Interview with Srinivasulu Reddy

As someone who is passionate about product development in general and making drones in particular, I work with a diverse group of engineers and designers as a team. I see design engineering as the force that attracts all engineering and the glue that holds the product together.

As a design engineer, I work with others as a team. I put special emphasise on “voice of reason” when rejecting each other’s ideas. As we refine our work we also reject a great deal of qualified work. It is important to optimise for the amount of time, energy and resources that gets wasted when something gets rejected. Rejecting ones own work while it still is a bunch of ideas in ones own head is far better than rejecting each other’s ideas while brainstorming. Creating digital models allows us to take rejections to next stage. Mockups, scaled models and prototypes allow us to carryout even more rejections, we iterate at every stage before we head to the next stage and to production.

The beginnings are most exiting, it can get quite frustrating from there onwards, if it gets too frustrating to the point that it starts affecting everyone around me, I take a break, at times the entire team takes a break, we generally get back after a few days and resume with better clarity than when we broke apart. The overall sense of finishing a product is the only fulfilment that matters. The pleasure of designing is like the pleasure of creating, it is similar to the pleasure of emptying oneself out, it is like getting rid of some burden, a great relief at last.

Some of the non-design skills I think have helped me:
Taking the time off is as much a contributor to my work as the working time, the human mind seems to have an ability to optimise even while we are not actively working on something.
To be influenced by another person, style or trend is counter productive to a creative process, it robs the project of originality, I take steps to strip away from external influences.
I have been through a journey of refining my taste for everything.

I will continue working in the field of design engineering, seek to grow as a team. As a species we are rapidly growing in population, sustainable product development is not a choice anymore, I will work towards designing products that can endure, products that can be realistically recycled. One of the areas I wish to work is supply chain and logistic, by using drones. This is a solution that has the potential to connect producers and consumers like never before.

For Beginners:

Study the evolution and history of design trends in your field of work, a lot has happened in the last one hundred years.
Authenticity is the greatest luxury, be authentic, do not seek credit if your contribution has been negligible, but accept it if you are given some credit.
Get rid of people who do not provide credit to your contribution.
Time and energy are your strengths.
Set aside the first two years of your career to seek knowledge, acquire a point of view, refine your taste for good design and gain experience, you must pick your first job or project very wisely.

For fellow designers:

Provide clear credits to all the members for their due contribution.
There are many ways to do the same thing, there is no absolute right or wrong.
Sometimes even good designs fail, therefore enjoy the process.
Do not criticise without validation, particularly if you happen to review a work of a younger member.
If you come to understand that you are on the wrong path, do not hesitate to redefine yourself while you still can, death will eventually do it in time.

The first three to four hours of the day are the most important. This is the most creative part of my day, here I write, draw or plans, run the most difficult decisions in my head. By the time I am ready for the business day, I would have achieved a good three hours of work. The first half of the work day is usually for unplanned work, I am available for anyone to talk to me. The pace changes after lunch, it is time for discussion with groups and teams, this is when everyone gets familiar with what others are doing for the next day or two. Sharing experiences with each others can light up an otherwise boring day, some of these can flow to be quite spicy.

We keep pace with trends that are associated with functional aspects, such as technological symbols, safety and enhanced users experience. We keep artistic influences so as the product is pleasant. We are somewhat cautious about trendy elements, as they keep changing, we intend our products to endure through many trends.

For something to be considered as well designed
Every aspect of design must have a designated purpose, it must achieve it in an unambiguous manner.
Features must be able to cope up with the intended regular use.
Over applying foreign themes or over decorating with artistic styles must be avoided, except where such style is intended to be appreciated for its own sake.
A good design must enhance user's experience.

Nothing is ever really done or finished, having said that, it is necessary that the final product meets all the initial requirements, that the product is not just easy to use but offers great user’s experience. Once all these are met and consistently exceeds the expectations of the user base, we bring the work to a closure by preparing communications, presentation and technical documents. We do put an end to all development, to call a product a success we must generate sales, and have positive feedback from the endusers, that is a grater value for the user’s time and money.

I think I am yet to create my best work. However, I have spent significant time in designing ahaDRONE, a cardboard drone, later expanded the techniques to create several different models to suit indoor, outdoor and also a heavy lift capacity drone, and further made a fixed wing cardboard drone. To prove our ability in creating cardboard gadgets we designed KAVACH-2020, a Cardboard faceshield. This was a unique product developed to tackle Covid-19 challenges. We developed this product amidst the strict initial lockdowns, with our team scattered and barely any resources. We are particularly glad about our initial belief that corrugated paper board is a versatile medium and can be utilised for many applications. It also gives us great satisfaction that we have worked on engineering aspects of manufacturing corrugated board. I will continue my focus on engineering corrugated technology and look forward to create sustainable designs.

I find Charles and Ray Eames very interesting, I also find their contribution in architecture, films and furniture design as profound, it would be cool to talk with this design duo if at all possible. I also find Dieter Rams very disciplined and having a great influence in shaping our world than we can see.

