UW DubHacks Next startup incubator produces 20 new student ventures in latest batch

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DubHacks Next Batch 5 founders at Demo Day on May 7 at the University of Washington. (DubHacks Photo)

Senior engineers are retiring faster than companies can replace them, creating a widening expertise gap in industries from aerospace to nuclear energy. 

Hera, a project developed by University of Washington students, is aiming to address the issue with technology that automates the design of parts that meet safety and industry rules, a process that normally requires many years of knowledge and experience. 

The product is timely, as 1.9 million manufacturing jobs are expected to go unfilled in the $2.3 trillion sector by 2033, according to Deloitte.

“Hera answers design questions 10-times faster than a senior engineer,” said Meera Patel, co-creator of Hera. “Once it knows the drawing can be manufactured, it pulls data from all your machines and gives you an exact production plan.”

That’s one of several problems University of Washington students tackled through DubHacks Next, a 16-week startup incubator. On Thursday, May 7, student founders pitched 20 startups hoping to turn their ideas into viable companies.

Since 2022, DubHacks Next has spurred 68 startups and at least 25 active companies. Participants get access to free workshops, mentorship sessions, customer discovery meetings and networking with potential investors. 

This year’s batch of 20 startups includes AI salon receptionists, a student subleasing platform and an emotional recovery app. 

“I’ve never had the experience of building such a large-scale idea and bringing it to life,” said William Pantel, co-developer of Catalvst, an AI audio plugin builder. 

The incubator’s past projects have raised more than $5 million collectively, with alumni going on to join accelerators such as Y Combinator and Techstars or land jobs at major tech companies. 

Starting this year, students could apply to join the Pack Ventures portfolio, including $50,000 up front and $150,000 when another firm buys in. 

Hera co-creators Meera Patel and Noelle So pitch their manufacturing automation tool at DubHacks Next Demo Day. (DubHacks Photo)

Patel and Hera co-creator Noelle So are among the students working with Pack. The demo is now live in three production plants, Patel said.

Here are more standouts from this year’s batch:

Chameleon: For the 1.3 billion people living with disabilities worldwide, nearly 96% of the internet’s top homepages are considered inaccessible. Enter Chameleon, an AI-powered web accessibility tool suite.

The suite includes a Chrome extension with tools like focus rulers, voice commands and head-tracking controls for accessible web navigation on any site, say co-founders Aditya Shirodkar and Ajit Mallavarapu.

“Especially with vibe coding, people are quick to develop software and don’t think about accessibility needs,” Shirodkar told GeekWire. “It’s a silent barrier that isn’t really addressed.” 

Chameleon is entering a market with growing need – and financial opportunity. The global digital accessibility market is estimated at $1.8 billion, and is projected to reach $3.2 billion by 2034, according to Straits Research. 

“It’s not just about making something cool,” Mallavarapu said. “It’s about making something people will actually use every day.”

Iris: Sthiti Patnaik and Saachi Dhamija focused on another technological headache: spreadsheets. 

Universities often rely on sprawling spreadsheets to track alumni for fundraising, networking and event planning, but records quickly become outdated and difficult to search. With Iris, alumni associations and other groups can more easily maintain member databases. 

“We ingest their spreadsheet, then present it in a more visual format with bubbles and graphs,” Dhamija told GeekWire. 

Along with data enrichment and interactive visual mapping for organizers, Iris helps members discover one another through shared experiences and interests. Patnaik, a recent graduate and managing director for DubHacks Next, hopes the solution will help her stay connected to other founders.

“All of our alumni go on to do really fantastic things, such as raise money, start their own startups, or work at really great companies,” she said.

After presenting Iris, Patnaik and Dhamija landed a design partnership with Pack Ventures.

Catalvst: For Aaron Li and William Pantel, the incubator became a launching pad for Catalvst, what may be the first-ever AI audio plugin builder.

High-end audio plugins – software tools that shape and manipulate sound – can cost music producers hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Li, who began producing EDM three years ago, said software costs have delayed his progress.

“I remember working all summer just to save up,” he said. “It’s a domino effect. You get one piece of software, and realize there’s another one you need that’s super expensive.”

With Catalvst, users can describe the sound they want in plain language and generate downloadable, working audio software in under a minute.

“If you’re like, ‘I want my songs to sound like I sing them in a cathedral,’ it’ll create software that makes your song sound like that,” Pantel said.

The founders distinguish their product from AI-generated music platforms, emphasizing that their goal is to empower human creators rather than replace them. They’re currently beta testing with music producers to refine the product and grow its user base.

“We’re using AI to build tools human producers can use,” Pantel said. 

Applications for the incubator’s sixth batch open this fall.

