Getting to YouTube science stardom by building $#!%ty robots

Summary

---

Science Quickly – “Getting to YouTube Science Stardom by Building $#!%ty Robots”

Published August 5, 2026 – Hosted by Rachel Feltman, featuring Simone Giertz and journalist Emma Gomez

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Science Quickly spotlights Swedish inventor, YouTuber, and designer Simone Giertz, known for her viral “shitty robots” and now celebrated for whimsical yet genuinely useful innovations. Host Rachel Feltman and Scientific American newsletter editor Emma Gomez explore Simone’s unconventional journey, creative integrity, her transition from comedic contraptions to thoughtful product design, the joys (and pains) of invention, and what it means to be an outsider innovator. The conversation touches on themes of self-teaching, resilience, online influence, and hope (or lack thereof) for the future of science communication.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Simone Giertz’s Career

• From “Shitty Robots” to Meaningful Design
  • Simone recounts her start building intentionally clumsy robots for internet laughs, the subsequent “fun age and era,” and her move toward solving real-world annoyances (e.g. chair for “not-quite-dirty clothes,” expandable fruit bowl).
    • “I kind of got tired of it and was like, what do I do next? … I started a product business and got into manufacturing. And it's just been so cool to feel like I get to have this other chapter of my career that feels as big and important as that did.” — Simone Giertz [03:02]
• Rejection of Traditional Professional Pathways
  • Simone shares how she struggled in regular jobs, feeling held back by bureaucracy and lack of creative ownership.
    • “Maybe I should find a job where it's a benefit that I can handle a lot of change and uncertainty...when there's something that I have creative ownership of, I just kick into high gear in a different way.” — Simone Giertz [06:25]

2. Creative Process and Integrity

• Staying True to Oneself
  • Simone describes her philosophy of making things for herself first, then finding the audience—rather than catering to trends.
    • “For me, creative integrity is making sure that I am proud of the things I'm putting out and that I'm at the core creating things for myself.” — Simone Giertz [07:42]
• Risk and Vulnerability in Creation
  • As Simone’s skills grew, she outgrew her comic persona, desiring to stand behind more serious work.
    • “It's really scary to be like, hey, I made something that I think is actually good. It was the natural progression for me...to feel like what I was doing online was aligned with who I actually am.” — Simone Giertz [09:18]

3. Being a Self-Taught Outsider

• Relationship to Science and Academia
  • Despite being viewed as a science communicator, Simone resists traditional science education frameworks.
    • “I've always thought of my videos as thoroughly uneducational...But...if you learn these skills, this is what you could do. I'm hoping that what I'm showing is a different example of engineering than most people are used to.” — Simone Giertz [10:50]
• Unique Process: “Flailing Forward”
  • Simone’s work involves trial, error, letting ideas fester, and finding delight in unconventional applications of technical tools.
    • “What makes my process unique is how much I struggle, I think. I don't know, I call it flailing forward...It's such a process of frustration and jubilation...there's nothing clean about it.” — Simone Giertz [11:41, 14:20]
    • “I can abuse the tools in ways that people in other contexts can't. Like there's such a disregard for both engineering and scientific principles. And there are a lot of creative liberties that I can take because I'm just doing it in my backyard.” — Simone Giertz [13:04]

4. On Resilience and Overcoming Challenges

• Embracing Failure and Performance Anxiety
  • Simone vulnerably discusses performance anxiety, internal struggles, and learning to be proud of trying rather than only succeeding.
    • “One of the mantras that I've adopted is like, I'm so proud of myself for trying....The big failure would be if I was too scared to try.” — Simone Giertz [16:44]
• Becoming “Rubber, Not Diamond”
  • “The hardest material in the world is diamonds. But...the toughest material in the world is something like a rubber...I really aspire to be rubber....I'll bounce back and I'll figure out a way to adapt and to reshape and to kind of overcome all the problems that life throws at me.” — Simone Giertz [15:20]

