Last summer while I was filming my short film, I finally succumbed to the advertising and subscribed to MasterClass. Best $180 I ever spent. After plowing through all the acting, screenwriting, and filmmaking classes, I moved on to the strictly writing section and began them all alphabetically. Yesterday I finished Malcom Gladwell’s, a profilist for The New Yorker. At various points in the course I was reminded of my short and unillustrious career as a journalist, mostly writing for the local, now out-of-business alt-weekly. I might have written near 100 articles for that and a few other outlets; maybe 2 of them I considered “good.”
While working for the alt, my editor tapped me via email one day to try my hand at a cover story. I was merely the tech columnist, and he had a tech story he wanted on the front. I had never done something of this magnitude and was equal parts honored, excited, and intimidated. He assuaged my nerves by telling me I had “as much time as I needed” and that “we would go over it and tweak it together” after I had a first draft. I interviewed my subject in the next few weeks and then let my notes rot for the next few months. When I was finally asked if I could get it to the office in the next 30 days, I obliged, finishing it in about 30 hours straight right before it was due, of course.
It sat in email limbo for I don’t know how long.
And then I got a call. To come into the office where I was told, kindly, by the new editorial board how fucking awful it was, etcetera, my good friend there cushioning all the blows, and that I would not be continuing with that story but it would be handed to someone more capable than myself. I felt both relieved and a little dejected, realizing I could have avoided this by being more timely with my submission but also, in the long run, I figured out journalism was not for me.
I “retired” from the gig shortly after and saw the story on the cover I don’t know when. I remember looking at the article but not reading it, because I felt I had looked at the treasure for myself and gotten what the article would tease the average reader.
My draft remained in my Dropbox all these years and, like some Arc of the Covenant, I never forgot it was there. And after listening to Mr. Gladwell I realized I should let it out of its cage, for Isaac’s sake.
For me, it was one of the good ones.
The Willy Wonka of 3D Printing
By Joe Cunningham
“If it’s not broken, break it.” – Isaac Budmen
……………………………………..
November 26, 2014. Today in outer space, NASA astronauts at the international space station fired up a package they received back in late September: a zero-gravity 3D printer producing a backup faceplate for the machine’s own head. Big deal?
As Techcrunch.com put it:
“Holy crap guys, we’re making things in space now.”
……………………………………….
It’s a balmy late September morning. The coffee shop is cluttered with the usual: retro light fixtures, roughly-finished wood-topped tables, assorted modern wall art, and leather-bound couches full of hipsters wearing tight clothing while sipping java and listening to Spotify on their Macbooks and Beats.
If one of them were to glance up through their Roy Orbison glasses for a moment at several odd minutes after noon, they would’ve noticed a distinct young gentleman in a green sweatshirt, thin as a rail, wiry as circuit breaker, with a look resembling the weathered Tom Hanks in Castaway, but with the mannerisms and smile one would imagine Jesus owned.
“Hi, I’m Isaac,” came the long hand, decorated with unexplainable scars. He buys a regular coffee and sits wide-eyed at the table, setting a large satchel of mystery beside him.
His hands, outstretched, seem to cup his deep thoughts as he speaks them.
“My philosophy,” he begins, “Is to live in the intersection between creativity and technology. You could say arts and sciences always try to live between the factual and the highly abstract – this is where all the best things in life come from.”
Isaac Budmen was born and raised in Liverpool, NY. A 2012 Policy Studies graduate of Syracuse University, he had this idea he “had to go to college to get a real job.” Having finished all the requisites for his major in three years, Budmen spent his last year at SU doing “whatever I wanted to do.”
That year he chose to write, with the help of Professor Anthony Rotolo, The Book on 3D Printing.
In 1984, Charles Hull patented the “rapid prototyping” machine; which, thirty years later, has developed into what is called 3-dimensional printing: a process using – most commonly – heated plastic that is molded methodically in layers according to a mathematical algorithm to create a preprogrammed shape. The invention was, for the most part, exclusive to engineers creating cheap conceptual models of their products, which made great sense verses a model in steel that could not be made at such precision and ease.
Since then, “prototyping” has been revealed to be only the very tip of the iceberg; and the technology dropping from, in the last three years, $100,000 per machine to only $699 (the price of an iPad) at your nearest Radio Shack.
“Compared to music,” states Budmen, “You have the record cylinder, the cassette tape, and then the CD; and all of a sudden, mp3’s – music turned into 1’s and 0’s – everything from 1930’s Big Band to Brittany Spears. 3D printing is just that – a digital file for a physical object!”
Budmen describes his year of scientific discovery at university as the fulfillment of a childhood quest.
