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OUR JOURNEY

An innovator's journey is never a straight line.

From our humble beginnings in the basement of an East London flat, now a rapidly growing team of engineers distributed across the UK.

Our journey has only just begun.

OUR MISSION

Ensuring a Resilient Future for Farming

Farms and growers need new technology to become resilient against labour supply shortages and ensure the countries where they operate have a secure and sustainable domestic food production system.

Muddy Machines is building field robots that do this in a sustainable way, driving the agriculture industry towards zero emissions with its battery-powered robots whilst also targeting soil compaction with ambitious weight targets.

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Our Journey So Far

MAY 2020

FOUNDERS MEET

In the midsts of the first Covid-19 lockdown, Chris and Florian met online at Entrepreneurs First both looking for worthwhile problems to solve in agriculture.

JUNE 2020

MUDDY MACHINES IS FOUNDED

After many interviews, zoom calls and online conferences, it became clear that reliable access to manual labour was a massive issue in agriculture. Muddy Machines was born.

Meet the Founders

Meet the Team

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Luke Steele

Lead Robotics Design Engineer

Luke began his professional life as a jazz double bassist, but after finding he spent all his spare time building robots, retrained as a mechanical engineer, and has since worked on robotics and mechatronics for the likes of Deliveroo, Dyson and Airbus, contributing to projects as diverse as automated chip fryers and haptic robots for clinical skills training.

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Rowan Aufenast

Robotics Design Engineer

Rowan grew up in a small countryside village in Suffolk and spent most of his life in and around agricultural machines. Having built small fighting robots, go-karts, drones and many more, he bolstered his skills with a Product Design Engineering Masters from Loughborough University. As the youngest in the team, he brings a wealth of potential - and some pretty crazy ideas.

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Toni Divic

Senior Robotics Software Engineer

Toni is a big believer in robotics for the public good. After five years building medical robots with Johnson & Johnson (formerly Auris Health) in California, he’s thrilled to be in the UK designing robots for sustainable agriculture. He doesn’t have the greenest thumbs, so he’s trying to pick up some tips while out on the farm. He holds a Bachelors in Biomedical Engineering from Harvard and a Masters in Robotics and Controls from Stanford.

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Brannoc Selby

Electronics Engineer

Brannoc started his career designing interactive electronic exhibits for the museums and attractions industry. After achieving a first-class honours Bachelor’s in Electronic Engineering, and with over five years working in electronics design; Brannoc has chosen to further his knowledge and is studying part-time for his Master’s degree. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing, cycling and snooker.

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Naomi Gold

Engineering Design Manager

A chartered mechanical engineer with 8 years experience; Naomi has worked across automotive, consumer and ocean tech engineering fields.
Often found bridging the gap between business and engineering teams, Naomi was recognised as a future leader while developing robotic AUVs at the National Oceanography Centre.
Naomi is passionate about her work contributing to worthwhile projects that help people and the planet. She is looking forward to helping the Muddy Machines’ team grow their fleet of Sprouts.

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John Moran

Head of Software

John has over 20 years of software engineering experience, specializing in embedded software for machine control. He has worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, NASA, Sybase and IBM. He holds bachelor’s degrees in both physics and computer science, and a Master’s degree in Data Science from the University of Illinois.

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James Fraser

Industrial Design Engineer

James has over four years of experience in product design engineering. Passionate about tackling climate change, he’s worked mostly with early-stage companies disrupting markets with new sustainable products and technologies. He holds a first class MEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bath, an MA from the Royal College of Art and an MSc from Imperial College London.

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Alex Coulcher

Senior Full-Stack Engineer

Having spent years living rurally in the rolling hills of the East Midlands, and with hobbies including Hydroponics and Mycology, Alex decided that AgriTech was his calling. In his previous life he worked on outdoor installations, SaaS platforms and cloud native architecture for the likes of Clarins, Lloyds Banking Group and Klarna.

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Ben Sunckell

Robotics Technician

Throughout his career Ben has combined his love of farming and engineering. Raised in New Zealand as an asparagus farmer's son, he went on to travel the globe working as a technician on optical asparagus graders. Also experienced in the Ag Aerospace, and more recently the UK Arable industries, Ben brings a broad range of engineering skills and ideas to the team. In his spare time you will most likely find him in the Surrey Hills training for his next running challenge.

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Diana Nastase

Content Marketing Intern

Diana is a Business Management graduate of Birmingham City University. She is originally from Romania and moved to the UK for her studies when she was 19. She discovered her interest in marketing when volunteering for one of the most known mentoring organisations in the UK, and following her year-long placement, she was determined to have a career in marketing. She was a member of a robotics club in high school and competed in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition 2017-2018 season.

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Bharath Puttur

Lead Mechanical Design Engineer

Bharath spent his summer holidays on his grandparents' 100-year-old farmhouse in South India where his great uncle took him on power tillers in the fields. His first degree in Mechanical Engineering in India was followed by a Masters in Motorsport Engineering at Brunel. He has over 9 years of experience designing garden tractors and high-precision surgical power tools.

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Mick Camerlengo

Senior Robotics Design Engineer

Mick combines product design and mechanical engineering with extensive experience in product development, manufacturing and technology. He has worked in a broad range of industries, including industrial automation, aerospace, consumer electronics and surgical robotics. As a child Mick used to help his grandad in his farm in Italy. Now he spends his spare time growing bonsai and gardening.

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Michal Kozlowski

Robotics Software Engineer

Michal holds an MEng and a PhD from University of Bristol, specialising in applied machine learning and computer vision. He was involved in numerous projects in both, academia and industry, ranging from wearables and robotics, to speech recognition, and has published numerous papers in these areas. In his free time, he enjoys hiking and cooking.

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Naman Kumar

Robotics Software Engineer

Naman Kumar is an experienced Robotics and AI professional with 8+ years of industry experience after finishing his masters in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. His background lies in Automotive, Consumer Tech and Agriculture and he is passionate about improving the lives of people using Robotics and AI. Apart from work, he loves traveling, adventures and reading.

NEWS

Muddy Machines In The News

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