5. Inventing to Solve Everyday Problems

• Reimagining Mundane Objects
  • Simone’s recent projects stem from “laziness and ambition” — using frustration with unsolved, common issues as a springboard for creativity.
    • “It forces you to rethink the things that you take for granted and the objects that you take for granted...you realize that all the objects we have around us are mostly just things that people made up, and you can be one of the people that makes those objects up.” — Simone Giertz [19:36]

6. Hope, the State of Online Culture, and Science Communication

• Constructive Content & Internet Culture
  • Simone finds hope in building an audience and career without stoking negativity; other creators doing the same inspire her.
    • “Something that gives me hope is that you can build a career and be a person that is heard without baiting people's anger...seeing [the internet] also reward really good people gives me hope.” — Simone Giertz [21:03]
• Worries about the Science Community and Society
  • Simone is concerned about anti-science trends and the fragility of scientific institutions.
    • “The dismantling of scientific institutions is really hard. And all the backsliding and religion taking a center position in policy making is just wild. … It feels like we are in a time of incredible potential and we're squandering that potential by backsliding.” — Simone Giertz [22:30]

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Invention:
  “There's nothing that will make me feel as beaten down and at the same time as incredibly powerful and like a wizard as having an idea and being like, how do I bring this to life? … it's high effort magic, but it's still magic.” — Simone Giertz [04:50]

• On Self-Taught Ingenuity:
  “When you're going off road, in the sense that, like, you're building without a manual, it's really messy and it's not pretty.” — Simone Giertz [14:16]

• On Mental Health and Progress:
  “I'm a Ravenclaw who's letting herself be in her Hufflepuff era...It is like, you know what? It's okay to do things because they're fun. And it doesn't have to, like, that things are hard or prestigious doesn't necessarily mean that they're more important.” — Simone Giertz [17:52]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Simone’s transition from robots to product design: [02:38]–[03:23]
• Thoughts on Internet creativity: [03:30]–[04:18]
• Love of invention and creative struggle: [04:50]
• Challenges in traditional job settings: [05:58]–[07:23]
• Defining creative integrity / evolving her channel: [07:42]–[09:58]
• Relationship with science and academia: [10:30]–[11:31]
• Simone’s invention process: [11:41]–[12:59]
• Delight in DIY, non-traditional engineering: [13:04]
• Learning through trial and error: [14:16]–[15:08]
• Rubber vs. diamond resilience analogy: [15:08]
• Internal challenges and performance anxiety: [16:12]–[17:50]
• Projects inspired by solving universal annoyances: [18:54]–[20:34]
• Hope in online culture / science communication: [21:03]–[22:18]
• Dismantling of scientific institutions, skepticism about hope: [22:30]–[23:59]

---

Summary

Simone Giertz’s journey encapsulates the spirit of outsider innovation: from hilarious, self-deprecating contraptions to beautiful, playful products that reimagine the mundane. Her resilience in the face of personal and professional challenges —especially her candid discussion of self-doubt and performance anxiety— is as central to her message as her technical acumen. She advocates fiercely for creative integrity, the joy of “flailing forward,” and the importance of doing things for one’s own fulfillment rather than external validation. The episode is both an invitation to embrace imperfect invention and a reflection on the current crossroads facing science, public discourse, and internet culture.

---

Transcript

[Rachel Feltman]

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using

[Rachel Feltman]

automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn [e-mail] Spotify

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. That's Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

[Rachel Feltman]

For Scientific American Science Quickly. I'm Rachel Feltman. Simone Yettte started her career on YouTube, building what she called shitty robots, deliberately flawed contraptions that made people laugh. But over the years, she's evolved into a different kind of inventor, and now she uses creative engineering to tackle everyday annoyances. My personal favorite addresses a problem that I think is probably universal. You know those clothes that are too clean to put in the hamper but too dirty to hang in the closet? If they don't end up on the floor, they're liable to go on a chair, right? Well, Simone recently created a gorgeous chair that's actually designed to hold those garments on purpose than subtly stow them away when you're tidying up for company. Simone's ethos is all about questioning why we use certain objects the way we do and realizing that anyone can make up a new thing to make their lives a little better. We recently got to chat with Simone about the benefits of bringing an outsider mindset to science and technology. Here's her conversation with Siam newsletter editor Emma Gomez.

