00:00.27 Paul Oops I jumped the gun hi welcome back to the architect podcast episode 197 today. We're talking with Chelsea Calwell posh about an as yet unnamed augurine device that she has invented and patented and and is telling us about right now. Um. But Chelsea I want kind of curious there. We ended the last segment and you 2 were joking about about all the kind of crazy shovel test pits. We've seen over the years and I will yeah admit to having made some of those myself. Ah. 00:34.47 archpodnet I Think we all have ah. 00:36.14 Paul Ah, and so sorted your your device is it intended to be ah 1 for 1 replacement of stps is it trying to meet some slightly different need in crm work. 00:51.12 Chelsea Pasch Sure that's ah that's a great question. The the impetus for for this machine was essentially to address the deep testing um that we've been encountering more and more here in New Brunswick we are the. 00:00.37 Chelsea Pasch The province of of rivers and wetlands and you know it's it's heartbreaking just to to dig a ah lot of holes just to know that you're going to have to stand there and watch an excavator dig through it anyway. So we've kind of organically. Grew into other applications. So say there's a project that has a very tight timeline and there's maybe 6 or 7 archeologists in my province. Um, so when something really big needs to happen. It's not like there's. Massive amounts of options to get things done um on on the scales that they sometimes need to get done on so you know those were kind of what I thought were going to be 1 offs you know because I I do shovel testing I do underwater surveys I do monitoring and and pedestrian surveys. You know and the mechanical was a very small portion of our offering of ah of services. Um, but it it kind of it kind of grew into. You know we had a project that was 10000 test pits that was completed. In seventy three days um so it's a lot It's it and and that's kind of a you know I have a great team I have a I have a very ambitious um competitive. 02:07.10 Paul Um, me. 02:16.99 archpodnet Um, Jesus that's lot. 02:34.66 Chelsea Pasch Drak with myself like okay guys we did this many yesterday. How many can we do today you know and that's probably like my my team are probably oh my god like she's gonna literally try to kill us and you know that's the thing is I'm right there with them I'm with everyone I'll be the one with the shovel. 01:46.40 Chelsea Pasch Trying to egg people on see if I can do one more than you know the 20 something rugby player. Um, but it. It's definitely grew into these different applications because the option that's left on the table is just watching an excavator dig through things. So the regulator has been very open to this technology. Essentially we got a ah pilot project with them. Um and pretty much for the first three years of using this equipment everything we've pulled out of our augur. And our screens has gone directly to the regulator to ensure that we're not out there just mangling artifacts and destroying context and all of that stuff. So you know we we had a very very nice. Ah, kind of. Review of all of the artifacts we've ever taken out of the machine. Our breakage rate is less than 1% um, which you know shovel testing can be upwards of 26% um, artifact breakage you know because there's no there's no gentle way. You know there's no gentle way to dig a hole whether it be by hand or machine. Um, it's just this machine. We're just using our committee screw. It's just sucking up but also pushing using the soil to push the material up the flights so there's only really one point of of impact where's a shovel. You're just. 03:53.52 archpodnet Oh. 03:56.73 Paul Um. 04:01.87 Paul Yeah I woke up to that. Even. 04:07.50 archpodnet Um, yeah. 04:25.45 Chelsea Pasch You know if you're anything like me, you're going at it like you know Nacho dip at a party. 03:55.72 Chelsea Pasch So just for root cutting alone. This is worth using. Um, we yeah honestly, um, if you've ever had to buy a mini pocket chainsaw to ah to dig ah to to cut the roots out of your test pit. Um, this thing essentially um, just gives them a nice. Ah, nice little snap and and they're gone. Um, yeah, we like I said we were Cindy lopper that would be a really good name. Um I love it. 04:26.67 Paul Um, yeah, ah. 04:30.78 Chelsea Pasch That's what I actually call my my hand loppers on site is good old Cindy. Oh yeah, yeah, girls just want to have fun. Um, but yeah, these ascent this machine essentially just ah cuts the roots. 