts to you on that one.

Mark Sanders (: 01:08:01

No, no, but having said that, because they're so light, the stall speed is like walking speed. It's like 17 mile, well, running speed, 17 miles an hour, both these planes stall at. Maximum speed, 40 miles an hour. So we're talking super, super slow and quiet.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:08

Really?

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:14

that's nuts yeah

Hmm, but I'm, I'm guessing you're not going too high though, are you? So it's, you feel you feel like you're going faster than I guess you wouldn't in a larger aircraft and you a lot more exposed as well. there so

Mark Sanders (: 01:08:34

Yeah, that's part of the fun. It's like cycling, but in the air, you know, you feel the aircraft moving and the wind blowing past your face and it's a great feeling. know, three dimensional cycling. Yeah. Think of cycling, but in three dimensions and you got the idea.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:39

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:43

Yeah, you've clearly got the EV8 goggles. that's awesome. Right, we're at the end of the show now, so we're going to wrap this up. But just one final maybe bit of advice really you share with listeners. You've stuck to doing what you love for 40 plus years now, so what advice would you give to

Students or young inventors that are at the start of their journey.

Mark Sanders (: 01:09:17

That's a great question. Yeah, I would say.

Trust in yourselves. think, certainly for me, certainly for people like Mozart and things, you're most creative as a student and in your twenties. But that takes confidence. And I think as a 20 year old, certainly I didn't have that confidence, but I did actually have the ideas. mean, and...

I wish I'd trust myself more on those ideas and push them forward and not be struck down by the negative criticisms. And apart from that, I would say follow your dreams. you know, I really recommend the career of engineering and design that to me the two merge together because it's so creative and you get this feeling of flow when you do it.

You know, when you're sketching and CAD modelling or making stuff in the workshop, there's nothing quite like it for, you know, looking at your wife and saying, five hours have gone. Where's that? What happened there? And so that's advice. Be confident. Follow your dreams.

Chris Whyte (: 01:10:37

Follow your dreams. Confidence. Wonderful. Wonderful. And reintroducing this question as a final kind of question because I got told off by Jordan Nolman over in there when I was in Boston a few weeks back because I stopped asking it. But finally, books or podcasts that you're really into that you think other people should get into.

Mark Sanders (: 01:11:02

Well, obviously goes without saying why design. I have to say, I love your product. I really do. I mean, it's, it, I mean, there was another one, I think design truth, which, um, was in a similar area, but I don't think they're doing it anymore. So you are the go-to. then apart from that, the other podcasts, uh, being an engineer masters of engineering, I still love diary of the CEO.

Chris Whyte (: 01:11:07

Thank you very much.

Mark Sanders (: 01:11:28

He's introduced, know, Stephen's introduced me to lots of really interesting people, know, the podcast, not literally. For example, Marissa Peer, the lady that does RTT, rapid, basically it's psychology, without weeks and weeks in front of a therapist. RTT, rapid transface, what's it called?

Chris Whyte (: 01:11:55

Rapid transformational therapy. Is that it? Yeah.

Mark Sanders (: 01:11:57

That's the one. That's the one. Yeah. And this lady, Marissa appeared as a podcast books. The book I would recommend for a lot of engineers and designers who are probably introverts like me would be Quiet by Susan Cain. It's the kind of Bible to show that to try and give you going back to that previous question to kind of give you confidence when you're kind of shy, retiring.

Chris Whyte (: 01:12:02

Okay.

Mark Sanders (: 01:12:27

designer or engineer amongst a world of people that are... And funny enough, one of the best professors at the RCA IDE was a guy called Miles Pennington. And he's actually an introvert. You wouldn't believe it because he's a professor. And he introduced that book to every single student that came on the course. Finally, Backstreet Boys by Francis Spufford.

And then: 1800

Chris Whyte (: 01:13:14

I mean, that's yeah, that's got to be in any designers library, isn't it? That one. fantastic. Well, thank you for those recommendations and more. Thank you for spending the last hour or so going through your design journey, through your career, through the ups and downs. I've really enjoyed kind of listening to you and asking you questions on that, Mark. So thank you so much for being my guest on Why Design. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, what's the best kind of...

medium for them to kind of speak to.

Mark Sanders (: 01:13:45

Yeah, all the socials, but you can go via the website and stick a form in. So yeah, any of those.

Chris Whyte (: 01:13:53

website again is mass-products.com mass sorry yeah cut that scrap that mass-design.com we'll put these links in the show notes in the comments as well on YouTube when it goes live and but yeah Mark thank you so much

Mark Sanders (: 01:13:59

No, design. Mass design.

Mark Sanders (: 01:14:15

And thank you, Chris, and thank you for doing this podcast. I think it's great. It's really good for us product designers.

Chris Whyte (: 01:14:24

Thank you, it's kind of you to say.