[Simone Giertz]

My name is Simone, I am from Stockholm, Sweden, and my job is that I am an inventor and YouTuber.

[Emma Gomez]

What are you excited about what you're doing right now in this phase of a Simone Gier?

[Simone Giertz]

First of all, I'm excited for this helicopter to pass. There you go. It's been 10 years or we're going on 11 years, and I think the thing I'm most excited about is that I feel like I'm at a completely new chapter of my career. I mean, I came up on the Internet building like robot comedy. I mean, the technical Term is robots. But you could beep that. It was such a fun age and era to go through. And then I kind of got tired of it and was like, what do I do next? And I was really interested in product design and I started a product business and got into manufacturing. And it's just been so cool to feel like I get to have this other chapter of my career that feels as big and important as that did.

[Emma Gomez]

That's lovely. What has you excited generally, like, right now as a creator, it feels like

[Simone Giertz]

the world is our build oyster in a lot of ways. Like, there are so many new tools that are coming on the market. I just got this really cool UV printer so I can print really complex things and that has me really excited. I think anything that kind of expands my world of making is really cool. And I think also it's just so fun to see everybody's storytelling on the Internet.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah.

[Simone Giertz]

I can hate on my Internet feeds as much as I want, but there's also just so many incredibly talented creative people out there. And I think that there's just a lot to be inspired by that other people are doing. People are doing more random stuff than ever before.

[Emma Gomez]

Yes, very true.

[Simone Giertz]

I want to think at least I

[Emma Gomez]

feel like at least I'm seeing a lot more random stuff that people are doing than ever before.

[Simone Giertz]

Yeah. And I think, like, the Internet has given us a stage for random stuff and a purpose for random stuff. In a way, it's just a really fun time to have a whimsical brain.

[Emma Gomez]

That's great. And to kind of like dig a little deeper into that. Like, what do you love about that process of invention and coming up with these things?

[Simone Giertz]

The thing I love about inventing things is that there's nothing that I know that is equal parts as humbling and empowering as trying to bring an idea to life. Like, there's nothing that will make me feel as beaten down and at the same time as incredibly powerful and like a wizard as having an idea and being like, how do I bring this to life? And I just think it's so cool to have a sketch on paper and then when you're actually able to hold the object in your hand, like, that is magic. I mean, it's high effort magic, but it's still magic.

[Emma Gomez]

Definitely. I was looking at some interviews that you did online and I thought there was an interesting thing you said about how when you were starting out, you were working at an electronics company in San Francisco and that context just didn't feel right for you. Could you Tell me a little bit more about what you meant by that and how you found your way to where you are and liking what you do.

[Simone Giertz]

I think so much about finding yourself has to do with finding the context in which your weaknesses are strengths. And I experienced that a lot in work. So I remember I had a government job, and I kept on telling myself that, like, okay, I need to be okay with that. Things are moving really slowly. Like, I need to not just, like, bop around constantly. I need to be fine with that. And then I was like, or maybe I should find a job where it's a benefit, that I can handle a lot of change and uncertainty. And I had that the same at the electronics company. It was such a fun job, but I had a hard time getting excited about other people's ideas and other people's products. Like, creative ownership means a lot to me, and you can put whatever value you want on that. Of like, oh, maybe I have a big ego, but instead of beating myself up about that, it's like, embrace it and make the context in which that is a strength. And when there's something that I have creative ownership of, I just kick into high gear in a different way. And I had a hard time getting that enthusiastic when working for somebody else's business.

