The company supplies carbon rods for guitar and bass neck reinforcement (as well as in pipe organs) and items such as hiking poles and backpacks, tennis rackets, kayak and canoe paddle handles, tuna poles on fishing boats and spear-throwers. It is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in July 2020 and land on the red planet in February 2021.Īlthough NASA is probably its most famous client, Goodwinds’ largest customer base comes from the sporting goods industry as well as manufacturers of musical instruments. The four-pound, unmanned helicopter is an experimental aircraft designed to test the viability of flight on another planet. So, we work really hard to make everything exactly to their specifications.” “Our customers’ products are the most important things in the world to them. “We did several batches of prototypes until we got exactly what they wanted,” Cook explains. NASA was searching for a company that could manufacture wrapped carbon tubes for the landing gear of its Mars helicopter – a type of drone that will travel to Mars with one of NASA’s rovers. What did the space agency want from a company that makes composite rods and tubes? “Composite rods and tubes can be used anywhere a metal or plastic rod or tube can be used – but with some incredible gains in specific properties such as strength, weight and deflection,” Cook says.Ĭook doesn’t know the details of how NASA’s engineers found her company, but she’s sure glad they did. Its customers produce anything from musical instruments and sporting goods to robotics, medical equipment, pool cues, adult toys, airplanes and Mars rovers. “Carbon and fiberglass rods and tubes are integral components of everything from electric guitars and balloon arches to drones and farming equipment,” says Cook, who co-founded Goodwinds Composites with her brother Leland Holeman in 2008.īased in Mount Vernon, Wash., Goodwinds is a small but steadily-growing composites manufacturer that is gaining national attention in a variety of industries. Not every company can claim that its products are heading to Mars – or that they were used to construct props for pop star Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show. But when she explains where her company’s products end up, people perk up. Amelia Cook admits that talking about carbon and fiberglass rods or tubes may not sound sexy to the average person.
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