Launch HN: Flywheel (YC S25) – Waymo for Excavators

Re:Launch HN: Flywheel (YC S25) – Waymo for Excavators by aorloff on Thursday September 25, 2025 @02:34AM (#45369860)

I would create a bespoke training set from the very best operator you can find, after significant interviewing, and then only use that to train your model (eg. partner with a local firm that rents at Herc or United Rentals a lot and has a skilled operator and train on their jobs while you rent them free equipment).

The range of skillset on these things is large, there are 2 dominant (fairly swappable - meaning most machines do both) different operating modes (excavator / backhoe) and I see that operators have a specific one they are best with.

Honestly, when I see a real pro using one of these machines I think this is one area AI is not going to win at soon - in the real world there's a whole support crew working with the excavator operator

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Re:Launch HN: Flywheel (YC S25) – Waymo for Excavators by jashmota on Thursday September 25, 2025 @08:03PM (#45380922)

This is a great idea - I would dig into this. I disagree on AI not winning here. Support crew mostly work on eliminating blindspots for operator. Yes you can eliminate blindspots with cameras and a 7inch TFT screen, but those are small, don't work great in direct sunlight. The current solution not being 10x better is why they still fallback to having those crew members. I genuinely believe we will change that.

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Re:Launch HN: Flywheel (YC S25) – Waymo for Excavators by aorloff on Monday September 29, 2025 @11:55PM (#45421745)

So if you just built the blind spot detection for the rig and offered that it probably would be enough product

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