“My Mom would always say, ‘I wish someone would invent something to do “X” or “Y” or “Z”!’ – and when I discovered 3D printing, I called my Mom and said, ‘Mom, I have the machine that can do all of that!’”
Budmen describes a world where you will be able to tell Siri to set the table by printing plates and glasses as soon as you leave the office; you will design your own car based on everything you like from Mercedes and BMW and Dodge in a simple, average-Joe user interface; where your same vehicle will upgrade its engine automatically in your garage overnight; where you can Tweet a link to a new furniture set you tweaked from IKEA to your friend in Tampa and the algorithm will auto-adjust to the climate difference and print more layers for sturdiness – all in an instant and in the comfort of your own home.
After quoting John Lennon’s Imagine, Budmen said, “Someday I will send my car to the store to get milk.”
“We are out of the garage, so to speak,” said Budmen, “But we are far from the ‘Macintosh moment,’” he says, when 3D printing will become as user friendly and standard as the personal computer is to every home.
In Kansas, a man made a concrete playhouse with a 3D printer. In China, they are making skyscrapers.
It’s a mind-blowing concept. Every physical thing now has a digital identity and can be recreated, manipulated, perfected, copied, enhanced, combined, transformed, and/or renewed.
“It used to take tens of thousands of dollars and a team of several scientists of many disciplines to create a prosthetic arm,” said Budmen, “Guess how much it costs to make one with a 3D printer?”
Fifteen dollars.
“It wasn’t me; it was the one-armed man.” – Harrison Ford, The Fugitive
“When I die, I’d like the real world to be a whole lot more like the digital world, and the digital world a whole lot more aware of the real world. I want to control everything with my mind – blur the line between bits and atoms [data and matter] – make everything synonymous,” said Budmen, staring with what seemed to be a dancing fire in his eyes.
Budmen currently resides in New York City and works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“One of the few places that sends my brain to inspirational places,” he said. “What I like about the Met is the old things – tables, chairs – art, but things people chose to make and surround themselves with. […] It’s like walking around in other people’s homes.”
Budmen’s workshop there includes a fairly expensive 3D printer he uses to recreate the art around him or play with it mathematically and conceptually: turning 2D into 3D, for instance. He “Google Mapped” the exact location of Van Gough’s Cypresses and recreated the scene in Van Gough-ish form in three dimensions, answering the question, “What does a blind person see at the Met?”
This!
“How can an Eskimo understand the desert,” asked Budmen, “How can a blind person understand Van Gough?”
Or Picasso’s Nude Standing By the Sea – “How do you understand the way Picasso deconstructed something?” By 3D model of course – backwards conceptualization!
His work is fascinating, and obviously genius. To the engineer, he is an artist; and vice versa, painstakingly studying, practicing, and perfecting every iota of the machinery and craftsmanship until his hands swell and bleed and his art drops jaws.
The young man’s mind tunnel is as enigmatic and surprising as the journey “down the rabbit hole” in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and one feels the fantastic aura of discovery following his every thought.
“They’ve made a 3D printed gun,” he says starkly, “In Texas,” he says, smiling. “Any means for good can be used otherwise. What did Nobel invent? [Of the Nobel Peace Prize] Dynamite.”
Pixar animators come to him to create models of their characters.
His mysterious satchel opens next to him and he takes out a false bronze (plastic) miniature of Auguste Rodin’s Man Walking. Then he takes out another – identical - except with his head on it. He smiles; they are both his 3D printed creations.
He conjectures it will be 20-30 years before the “Mac moment” when every household will easily print at home and create models as they wish with easy don’t-need-to-know-the-math software.
“If you have a passion, you will find a use,” he says. He talks of the 3D printed vertebrate that saved a life, a penguin beak that did so also – “glamorous examples,” he says.
Less glamorous – the fencing industry. Like a perfectly molded baseball bat, the precise size handle for each fencer can be the difference between Olympic gold and going home – the competitive edge, no pun intended. 3D printing allows for customization based on personalization, he summarizes.
“And I would very much like to get into the shoe industry,” he says, citing the fact that he’s an avid cyclist, being a New Yorker, “The perfect insoled shoes – instrumental for any serious athlete.”
Most Americans will never learn the bits and jargon. There will be a whole new lingo developed around the tech. Just as modern humans say, “Facebook me,” “I’ll email you,” etc. The advantage to an invisible process is an invisible question, he says.
Then, “[I]t’s not the ‘how,’ but the ‘what!’”
Budmen cited the fact that when scientists were asked what to do with the 3D printer, they were very technical and in many ways, confounded. When researchers asked children, the answers were limitless and profound.
