Waving his hand over the grilled ducks, I could not tell from a distance if my colleague was adding seasoning to the birds or dripping holy water over them.
My curiosity got the best of me and I finally wandered over to see what was happening.
The development of the ShotSweeper began back in 2013. During an annual event, a lunch called the duck burn is held. Main chef, Norm Saake, retired waterfowl biologist from Nevada Department of Wildlife, and his sous chef, Greg Gerstenberg, retired wildlife biologist from California Department of Fish and Wildlife, donate and cook ducks for everyone. Norm is often seen shrouded in an atomic bomb-like billow of smoke emanating from his grill and Greg, after helping Norm get the ducks ready as well as making his world-famous tuna popper appetizers, can be seen hovering over the grilled ducks before they hit the serving platters.
What grabbed my attention was Greg scanning the meat with an old magnet, sweeping for non-toxic shot. When I wandered over he flipped the magnet over and stuck to it were several pieces of shot that were not going to end up in someone’s mouth, possibly cracking a tooth. This was an ah-ha moment for me because at the time the only crown I had was caused by biting on a piece of steel shot back in the early 1990s. Intrigued, I wanted to scan some meat and sure enough I found some shot, which quickly turned into a game and disappointment if a piece of meat held no shot.
Several duck burns would go by and I never really gave the magnet much thought other than getting to use it on occasion. However, that all changed about 2018 when I got involved at our local makerspace in Bend, Oregon, called the DIYCave. Think of the Cave as a health club but with tools that also offers classes. I got involved at the Cave because I had always wanted to learn to weld and then 3D printing looked intriguing. I have always wanted to bring a widget to market and 3D printing allowed one to turn a thought into a prototype. I took a class and soon learned to model and print various items.
I eventually thought about how Greg’s magnet never had a handle and how he and I both held it awkwardly in our fingers. Viola!, design and 3D print a handle to fit a magnet. However, we didn’t know the strength of the original magnet so I ordered several different magnets and set about testing each one to hone in on the perfect strength.
The birth of the ShotSweeper!
Over the next several years there were lots of stops and starts in designing and testing. One rabbit hole I went down included reading a 400-plus-page research document on redesigning a scalpel handle. We held several different early prototypes and asked others to hold them as well to improve the design to what you see today.
It was a long journey and after finding many rounds of non-toxic shot we are finally ready to introduce the ShotSweeper to hunters so that they can find the next piece of shot and make the next bite safer.