04:31.42 Paul Ah. 04:32.20 archpodnet Ah, nice. You know I'm just wondering with with that description of you know the screw and and just kind of like pushing the dirt up I'm obviously thinking of some areas where I've dug before where it was just like you know, heavy amount of roots and things like that. 04:46.15 Chelsea Pasch Um, we've we've dug through asphalt like driveways and things like that. Um, and and all we do is we kind of just take the cap off. So if you can imagine us digging down until we get you know either the the side cap or the gravel the fill the asphalt then we take the augur to the side and we reverse. 04:47.99 archpodnet Would this handle that kind of environment or is it is it really well suited for the the sort of Pd environment. You've got up there. You mentioned the like ancient boreal forest but like what remains and how does it handle that kind of thing if you've tested in those environments. 05:05.54 Chelsea Pasch Ah, reverse the rotation. It falls out the bottom and then we try to to keep all of the yeah, the cultural sediments kind of in in 1 go but a normal logger if you can picture like a post-hole digger or something you know it. It creates this AntHill mound 05:14.85 archpodnet Ah. 05:23.36 Chelsea Pasch Kind of at the top that's the whole point is you you dig down and you bounce it up and down and all the material kind of Ant Hills the top you look like you got a little you know, um volcano there and all this this en casement does is it. It keeps it in the augur. 05:25.45 archpodnet Nice. 05:38.63 archpodnet And yeah, Cindy. Yeah yeah. 05:39.98 Paul Um, yep, we all do ah. 05:40.13 Chelsea Pasch It allows you to transfer it to. However, you are going to be screening it like I said we have ah a bevy of of ways we can do that? Um I'm not ashamed to say like this is really ah, a simplistic um innovation. It's ah it's a really simple model.. There's nothing here. That's. That's super um, ah like super out of this World. You know it's not going to take anyone to the Moon. Um, that's not complex and there's something to be said you know if you've ever worked on on old trucks or old Motorcycles. You know there's something to be said about not having to worry about computer systems and and getting a little grease on your on your hands and and a quick weld to do ah a simple repair is a lot easier than ah, a laptop and an ethernet cable or. 06:31.13 Paul Will be up. 06:31.83 Chelsea Pasch Um, although there there are people as there eye hear that really enjoy Computers encoding and things like that. So I mean I won't judge them on it. Yeah I'm I'm not judging you know to each their own. But. 06:37.66 archpodnet Ah. 06:53.87 Paul Ah. 07:44.96 Paul I I tell you I'm ah the handier with the electronics then with a weld I I'll do a field. Well if I have to but it's gonna be the ugliest thing ever. 07:45.10 archpodnet So summer on this call. Ah. 07:59.50 Chelsea Pasch Hey, like once you get that first stack of dimes. Well I tell ya you'll You'll be walking around? Yeah yeah. 07:23.96 Chelsea Pasch Sure and it's just about the rotation and the pressure. It's essentially just pulling the root until it snaps at the point where the en casement hits it if that makes sense. Um, if you you know if you're. If you're like me and you've ever been guilty of pulling those little what I call Angel hair roots out of the side of your test pit with just ah, a quick snap of your ah thumb and and Index finger. Um, it's essentially that on ah on a high flow skid Steer Scale. Um. And so essentially the the auger rotates it grabs the ah the root end and it pulls it until it breaks. Um, so that being said, this is a great segue into the limitations because I'll tell you this. 08:06.20 Paul Um, first stack of dimes I don't think I've gotten a single dime yet. But that's that's a different conversation. Um, yeah I Want to ask you? You know you'd mentioned this extremely low breakage but you also talking about how good the ah the tool is for cutting through roots. How does it? how. 08:17.23 Chelsea Pasch This technology is amazing and we've seen so many applications and we've used it. You know on on sites that had 5 test pits that were three meters deep or 10000 test pits that were you know seventy centimeters deep but this is not a ah um. 08:23.60 Paul How do you get something that can cut well without breaking the artifacts that you find I'm I'm curious how that works mechanically. 08:33.80 Paul I. 08:37.21 Chelsea Pasch Innovation that's going to replace test pitting. Um, this is really for those sites that you would traditionally see monitoring I'm just saying let's replace monitoring. There's a better methodology if you're going out looking for say burial sites that type of thing. 08:42.42 Paul Um, in. 08:53.50 archpodnet Ah. 08:55.80 Chelsea Pasch Absolutely should not be using any sort of machinery to do um, delicate work same as if you're working on say known site that has a lot of significance maybe delineate that by hand of course, there's always caveats so let's say it's a rescue archeology effort. Something's eroding into the sea you have literally 2 or three days to do as much as you can you know then we would see this technology really being utilized for those instances. Um. 09:15.72 archpodnet Um. 09:56.50 Paul Mean. 10:07.25 archpodnet Of. 10:36.95 Chelsea Pasch It's it's more of replacing one piece of equipment that is not for archaeology with something that is for archaeology if that makes sense. 