“I’m going to print jewelry out of cheese,” said one girl.
A recording artist cannot really say they worked to develop a jewelry line these days: it’s their name on the label designed by someone else, noted Budmen. However, with 3D conceptualization, it can be easy to create your own physical objects such as jewelry.
“Tea… Early Grey… hot.” – Captain Picard, Star Trek
“I first met Isaac in my Star Trek class in 2010, one of the first I put on,” said Doctor Anthony Rotolo, Professor of Digital Communications at SU and now co-author of Budmen’s book, “In that class we studied the reality of things in fiction like the ‘Replicator’ in regards to 3D printing.”
“I remember after class,” said Professor Rotolo, “Isaac was immediately right up there talking. He was very gung-ho and wanted to know if I would work with him. He was very unique – maybe once in a career one finds a student as bright and collaborative as Isaac, the kind where it is a real challenge to challenge them. I agreed to help him learn more about this 3D printing and together, as he put it, we really ‘went down the rabbit hole.’” [Laughing]
Budmen would build their first printer and they used open source software to program the algorithms. They had bought the best version on the market at the time for consumer use at the university and Budmen alone spent, looking back, many of his 1,000+ hours on those machines there tinkering with their now “primitive” model.
The duo decided to take a summer roadtrip, like Han and Chewy (Star Wars reference) to explore the history and present state of how things were being made in America as part of their research into the application of 3D printing.
“Off the cuff, I said to Isaac,” said Rotolo, “We really should together write this down for others, so they don’t stumble around like we did; and we had uncovered quite a bit of information besides.” And so they did. They looked at large scale manufacturing, talked to museum curators, found where plants had left Dayton and Detroit – the whole time getting their minds around this belief that 3D printing really was the next Industrial Revolution and we are only on the brink.
“We actually went out there and did the research, not just sat in a lab,” said the Doctor, “I saw in Isaac that he really did want to help people with the technology.”
Budmen commented on Syracuse being rich in technological history: from the Erie Canal, to automobile manufacturing, and more great industrial deeds that should not be forgotten.
“Syracuse has a great history of making things that it needs to get back in touch with,” he said.
“I don’t feel he is my student,” said Professor Rotolo, “As much as he is my colleague. I think I would describe him as a futurist. He’s kinda like the ‘Willy Wonka’ of 3D printing; and I call him that because he’s very in tune with producing things that are enjoyable, like Wonka and his candy. You can picture Wonka in his lab tinkering away with strange contraptions – that’s Isaac! He always has several projects going at the same time, whether it’s his crazy creations or his personal passion projects or just freelancing.”
Their first edition of The Book on 3D Printing is written for people who are not “super techy” and are interested in learning about 3D printing. The second edition they are working on currently, will encapsulate many of their experiences on the road studying applications as well.
“What I’m really teaching,” he said, “Is the thought process: to really think digitally about creating things on a small scale that can solve our problems!”
Doctor Rotolo mentioned the process by which one can create a new product in the market now is extremely easy as compared to the past. Through 3D printing prototypes and crowdfunding such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, a full line of a new company can be made for the cost of the materials only, for instance in a public makerspace, such as the first 3D printing “Fab Lab” in the nation/world here in Central New York – the Fayetteville Public Library.
Susan Considine has been the Director of the Fayetteville Library for 14 years. In that time she has opened the minds of innovators internationally and citizens locally, receiving the 2013 White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama amid contestants from the Chicago Zoo and prestigious Houston Children’s Museum.
Considine defines librarians as facilitators and connectors, instead of the usual misconception that they only organize books. When the job market crashed, it was her library’s mission to be “community educators” and create opportunities for computer training, resume and interview coaching, job skill workshops, etc.
Their precedent-setting Fab Lab includes not only 3D printers but Arduinos, laser cutters, vinyl cutters, and hand tools – all the things people to need to make a new, big idea move forward. With their café, computer lab, video production studio, and advanced children’s learning centers, the Fayetteville Library is an incredible resource for entrepreneurs, artists, and scholars of all ages.
In an hour, anyone from 5 to 105 years old can be certified to operate the 3D printers. Over 2,700 people have been certified over the short time they have had the technology. It is a prime example Considine seeks to replicate worldwide as a true Mecca for learning, creating, and discovering in a way that permeates the community and society at large.
“You can throw a rock in every direction and reach a library,” she says, “There should be a Fab Lab in every one! Maybe the book, as we know it, is going away. Be relevant. We are a community education center,” – in the broadest and best sense of the word.