At present I live in Hubli, a city with a little over 1 million population. I travel quite often to other cities as part of my work, I also travel with my family and friends, I find Mumbai very energising and as having a character of its own, I also find tourist towns and cities as having a positive vibe. As a design engineer working on cardboard drones and gadgets I am influenced very little by the culture and more by efficient use of resources. Good design can also bring sustainability, it can improve recyclability, reduce obsolescence and help build enduring products. Being a designer, I build small gadgets to manage our two German Shepherds, things like remote controlled fence gates and feeders, life with pets would be a lot easier if we can manage them for the couple of days we are on the road through internet activated fences and feeders.

As a design engineer, I work with other engineers and designers as a team, I always enjoyed working with others. I prefer to spend some informal time to understand our objectives and ensure that we are all working towards a common goal. I look for two qualities while hiring a candidate, one is their skill level or capability and the other is their level of commitment or dedication. Work is an important part of life, work culture is sacred, discipline in workplace cannot be undermined under any circumstance, it is also important to give credit, where it is due, to all contributors, however small their contribution may be. As a head of my organisation, decision making is vital to my role. I look for people who are good decision makers, candidates who can factor many variables and take decisions and own the consequence of their decisions, I consider such candidates as an asset to the organisation.

To be able to spend my time discussing someone’s ideas and concepts is what I consider as my contributing to the society, I can quickly adapt to diverse topics, learn something new if I have to. To me an opportunity to work on something I love is rewarding in itself. I do offer younger designers opportunities and sometimes I offer them my time and let them lead the project. While working with younger designers, I try to be less judgmental and only critique where I can validate such criticism with a reason.

The benefits of participating in design awards and competitions are:
International visibility that I receive due to this award is both personally and professionally rewarding.
Qualitative emphasis on presentation material while applying to the award is rich in detail.
The designer’s ranking helps motivate to do better within my field of work.

Design competition is an avenue to observe and learn from trends as they are being formed.

Sometimes a question is more important than the answer, the opportunity to share my views and thought process is a humbling experience.

There is a process, a way of creating a particular thing or a product, I find it fulfilling to discover this process. This discovery is motivating.

For me designing and engineering go hand in hand while developing products.

I design and engineer electronic products such as drones and robots using corrugated paper boards. I also have a liking to make modular systems that can be used to create complex systems using simpler building blocks.

Younger designers must broaden their understanding by systematically deconstructing masterpieces in their field of work. They must strive to understand the evolution of tools, techniques and trends in their design stream.

A good designer addresses all the objectives of the design, a great designer captures the essence of the design and rejects the rest.

A good design must serves all of its intended objectives and must reflect highly about the user of the product.

Choosing well designed products is a reflection of ones taste.

If I had the time I would design children's story books.

I think it is a movie.

To stay original is my secret recipe for success, to not get influenced by other's good designs is my secret ingredient.

I take inspiration from many sources, particularly the manner in which material has been used, this can be a masterfully done strokes in a piece of art or a craftily shaped wood in a furniture or a using material to shape the insides and outsides of building. I also take inspiration how concepts have been applied beyond their conventional use or how the purity of a purpose is preserved and how user's experience enriched particularly in products. There are many many masters who have achieved such feats.

Though I never owned a Polaroid Camera, I think it is a great product. The idea of noise cancellation headphones is brilliant as well, I am impressed by Bose’s QC35. I find Vespa as having a strong design integrity that permeates through several models and generations.

I am yet to make anything that I consider is great.

I keep doing stuff and also deconstruct great works of both art and design. I have cultivated a thought process, that involves observation, discrimination and evolution. To embrace valid criticism has been beneficial and also difficult.

I always wanted to make movies, I still believe that I have a movie or two inside of me that I need to get out.

Meaningful work that achieves a clear objective.

Parents, wife and kids are my biggest supporters. Friends and most importantly team members and their families have helped me reach to this point.

Teamwork and collaboration has been very helpful, sometimes discussing informally with end users and non-design people also helped.

If at all I find any obstacles, they are all within me. At times it is difficult to let go of ideas or even thought processes that have worked before.

In most cases the design presents itself.

Cardboard drone kits, cardboard gadgets and products made with specially engineered corrugated paper board.

To create a great user’s experience.

People expect a rewarding experience for their time and money spent on products I have designed.

Through design we can provide choices that are sustainable. We can bring about a trend of enduring design and counter the culture of built in obsolescence.

We are exited about ahaDRONE, a Cardboard Do-It-Yourself drone kit.

ahaDRONE did, it is the first of our cardboard projects, at a time when it was just an idea, it was too bizarre an idea to be taken seriously, we endured through a lot of self doubt.

A shift from designer led design to data driven design and finally a balance between the two.

Data driven design is already here, we will see more of it.

ahaDRONE took us well over a year to reach to this point, and we see another year’s worth of work.

We start from our present knowledge, skills and resources, understand what knowledge, skills and resources are required. By the time the gaps are closed the project acquires sufficient gravity.

Achieve more by doing less.

Great designs set the trend, trendy designs are just that.