[Emma Gomez]

That makes sense. And kind of along that line, something else that you've spoken about is creative integrity and, you know, being a content creator, knowing that growth is a part of it and views and da, da, da. But then also making things that feel true to you, like, I wonder about, like, how you balance those things and how you would define creative integrity.

[Simone Giertz]

For me, creative integrity is making sure that I am proud of the things I'm putting out and that I'm at the core creating things for myself. And then it's my job to find an audience who likes those things as well. So instead of trying to, like, cater to an audience or to a customer base, I'm like, okay, this is something I think is awesome. Let's try to find the people who also think that that is awesome. I think navigating that and still staying true to what you want to do is really important. And that's part of why I stopped robots, because it didn't feel right anymore. I felt like I had to fake my enthusiasm.

[Emma Gomez]

Why did it turn out that way?

[Simone Giertz]

I learned how to build things on YouTube. Like, I don't have a degree of any sort and definitely did not study robotics in school. I came at it from a very, like, hands up kind of way of, like, I don't know how to do this. I'm just going to build machines. And I think as my skills grew, I started to feel like I was kind of beating myself down a bit. I was like making myself smaller and dumber than I actually am. So I feel like I outgrew that shtick also, just getting older, you know, it's like we're having these long careers on the Internet. And of course the thing that feels really right when you're 26 isn't gonna feel really right when you're 36. And I think also something that played into it was that I went through really severe health problems. I had a brain tumor and I went through brain surgery. And that was a period that was very severe. I mean, as much as there was a lot of humor in that as well, I didn't necessarily feel like making myself to a clown on the Internet. I felt ready to actually stand by the things I was building and not be like, oh my God, this sucks so much. Ha ha, look how silly I. And that is really scary. Like, it's really scary to be like, hey, I made something that I think is actually good. It was the natural progression for me and for me to feel like what I was doing online was aligned with who I actually am.

[Emma Gomez]

I'm curious about your relationship to this kind of self taught nature that you have. And we're a science publication, so so many of the things that we're asking people are about, you know, their relationship to traditional science and academia. What would you say is your relationship to that institution? And like, would you call yourself a science communicator at all? And I don't know, I mean, growing

[Simone Giertz]

up I really wanted to be a biologist. Like, I wanted to study animal behavior. That was my big dream. And I think it could have worked out, but I think the rigidity of scientific institutions maybe wouldn't have been super conducive. I think I would have gotten a very frustrated of like, why can't I just do it? Why do I have to wait for approvals and funds and things like that? I think in terms of science communication, I've always thought of my videos as thoroughly uneducational. Like, I don't teach anybody anything really. It's not a how to guide. It's not like, okay, let's learn about this mechanism or this engineering phenomenon. But I think what you maybe could see them as is, as much as I hate the word inspirational, if you learn these skills, this is what you could do. And I'm hoping that what I'm showing is a different example of engineering that most people are used to.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah. Could you speak a little bit more about that kind of like, idea to finished product, process? Like, what makes your process unique?

[Simone Giertz]

What makes my process unique is how much I struggle, I think. I don't know, I call it flailing forward because I feel like I'm just like, ah, how do I do this? But usually the way it starts is that I have an idea that I'm interested in and that can be a problem or an object that I'm interested in exploring. And then I put it on my list of ideas and I let it fester there for a little bit and then start sketching. And usually I'm going to spend a couple of weeks turning it into a project for YouTube. And then at the end of that, if I think that the project has product potential or if I see that the audience reaction is really positive, I can pass it over to the design for manufacturing team and the product team. So basically be like, okay, let's explore designing this for manufacturing and making sure that we can manufacture it at scale. And then once we're ready to sell it to customers, then I can take it back to the YouTube channel and be like, hey, you can buy it now. But usually that's like two years later. So everybody has forgotten about it at that point.