Other Batch 5 startups:

  • BeamBell: AI salon receptionist | Arvin Hakakian, Anant Dhokia, Aur Shalev Merin
  • Clearlobby: Legislative lobbying workspace | Shruthika Balasubramanian
  • Healr: Emotional recovery app | Advait Raman
  • HeartBeats: Music mixing for exercise | Hriesha Popat
  • Intently: Agentic product management | Ronald Luong
  • Leasee: Student-to-student subleasing | Sanjana Satagopan, Annika Chan
  • madr: Campus life app | Abraham Gibson, Azim Memon, Keshav Kalia
  • MindMark: Resource tracking tool | Chandana Robba
  • nomad: Travel social media app | Rahul Bonthu
  • nomi: Roommate management app | Anika Rao, Taj Khandekar, Nandini Sinha, Tharika Jayaraj, Aditi Agarwal, Sophia Zhang
  • Qualty: E2E agentic testing | Jove Pendapotan, Reuben Santoso, Samuel Purnama
  • Query: Q&A tool for live events | Saachi Surana, Shreya Pandey
  • Scout: Camping app | Aditi Agarwal, Anika Rao
  • sparks: Modest fashion shopping | Aleeza Bhatti, Zahra Taher
  • Wallzy: Credit card rewards app | George Evans Daenuwy, Kezia Joesoef, Patrick Wijaya, Calista Vidianto
  • Zither: Spatial web and file browser | Alexander Zhu

GeekWire

How to Safely Start Rock Climbing 

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(Photo/Shutterstock)

To thrive and survive outdoors, safety starts the minute you get behind the wheel. Don’t overlook the first, and most critical, rule of the road: Put on your seat belt. Beyond the drive there, an accident-free first climb up a destination crag comes down to etiquette and execution.

Planning and preparation matter, whether the route is in your backyard or at the end of an epic road trip. Here are a few best-practice reminders on how to be a good steward, plus safety keys for moving your rock climbing outdoors, and then coming home alive.  

Gym-to-Crag Safety Tips for an Accident-Free First Climb

Practice cleaning anchors: Most crag-ccidents happen not during the climb, but during the descent. Learn to clean sport anchors without untying yourself from the rope.

Do your checks: Outside, distractions abound — as do half-finished knots. Check each other right before leaving the ground. (And exchange an obligatory fist bump.) 

Come up with a code: On long climbs, you might not be able to hear your partner. Establish a system — i.e, three tugs on the rope means “lower” — ahead of time.

Knot your ends: Tie a barrel knot in each end of the rope before climbing. That way, if your route is longer than it looks, the rope won’t come zipping through the belay device.  

Stand close: Outdoor whippers happen fast. Stand close to the wall while lead-belaying, and spot your partner up to the first bolt. Remember the key to hand-positioning shape when spotting: spoons, not forks.

(Photo/Shutterstock)

Responsibility Reminders 

Leash your pup. Canine companions aren’t as rockfall-aware as we’d like them to be. Make sure your doggo is leashed, especially when your hands are full belaying. 

Share the route. Feel free to bring your whole crew, but be mindful of other groups. Offer to share ropes or let other climbers work in. 

Turn down the volume. We know you have great taste, but some climbers find music distracting. Ask your neighbors before you crank the T-Swift. 

Climbing Tips for Deeper Trips 

Watch your noggin. Helmets are always a good idea, but they become a must when you’re leading in remote environments. 

Respect the local ethic. Every crag has its rules when it comes to ticking holds, bolting, leaving draws, and stashing gear. Check with locals before you make yourself at home.

Pack it out. In places without a ton of moisture, buried deposits don’t decompose. If you’re climbing in an alpine or desert environment, Wag Bag your waste. 

 — See more in The Safety Detail, our film series and full activity guide to surviving and thriving outdoors. 


This article is sponsored by NHTSA: Click It or Ticket. 

GearJunkie

Dolt 2.0

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Three years ago, we announced Dolt 1.0, signalling that Dolt was ready for production workloads. We haven’t stopped improving the world’s first and only version-controlled SQL database. Today, we are excited to announce Dolt 2.0.

Dolt 2.0

What Did Dolt 1.0 Mean?#

Dolt 1.0 meant four things:

  1. Forward Storage Compatibility
  2. Production Performance
  3. MySQL Compatibility
  4. Stable Version Control Interface

Dolt 2.0 maintains the promises of Dolt 1.0. Dolt 2.0 improves on the performance and correctness metrics established in Dolt 1.0.

What Does Dolt 2.0 Mean?#

Dolt 2.0 also means four things:

  1. Automated Garbage Collection on by Default
  2. Archive Compression on by Default
  3. Faster than MySQL on sysbench
  4. Beta Vector Support
  5. Adaptive Storage

Unlike Dolt 1.0, Dolt 2.0 is fully backwards compatible with all Dolt 1.0 versions. No storage migration using dolt migrate is required. Let’s dive into the details of each of these points.

