Quotes from Simone Giertz

Having the brain tumor, coming out of surgery and going through all of that, you're like, I am never going to feel the same and I have this new perspective on life. So much gratitude, life just feels like this enormous treasure. Then that kind of just falls away and you're back being grumpy about having an early morning meeting.

I don't want to be brain tumor girl. I don't want this to be my thing.

I really wish this wasn't a thing. But this tumor is a thing. Even though it's not what I would have chosen for myself, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be all bad. What I keep trying to remind myself is this is one of those things that looks like a really bad thing on the outside but I know too little about life to be sure.

I think I've kind of carved out a sweet spot for myself by combining science and comedy.

I'm a part of a new generation of drivers that will only drive electric.

Haircuts are never good. You always end up being unhappy.

Electronics are getting more and more accessible now - you don't have to be an engineer to start building things.

When I started building things, obviously I was pretty bad at it. You cant be good at it from the start, and I decided to just embrace that, roll with it, and turn it into something funny.

I often get asked if I think I'm ever going to build something useful, and maybe someday I will.

I wanted to automate any part of my life that I could. And the over-the-top solutions are more fun than the useful ones.

I think it's also important to show that failure is a part of the process. It can sometimes be the end goal. People are very obsessed with building useful things and I think often that also stops people from getting started.

To me, the goal of building useless and ridiculous robots is more - I mean, in some way, it's like a personal goal because I think it's really fun, and I think having fun is super important to create things.

I found it was way more fun to build useless stuff.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I enjoyed making useless things a lot more than well-finished products.

I set out to make a sandwich using a robot arm. I put a knife at the end of it and tried to make it spread peanut butter over bread. It didn't work so great.

In middle school and high school, I had straight A's, and I graduated at the top of my year. On the flip side of that, I struggled with very severe performance anxiety.

I live on an old tugboat but feel that having a submarine would be the next level.

I would much rather be acknowledged for the work that I do rather than being a woman doing the type of work I do.

As for making video comedy, pretty much anyone can do it. When I got started, I just filmed it with my webcam and used iMovie to edit the video, which I still use.

My top video is probably the wake up machine. And that one was the first one that started going really viral. It's an alarm clock that slaps you in the face with a rubber arm.