[Emma Gomez]

I think the thing I want to know about is how you take delight from the science and engineering aspects of your work.

[Simone Giertz]

The main thing that I take delight from is that I can abuse the tools in ways that people in other contexts can't. Like there's such a disregard for both engineering and scientific principles. And there are a lot of creative liberties that I can take because I'm just doing it in my backyard. So I think that is probably one of the things. But I think it's. There's just something that is so delightful about being able to apply things in ways that other people wouldn't. I remember when I worked at that electronics company in San Francisco, like, the electrical engineers there to me were like superheroes because they held all the secrets and the things that I wanted to learn. And I was like, oh my God, you can build anything. Like, what are you using these skills for? And they're like, eh. And I think that is the thing that really delights me is being able to take these skills and apply them in ways that people don't expect.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah. Would you say that most of how you gained this experience was just through trial and error, like, figuring it out on your own?

[Simone Giertz]

For sure. It's just throwing the kitchen sink at it and being incredibly frustrated. And I think if there's anything that people might take away from my videos is that when you're going off road, in the sense that, like, you're building without a manual, it's really messy and it's not pretty. Like, I feel like a lot of other people's build videos are incredibly pretty and thoughtful, and everything joins perfectly. And I feel like, for me, it's such a process of frustration and jubilation and. Yeah, it's really. There's nothing clean about it.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah. And I think there might be benefits to that, maybe in terms of, like, you learning or something. Would you say there are?

[Simone Giertz]

Yeah. Cause it's all about building that resilience, the kind of grit to keep on trying. I think about this a lot in terms of how I want to be as a person, both in my work, but also in my personal life, is that the hardest material in the world is diamonds. But it's not the strongest material in the world or the toughest material in the world, because if you hit a diamond with a hammer, it will shatter. Instead, the toughest material in the world is something like a rubber, because it'll deform and it'll bounce back. And I really aspire to be rubber. It's like, yeah, I'm soft, and I will take impact and I'll get beaten up, but I won't shatter. I'll bounce back and I'll figure out a way to adapt and to reshape and to kind of overcome all the problems that life throws at me.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah, that's fantastic. What have been some of the challenges that you have overcome? Like, has gatekeeping been a thing? Has being a public Persona been a thing? Like, what are the challenges that have kind of you've had to get around?

[Simone Giertz]

I think overall, life has been incredibly kind to me. I've been so lucky in that. Like, I was raised in a really amazing family with very supportive parents. The Internet has been weirdly kind to me. Like, I have the nicest comment sections of. Of any place I've seen. I think the challenges that I've had have mostly been internal. And one of those was that I. I used to struggle with really severe performance anxiety.

[Emma Gomez]

Like, for your videos or.

[Simone Giertz]

No, for grades in school. So I was like, completely. If I got to be on a test, I would cry. I was so mortified of failing or of not performing. I still have. Like, going bowling with friends is one of my biggest nightmares because I get such bad performance. Anxiety. And what if I make a fool out of myself? And I think that, like, navigating around that has been really tricky, but. And, like, learning how to forgive myself for being imperfect has been really tricky. And I think one of the mantras that I've adopted is like, I'm so proud of myself for trying. And whenever I do something that didn't really go my way, or if I go bowling with friends, or if I. If I do this thing, I'm like, you know what the big failure would be if I was too scared to try? And I'm so proud of myself for trying. I think that has probably been one of the biggest, like, mental hurdles to overcome. And now I think of it like,

[Emma Gomez]

I.