10:18.20 Chelsea Pasch Yeah, and and it's actually interesting I've had geotechnical um surveyors ask me about it because they do test pits as well, right? they they need to look at stratigraphy if they're trying to do say the plans for a foundation or that type of thing and they're like you know what? if you can get down deeper. You call us you let us know because right now they get an excavator and they dig the equivalent of an olympic-sized swimming pool just to get a safe ah deep stranographic Analysis. You know so like this this can be this one of those rare you know, archeological. 10:43.53 archpodnet Right. 10:44.22 Paul Yeah, absolutely I mean that's something that we talk about as archeologists all the time How we yeah we borrow from every other field I mean the the typical thing is that the only scientific development that's for archeology is is radiocarbon dating and everything else is something that we've adopted from. 10:54.12 Chelsea Pasch Ah, innovations that might be able to be applied elsewhere. 11:04.29 Paul Any of a wide range of other fields and made work for ourselves. So. It's interesting that you've got an invention here that is specifically made for archaeology as opposed to being borrowed from geology or ah Petrochemical. Drilling or something like that. 11:22.54 archpodnet Um, yeah. 11:50.10 archpodnet Yeah. 11:51.70 Paul Really, if. 12:04.65 archpodnet Um, you know. 12:05.68 Paul Well I have ah another follow-up question there. You just had stratographic analysis and that's something that we haven't discussed here. Um, are you able to dig by Strata ah with the augur or are you digging in arbitrary depths and and then inferring strata later. 12:19.44 Chelsea Pasch I Tell you if if I could somehow know what the stratigraphy was before I dug I would be yeah I Well I actually don't think I would be anywhere else else any different than where I am now because not a lot of people would necessarily care about that except. 11:32.41 Chelsea Pasch Maybe the people on this call and you know a couple thousand archeologists around the world. But um, you can definitely arbitrarily dig a test pit um ten centimeters at a time five centimeters at a time twenty centimeters at a time. However, you need to do it. Um, the 1 thing I will say is you get the most beautiful profiles from test pits with this machine. Um, and I was trying to toy around with going to the saas and making a life size three meter deep test pit profile and print it out and kind of. Put it next to like my exhibitor's booth and just just to show people. Um, just how how beautiful it is but also the size the scale because I'm doing sixty Centimeter diameter ah test pits. Um you know in in. 12:26.37 Paul Are moving. 12:58.27 Paul Yeah. 13:03.27 archpodnet Um. 13:19.40 archpodnet Um, yeah. 13:31.60 Chelsea Pasch Other places they only might need twenty centimeters thirty centimeters 40 um so I'm I'm just showing like how much material can be removed. Um which thus increases the the confidence interval of your sampling strategy um ensures that your. 13:44.47 Paul Able. 13:47.61 archpodnet Ah. 13:49.53 Chelsea Pasch Covering more area that if something is there the likelihood of hitting it is is I believe twelve point six three percent higher don't quote me on that I don't have the the paper in front of me, but it's it's over testing. it's it's consistent 13:02.31 Chelsea Pasch Um, we can go deep. We can go wet. We can. We can go fast. Um and we can also run it lean which means I can do test pitting by myself which is never recommended. Never do anything by yourself. Um. 14:25.95 archpodnet Um, yeah. 14:26.37 Chelsea Pasch But but you can definitely run a very lean crew if need be and do a heck of a lot of work. 13:52.37 Chelsea Pasch Sure. So ah, the first part of your question I've already forgotten it I'm a goldfish. What was it? Ah yes, um. 14:08.27 Chelsea Pasch So really as many people as you throw at it. It means the more efficient you can do when we did 413 in one day we had 12 technicians. Um, yeah, so that you know keep in mind we're in New Brunswick there's you know where we're not the you know. Developers capital of the world. Ah nor the archaeological professional capital of the world. Um, so if you had say 100 people and 5 machines going. You know I I would. 