S7E4 Scott Heimendinger | Developing the World’s First Home-Kitchen Ultrasonic Chef’s Knife

Being an Engineer · 23 Jan 2026 · 59m · Episode 4

What this episode covers

Scott Heimendinger, founder of Seattle Ultrasonics, details the six-year journey of developing the C2100 ultrasonic chef's knife, a device that uses high-frequency vibrations to reduce cutting force. He recounts his pivot from software engineering at Microsoft and IBM to culinary tech, including co-founding Sansaire and working at Modernist Cuisine and Anova. Heimendinger explains the technical hurdles of resonating an asymmetric knife blade, the failure of FEA simulations, and his low-cost testing methods using salt patterns and a U Factory robot arm to gather 100,000 data points on knife performance.

Mentioned

Companies
Seattle Ultrasonics, Sansaire, Modernist Cuisine, Anova, Microsoft, IBM, U Factory
Products
C2100
Tools
Fusion 360, laser Doppler vibrometer
Also
GitHub

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