# #010: Andre Brown - Principal Engineer on Amazon's Transportation Sustainability Team - Digital vs. Physical Prototyping, Creating Flat Hierarchies within Teams, Innovating Faster, Designing in Virtual Reality, Eggs and Vacuum Cleaners, Procedural Design.

- Show: [Designing in the Wild](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild)
- Published: 2022-03-01
- Length: 1h 22m
- Episode: 10
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team

## Summary

Andre Brown, Principal Engineer at Amazon’s Transportation Sustainability team and former R&D lead at Dyson and Shark, discusses the strategic balance between physical prototyping and high-fidelity simulation in product development. He details how Amazon uses massive CFD simulations to optimize aerodynamic fairings for its fleet, while contrasting this with Dyson’s cardboard prototyping and Shark’s customer-centric testing for vacuum cleaners. Brown also highlights his work on open-source race cars, the use of Gravity Sketch for VR design, and biomimicry-inspired innovations like the egg-protected Dyson robot vacuum.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=0) Introduction: Andre Brown and Amazon's Fleet
- [3:08](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=188) Simulation vs. Prototyping in Fleet Design
- [11:51](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=711) Prototyping Strategies at Dyson and Shark
- [23:35](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=1415) Flat Hierarchies and Cross-Disciplinary Teams
- [34:17](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=2057) VR Design with Gravity Sketch and Oculus Quest
- [43:20](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=2600) Open Source Race Car and Supply Chain
- [54:02](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=3242) Thinking Big and Career Advice
- [1:00:49](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=3649) The Flying Car Project
- [1:05:37](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=3937) Biomimicry: The Egg-Inspired Robot Vacuum
- [1:15:34](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/designing-in-the-wild/2022-03-01-010-andre-brown-principal-engineer-on-amazons-transportation-sustainability-team#t=4534) Procedural Design and Future Tech

## Topics

- [Prototyping & iteration](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/prototyping)
- [Industrial & consumer product design](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/industrial-design)
- [Mechanical engineering](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/mechanical-engineering)
- [Connected products & IoT](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/connected-products-and-iot)
- [Open-source hardware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/open-source-hardware)
- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)

## Most relevant to

large enterprises

## Mentioned

- Amazon (company)
- Dyson (company)
- Shark (company)
- Gravity Sketch (tool)
- Oculus Quest (product)
- SolidWorks (tool)
- HoloLens (product)
- Blender (tool)
- Grasshopper (tool)
- Rhino (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Industrial design prototyping vs simulations - IDology #21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/idology/2024-04-30-industrial-design-prototyping-vs-simulations-idology-21) (IDology)
- [082: Smooth Product Flow from Visual Design to Engineering](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-06-30-082-smooth-product-flow-from-visual-design-to-engineering) (Product Startup)
- [S5E15.5 PDX: Ian McEachern](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2024-04-17-s5e15-5-pdx-ian-mceachern) (Being an Engineer)
- [How Simulation Technology is Reshaping Product Design w/ Dr. Masha Petrova](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-manufacturing-executive/2024-05-21-how-simulation-technology-is-reshaping-product-design-w-dr-masha-petrova) (The Manufacturing Executive)
- [S7E13 Brad & Aaron | How To Accelerate The Speed of Engineering (Episode 2 of 3)](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2026-03-20-s7e13-brad-aaron-how-to-accelerate-the-speed-of-engineering-episode-2-of-3) (Being an Engineer)

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