14:32.27 archpodnet Well, that leads me to kind of one and a half of my questions which was how many people does it take to run this things you can run it with 1 but optimally how many people do you have here and then you know once you answer that? What's the what's what's the training curve on this thing like you've got. 14:44.81 Chelsea Pasch I wouldn't even venture a guest depending on the the conditions of course and the depth and you know how accessible the the grid is Cetera etc. Um, you know you could really do a lot of damage to ah and buy a lot of damage That's a really bad um colloquial term. 14:50.56 archpodnet Field Texts you've just hired that are used to shovel in ah in a you know portable screen. What is the learning curve to get them into this system. 15:03.88 Chelsea Pasch To use ah see I am not a businesswoman. Yeah, ah you could you could make a lot of headway ah on a very long large linear project that had 50000 test fits you know and because there's always that risk of. 15:05.24 archpodnet How how many people how many people optimally can run it. Yeah, you said 1 can do it but in that situation how many would you want? ah. 15:23.70 Chelsea Pasch Archeology taking too long. Um and just being cut ah or treat like you know, reduced triaged because they're running out of time and I'm saying oh no, you can do the testing you can you can do it all. We can all we need is people and in a couple more machines. 15:23.14 archpodnet Cheese. 15:35.14 archpodnet Yeah. 15:41.39 Chelsea Pasch And that being said the ah the trading. Um, it's all about safety right? So What we've done is the operator. It's a single operator. Um, no one needs to be around the grid system that's being tested at that time. No one needs to be around the machine. The operator only has a ah one side limited access to wherever the screen methodology is being used and there's always the screen between the people and the equipment. 16:10.13 Paul Ah, you could do a lot of not damage. 16:13.41 archpodnet Ah, a lot of science. 16:15.10 Chelsea Pasch Um, and we've kind of intuitively come up with systems over time that just make things better like no one's allowed to go say record the test pit stratigraphy and and stuff when the machine is is working the assumption is you know the person in the machine cannot see you so you have to be. You know the the person taking care of your situational awareness at all times. But we've we've come up with systems where um, all people have to do essentially is screen the material for the most part 99% of all the crow. All they do is they wait for the next test pit to come. 16:37.40 archpodnet Yeah. 16:46.28 archpodnet Nice. 16:52.62 Chelsea Pasch And they screen through the material and what that has done. Um, you know I'm I'm coming up on 40 hard to believe I know this is a podcast and you can't see my wonderful skin tone and you know beautiful highlighted blonde hair and. You know, definitely not any ah wrinkles around my eyes or anything like that I'm painting a picture again here, but it's it's It's really helped with Attrition. You know Archeology is ah it's a hard physical Job. Um. 17:58.83 Paul He. 18:27.36 archpodnet Um, yeah, yeah. 18:33.62 Chelsea Pasch But the the value we have from people is you know how fast they dig a test pit. How long they can last and how good they are at at looking at materials for artifacts. So what we're essentially doing is saying you know you could technically you could be in a wheelchair. You could be 70 and. 17:46.28 Chelsea Pasch If you can still push through the screen um and identify material. You know you found maybe a second wind in this industry. 18:16.67 Chelsea Pasch Ah, worst tagline ever. 18:43.14 archpodnet Yeah. 18:59.83 archpodnet Yeah, okay, well we're gonna take a break so we can take our third wind in this podcast on the other side of this segment that was terrible I'm gonna own it though and leave it in the recording. Oh my god. 19:12.27 Paul We're going to break wind after this. Ah. 19:15.61 archpodnet So and then we'll really do some damage to your favorite archeological sites to use the tagline of the equipment here. Ah back in a minute. 19:22.24 Paul A. 19:30.20 Paul Ah, ah, do you have to run at six thirty Chris okay, let's add weekly one. Okay. 19:54.25 Paul No indication that's uploading it just says it's recording Still yeah. 20:16.59 Paul I think he already asked if you'd be a co-host Im on the field. Ah, ah. 20:26.96 Paul Oh my goodness I have no idea what's going on here I've it's just hanging. 20:43.80 Paul That's what I was going to do yep changes you made may not be saved. Well yeah, it should be but that was my browser telling me. 21:00.71 Paul Ah, waiting for storage Google apis. Ah. 21:09.51 Paul Let me just quickly see if I can see what the storage situation is here. 21:26.51 Paul Yeah man. Oh good. How. Yeah, it should definitely have been more than that. 21:52.32 Paul All right? Well I'm going to um, refresh and now quit restart Chrome and hope for the best.