Simone Giertz

Simone Luna Louise Söderlund Giertz ( YETCH; Swedish: [ˈjæʈːʂ] ; born November 1, 1990) is a US-based Swedish inventor and YouTuber who creates robot and maker videos. Her early videos in the 2010s involved robots that intentionally failed at everyday tasks, leading to the nickname "Queen of Shitty Robots". Later videos involved more useful projects, maintaining a comedic, rather than educational, tone. She has also designed products to sell, creating an online shop, the Yetch Store, in 2022. Originally from the Stockholm area, Giertz was self-taught in robotics, gaining experience with hardware while studying at an advertising school. She created her YouTube channel in 2013 and posted her first robot video, featuring a tooth-brushing helmet, in August 2015. She continued to post short videos showing her creations, including "The Breakfast Machine" and "The Wake-up Machine" in November 2015, each of which received one million views. After a February 2016 video featuring a lipstick robot, Giertz gained the attention of presenter Adam Savage and began working on his series, Tested.com, in California. Giertz presented her robots during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and a TED talk. Giertz attempted to train herself to be an astronaut in a 2017 video series, which included two of her most viewed videos. She worked on larger projects around 2018, including a branded video to promote the television drama Westworld. Giertz was diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumor in April 2018. She posted humorous content about her health during two rounds of treatments over the following year. As she shifted away from her "shitty robots", Giertz began designing products. Her first release was the Every Day Calendar, a habit-tracking product that she had developed during her recovery and funded using Kickstarter in 2018. Giertz gained wider fame for Truckla, a project documented...