Garbage Collection#

Dolt makes a lot of disk garbage, especially during import. Dolt is copy-on-write so all intermediate committed transaction state is preserved to disk. Any intermediate state that is not in a Dolt commit is garbage and can be collected.

Garbage

Dolt already must preserve all history in the commit graph on disk. Adding extra garbage can eat through your disk very quickly.

Dolt 2.0 has automatic garbage collection on by default, meaning most users don’t have to care about disk garbage. Many users have been running in this mode for over a year. We’re confident it is stable.

Dolt 2.0 databases do not require extra garbage maintenance, just like other modern SQL engines.

Archives#

Following on the disk space theme, we also have a new on disk format we call archives that can reduce Dolt’s storage footprint by an additional 30-50%. Archives use dictionary compression to de-duplicate storage in the deepest layers of Dolt, saving even more disk space.

As with automatic garbage collection, archives have been the default format for new Dolt databases for months. We’re confident the format is stable and delivers real disk space wins.

Dolt 2.0 databases are kind to your disk with automatic garbage collection and archives. Version control already requires more disk space than traditional databases. Dolt 2.0 preserves that disk for your data’s history.

Faster than MySQL on sysbench#

We’ve long used the industry standard sysbench to measure and benchmark the latency of simple SQL queries in Dolt. We started at about 10X slower on reads and 20X slower on writes than MySQL. We’ve worked tirelessly to improve Dolt’s performance and we are now 13% faster than MySQL on writes and 5% faster on reads, averaging out to 8% faster than MySQL on sysbench style workloads.

Dolt 2.0 databases deliver real production database performance coupled with version control functionality.

Beta Vector Support#

We announced vector index support early last year. We have a much bigger challenge than traditional databases with vector indexes because our vector indexes must be version-controlled. We’ve done the hard computer science to achieve this. We adopted the Vector type from MariaDB in September 2025.

Dolt 2.0 databases have Beta vector support. Dolt is the only database where your vectors are version-controlled. We still have some edge cases on the read query path where a vector index should be used but it is not. Closing these gaps will reove the Beta tag from Dolt’s vector support.

Adaptive storage for large column types#

Borrowing from our Doltgres adaptive storage work to support TOAST types, we’re excited to announce Dolt 2.0 has adaptive storage.

For large column types like TEXT, BLOB, and JSON, databases generally store the value “out of band”, as a file on disk with a pointer to the file in the actual table structure. A different strategy, popularized by Postgres, is to examine the size of the value and store small values in the table structure while preserving the files and pointers strategy for large values. This strategy allows the user to be less disciplined about sizing VARCHAR columns and just use TEXT instead. It’s also a big performance win for these types when the values are small.

Dolt 2.0 has adaptive storage making MySQL databases that use TEXT, BLOB, GEOMETRY, or JSON columns a good fit regardless of whether they need version control or not.

Conclusion#

Dolt 2.0 is here. It’s kinder to your disk and it’s fast. Questions? Stop by our Discord and just ask.

Planet for the MySQL Community

‘I Am Your Father,’ Reveals Trump To Horrified Mark Hamill

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Donald Trump called an impromptu press conference in front of the White House this week to deliver a life-changing message to actor Mark Hamill, revealing that he was, in reality, the actor’s father.

The actor was reportedly reluctant to accept the invitation to appear at the press conference but sensed something deep within himself that made him feel compelled to be present.

"Search your feelings, Mark, you know it to be true," Trump said while extending his hand toward Hamill. "George Lucas never told you what happened to your father."

Hamill recoiled in fear, somehow knowing what was next. "He told me enough," he said. "He told me you’re basically Hitler and that you’re destroying democracy. We have to stop you."

"No. I am your father, Trump explained.

"No… no… that’s not true," Hamill sobbed. "That’s impossible!"

"It’s true. It’s a beautiful thing, maybe the best fatherhood in the history of families. Many people are saying it," Trump answered.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO!" the actor then shouted as members of the media looked on.

"This is a great opportunity, Mark," Trump continued as he adjusted his red power tie. "You can destroy the Left. The Democrats have foreseen this. Join me, and together we can make America great again as father and son."

Hamill was later seen fleeing the press conference and was unavailable for comment.

At publishing time, Trump also announced that he had ordered the United States military to destroy all copies of any Star Wars movies made after Return of the Jedi, a move that skyrocketed his popularity with Republicans and Democrats alike.