[Simone Giertz]

The way I phrased it the other day is that I'm a Ravenclaw who's letting herself be in her Hufflepuff era. Yeah, I'm definitely like Ravenclaw, but I'm like, you know what? I don't wanna do that. I'm just gonna be in my Hufflepuff self and dilly dally in the workshop. So a Ravenclawn to therapy. Yeah, pretty much. It is like, you know what? It's okay to do things because they're fun. And it doesn't have to, like, that things are hard or prestigious doesn't necessarily mean that they're more important. And that was the whole mindset that led me down this path. And that I have this career that I never imagined that I would get to have. Like, I'm so incredibly lucky. But it's all because I let myself, and I was fortunate enough to be able to let myself just do things because they were fun and because I thought that they were interesting, but without having, like, a goal with them necessarily.

[Emma Gomez]

Something that I really find compelling about the kinds of projects that you've been taking on lately. Like, I was watching the fruit bowl video and their laundry chair, of course. Like, they're really solving, like, legitimate problems that people have run into every day. It's not divided by, like, you know, class or whatever. Like, it's. They're. They're problems that people, I feel like, didn't even realize there could be a solution for. But they're so common. Why is that type of thing really creatively exciting to you to, like, solve those problems?

[Simone Giertz]

I think I'm a combination of incredibly lazy and incredibly ambitious because there are these little mundane problems where I'm like, yeah, with the fruit bowl, I got frustrated because I always felt like my fruit bowl was too small or Too big. And it's like, yeah, I could just switch out my fruit bowls and have three of them depending upon. I'm like, no, I'm going to spend years, literally years, developing this fruit bowl that mechanically changes size depending on how much fruit you have. But it's just such a fun place to be in because it forces you to rethink the things that you take for granted and the objects that you take for granted. Like, it's so embedded in your brain what. What a bedroom chair looks like or what a coat hanger looks like. And once you start questioning that and being like, okay, but how could it be different? It forces you to use so many parts of your brain and kind of go further back down the design tree. And I think what's. What's really cool about that is you realize that all the objects we have around us are mostly just things that people made up, and you can be one of the people that makes those objects up.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah. Yeah. The last question that I wrote that I'll be asking you right now is you were saying there's kind of inspiration to it. Your content gives me hope. Do things feel hopeful on your end of the table? Does the response to the content make you think, like, this is great. People are interested in learning and in trying new things, or are we feeling concerned?

[Simone Giertz]

I wish I felt more hopeful than I do. I think about it in this way. I used to get into a lot of trouble because I cuss in my videos, like, it's never anything that I think is offensive. Like, it's never anything that's derogatory. And I think overall, my videos are incredibly wholesome. I think something that gives me hope is that you can build a career and be a person that is heard without baiting people's anger. And I see other content creators who are the same. Like, they're really like, as much as we're fallible and we're navigating, being in an incredibly capitalistic environment, it's like we're really trying to be good people in very public positions and communicate good values and good information and everything. And I think that gives me hope that there's, like, you know, the Internet really rewards the worst of us in a lot of ways, and seeing it also reward really good people gives me hope.

[Emma Gomez]

That's great. Can you elaborate a little bit on what's preventing you from reaching this hope peak that maybe you're struggling with?

[Simone Giertz]

I mean, the dismantling of scientific institutions is really hard. And all the backsliding and religion taking a center position in policy making is just wild.

[Emma Gomez]

Yeah.

[Simone Giertz]

I think it feels like we are in a time of incredible potential and we're squandering that potential by backsliding. So I think that's what's preventing me from being hopeful. But also, you know, we humans are inherently humans and we ebb and flow in how terrible we are. But I think at the core we mean well and we deeply care about other beings. I'm just so grateful for the work that people in science do and for the people in science communication. I think it's, it can be incredibly disheartening and especially realizing that people build their own truth and even if you have evidence based good science, people are gonna be like, nah. But it's still so incredibly important. So, yeah, thanks everybody who's weathering the storm that we're currently in.

[Rachel Feltman]

That's all for today's episode. We'll be back with more on Friday. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff d'. Alvisio. This episode featured reporting by Emma Gomez and was edited by Jeff d', Alvisio, Marielle Issa and Erin Shattuck. Facticker Show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up to date and in depth science news. For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

It.