Technology is at the heart of our designs, everything we do at Skykrafts Aerospace is driven by electronics, controlled by a software program or is a connected thing.

We use CAD/CAM/CAE tools. We use Fusion 360, Tinkercad, EagleCAD, Paper and Pen to design our products.

In my area of work as a design engineer, color can bring a sense of identity to the product and influence the mood to some extant, an application decides the choice of materiel we use.

Ideally, I do not wish them to ask me anything, if they enjoyed my work, it is a great validation for me.

Just a “wow”, else it is not a great design.

One with abundance of energy and less egotistical is an ideal design partner. I have enjoyed collaborating and co-designing with others on several occasions.

The potential end user of my designs have the most influence on my work.

Science fiction and mythology has always kindled my imagination, probably had the most influence on my work.

Foremost is by critiquing my own work.
By surrounding myself with energetic people.
Rejecting hastily made designs, irrespective of who made them.

Having a recognition as a designer is not as hard as being a famous movie start or a politician. It raises the bar of what others expect from me in my work.

Color: Gold, Place: Mountains, Food: pizza, Season: Summer, Thing: Paper, Brand: ITC (Indian), Mercedes (International).

After founding Skykrafts Aerospace, I was in a hurry to send an important letter and designed the first version of our company’s logo in about ten minutes using a word processor. Several months passed by and we all decided that it is now time to have a proper logo, we poured several weeks, designed countless variations, iterated over 250 times and finally arrived at a design that is nearly identical to the one that was designed in ten minutes. After many more months, that same feeling of unfinished logo crept back, and we recreated the logo into its present form, I think the matter is closed for now.

The calm first couple of hours of the day.

I was intense about whatever I was into, those who were close to me at the time, must have felt that I would become something.

If in a thousand years from now, the civilisation still exists as we know today, I wish the people of that future time look back on us and laugh at how silly we were.

I am a product of all the obstacles I have overcome, let me know if I can do better.

Skykrafts Aerospace makes consumer drones for applications in agriculture, forestry and research applications.

That which works and looks the part.

Functional machines like drone and robots made using corrugated board and 3D printed components as a structural material, this combination accommodates iterations even in user-usage phase, which bring the end user into the design act.

The corrugated paper board used to make ahaDRONE is my most favourite design. We reengineered corrugated technology and made paperboard fit for aerospace structures.

I have taken a liking for corrugated board and 3D printed medium.

As soon as I get up I feel most energetic.

The purpose why we are doing it.

I feel frustrated through the design phase.

I feel relieved when my designs are realized.

If it serves the intended purpose.

Designer's attention to details and focus on the purity of purpose.

Well made products are expected to be sought after by many people, it is very important that designers focus on sustainability as their creations are made in large numbers.

Although end user has always been part of the design, it was never as apparent as it is now, desktop 3D printing and corrugated engineering puts the end user right in the middle of design and engineering process.

Bangalore Tech Summit was our last exhibition, we would be exited to showcase at CES.

Anything from automobiles to coffee mugs, although good designs inspire me and earns my respect for the designer, it’s the bad designs that bring urgency to the motivation.

My style is objective-subjective, I find this approach mental-energy efficient, my approach is to do that, which fulfils the objective and responds subjectively.

I live in india, for me every design begins and ends for its own sake, it is its own genesis and creation, what we call heritage would have once had its own genesis and creations, having one creation influence another adds a lot of baggage, it would steal the purity of purpose of design and creation, India is a pandora box of culture and heritage, which is a testament that many creations have dodged their predecessors, therefore it is easy for me to stay away from all influences.

Pick your designer wisely and let them lead you.

It all starts with a clear objective, this clarity defines the very purpose of effort. I design and at some point brush the whole thing away, and re-design all over, I iterate this way several times.

1) Foldable bamboo computer desk 2) Mini cane chair 3) Polo neck t-shirts in general

I start working as soon I get up, while I use the first couple of hours of the day to prepare myself for the rest of the day, I use this time to address mental-energy demanding tasks such as designing and writing, some clarity would have dawned upon me by the time I am ready for the day.

If you don’t see flaws in your design, other’s will.

It’s not a job, but if you are skilful enough you can earn a living by being a designer.

There are infinite ways to achieve the same objective, there is no absolute right or wrong way.

Learn by deconstruction.

Pencil and paper.

First couple of hours of my day are crucial to my design, this is the time I find most energetic and creative, what appears to be spent on daily chores, but in reality is spent on the most creative activities such as designing and writing it provides me the slow think time, probably the most productive time of my day.

Even though it is never really done, it took us over a year to get to this stage.

How did you do this?

Commitment to work hard matter more than credentials.

End users of our designs include graduate students, educational institutes and recreational drone users.

Engineering design.

We will continue to engineer corrugated technology, explore the applications of the resultant boards in aerospace and other applications.

At least two other flying machines are in the making, we also have an underwater drone, a rover and a robotic arm. We are also working on few concepts such as telescope, microscope and weaving machine. It would be interesting to design these and make them available as do-it-yourself kits that can be made using cardboard, simple electronic, and 3D printed parts.

srinivas@skykrafts.com