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Babylon Bee

Laravel ClickHouse: A Full-Featured ClickHouse Driver for Laravel

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Laravel ClickHouse is a database driver that integrates ClickHouse with Laravel, including Eloquent, the Query Builder, Schema Builder, and more:

  • Eloquent models with non-incrementing ID support
  • Query Builder with ClickHouse-specific clauses (i.e.,FINAL, ARRAY JOIN, SAMPLE)
  • Schema Builder with ENGINE, PARTITION BY, ORDER BY, and LowCardinality column types
  • Laravel migration support via artisan migrate
  • Concurrent query execution using Guzzle’s async HTTP pool
  • Dual HTTP transport options: Guzzle and Curl/phpclickhouse

ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database built for analytical workloads. It stores data by column rather than by row, making aggregations over large datasets fast—capable of querying billions of rows in seconds. It’s a common choice for event tracking, time-series data, and analytics dashboards where read performance at scale is the priority.

Eloquent Models

You can define Eloquent models pointing at ClickHouse the same way you would for any other database connection:

class Event extends Model

{

protected $connection = 'clickhouse';

}

 

$events = Event::where('user_id', 1)->get();

ClickHouse doesn’t use auto-incrementing primary keys, so the driver configures models with non-incrementing IDs by default. Scopes and collections work as expected.

Query Builder with ClickHouse Extensions

The Query Builder covers standard Laravel methods and adds ClickHouse-specific clauses. The final parameter applies the FINAL modifier to a query, which forces ClickHouse to merge duplicate rows at read time—useful with the ReplacingMergeTree engine:

$events = DB::connection('clickhouse')

->table('events', final: true)

->where('user_id', 1)

->get();

Other extensions include PREWHERE (ClickHouse’s pre-filter for primary key columns), ARRAY JOIN, SAMPLE, LIMIT BY, and SEMI/ANTI/ASOF join types.

Schema Builder and Migrations

The Schema Builder supports ClickHouse DDL via a ClickHouseBlueprint, letting you define table engines, partition keys, order keys, and column types like LowCardinality:

Schema::connection('clickhouse')->create('events', function (ClickHouseBlueprint $table) {

$table->engine('MergeTree()');

$table->orderBy(['id', 'created_at']);

$table->partitionBy('toYYYYMM(created_at)');

});

Standard artisan migrate commands work with a ClickHouse-compatible migration repository, so you can manage schema changes alongside your other databases.

Concurrent Query Execution

The package includes a Parallel helper that runs multiple queries at the same time using Guzzle’s async HTTP pool:

$results = Parallel::get([

'users' => User::where('active', 1),

'events' => Event::where('type', 'click'),

]);

Both users and events execute concurrently, and the results are returned as a keyed array once all queries resolve.

You can find the full documentation and source on GitHub.

Laravel News

Board for balance exercises, with acupressure #3DPrinting #3DThursday

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Hutnik shares:

These are balance boards, which are a great way to practice your balance. To make it not so easy, I created, in addition to a smooth board, boards with different types of protrusions that work like acupressure, which will take your balance to higher level

download the files on: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2743722-board-for-balance-exercises-with-acupressure


649-1
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

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How the Ford Model T Changed Factories Forever

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How the Ford Model T Changed Factories Forever

The Ford Model T helped democratize car ownership while revolutionizing factory production. Primal Space explores how Henry Ford and his engineers developed a moving assembly line that brought parts directly to workers, dramatically speeding up manufacturing. Ford’s Highland Park factory also helped popularize the five-day work week.

The Awesomer

The Odyssey (Trailer)

https://theawesomer.com/photos/2026/05/nolan_the_odyssey_t.jpgThe latest big-screen epic from filmmaker Christopher Nolan promises a dramatic retelling of Homer’s mythical epic, The Odyssey, in a cinematic spectacle that deserves IMAX viewing. The film stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and arrives in theaters 7.17.2026.The Awesomer

Adam And Eve Compile Comprehensive List Of Potential Suspects In Abel’s Murder

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EAST OF EDEN — After discovering the horrific murder of their son Abel, Adam and Eve sat down to compile a comprehensive list of possible suspects.

Declaring the case to be a real "whodunit," the first man and woman puzzled long into the night as to who could be the killer.

"Think, Adam, think. Who else could it be?" said Adam, staring at his list. "Don’t get in a rush here. Leave no stone unturned. We’re going to solve this riddle and catch the killer, whoever it may be. I didn’t do it. And I asked Eve, and she said it wasn’t her. That does narrow it down somewhat."

The couple reportedly spent several hours brainstorming potential culprits, such as "rogue fig tree" and "very aggressive breeze," before coming up with their exhaustive list of people who could have perpetrated the heinous act.

"We’re following all the clues," said Eve. "I feel like we’re getting close now. We’ll start the interview process soon and begin gathering clues. It may help to draw an outline on the ground of where the body was when we found it. I think we’re finally starting to get to the bottom of this enigma."

At publishing time, the couple had begun wondering who they could select to serve on an impartial jury.


California transplants Steve and Timpani try to be the perfect Texas hosts for Brittuni’s visit, but Steve quickly realizes he needs a sensible vehicle now that he’s about to become a dad.

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