…………………………………………
“‘If you want to change the paradigm, you have to render the old way obsolete.’ – Buckminster Fuller” – Isaac Budmen
Life, from a tech side, he says, can always be better; however, some people fight the technology. “The music industry,” cites Budmen, “Won the lawsuit against Napster but lost the war.” Being unable to adapt to the change in innovation, music revenues have never come back to where they were. Film and television, on the other hand, have adapted much nimbler and smarter: Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go.
“You have to cannibalize the iPod to make the iPhone,” said Budmen, who is thankful to have always grown up with Jobs’s ingenuities in his home.
“Many companies would have held onto the pod since it was an incredible recurring revenue stream,” Budmen observed. Apple recently “killed” the iPod altogether to make way for the change that would keep them not only alive but thriving.
Paraphrasing GE’s motto, Budmen commented on the role of technology, “To make life better.”
“Money will come,” he said, “The important thing is to not lose sight of the goal, which is to keep opening up new possibilities.” He uses the Shrek analogy: the first film was simply great; whereas the three sequels were obviously made with less tact just to make money.
“You don’t want to dilute something with the wrong intention,” he said.
He noted the convergence of his prophecy in bio-medical: how the Apple Watch, coming out next year, and other physical monitors (he was wearing one) quantified and analyzed body metrics to make sense of life situations.
“You took a new job six months ago,” Budmen’s mind blooms, “And according to the trackable data, you are sleeping less, eating worse – and surprise, may not actually like this new job. That’s quality of life on a micro, measurable scale. You made this major life decision: here’s what happened. Or,” he leaps – “New relationship, serotonin levels are a lot lower – she is not the one.”
Amazing!
On intellectual property in the 3D world, Budmen mentioned Hasbro as a true innovator in the realm.
“They’ve partnered with a company called Shapeways and have invited artists and superfans to create 3D models of their copyrighted characters (Transformers, My Little Pony, etc.); and – both the artist and the company gets a cut of the sales. Instead of cease and desist letters, as with Super Mario™ characters someone was printing, they found a way to encourage open minds and new fantastic possibilities.”
With an art background and a love for math, Budmen has always had a “very deep curiosity and wonder about the world around me.” He was that kid that took apart all his parents’ electronics.
“It’s the dawn of a new renaissance,” he said, “Our parents’ generation trained for highly specialized employment which has turned to unemployment, in many cases. To be silo-ed is dangerous. People need to be willing to open themselves up.”
“I don’t fit in one box, but many,” he said.
“Seek not to be like great men of the past, but seek what they sought,” proclaimed Budmen, “Don’t try to be like them but look at what drove them.”
“Charles Emes,” he points to a chair in the coffee shop – a popular design, and notes that the same man who was the architect of that chair was a filmmaker, designed buildings, and invented molding plywood.
“Eventually everything connects,” he said, with contagious wonder in his eyes.
Budmen spends his time freelancing in between the MET, consulting, and speaking gigs (SxSW, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts). His work has been displayed at the London Science Museum and featured in WIRED.
A “career coxin,” Budmen was in rowing club for 12 years and on the Syracuse Chargers team. On his LinkedIn he lists “Lifeguard, Easy Coast Properties 2009-2010,” and underneath: “Lives saved: 1427; Number of Lives Lost: 0.”
As he leaves, Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower plays over the café speakers.
“Good song,” says a patron.
“It’s a great song,” says Isaac, with a big smile.
He turns to go after an enthusiastic handshake and walks energetically and excitedly unlike any man one has ever seen.
As Techcrunch.com put it:
“Holy crap guys, we’re making things in space now.”
……………………………………….
It’s a balmy late September morning. The coffee shop is cluttered with the usual: retro light fixtures, roughly-finished wood-topped tables, assorted modern wall art, and leather-bound couches full of hipsters wearing tight clothing while sipping java and listening to Spotify on their Macbooks and Beats.
If one of them were to glance up through their Roy Orbison glasses for a moment at several odd minutes after noon, they would’ve noticed a distinct young gentleman in a green sweatshirt, thin as a rail, wiry as circuit breaker, with a look resembling the weathered Tom Hanks in Castaway, but with the mannerisms and smile one would imagine Jesus owned.
“Hi, I’m Isaac,” came the long hand, decorated with unexplainable scars. He buys a regular coffee and sits wide-eyed at the table, setting a large satchel of mystery beside him.
His hands, outstretched, seem to cup his deep thoughts as he speaks them.
“My philosophy,” he begins, “Is to live in the intersection between creativity and technology. You could say arts and sciences always try to live between the factual and the highly abstract – this is where all the best things in life come from.”
Isaac Budmen was born and raised in Liverpool, NY. A 2012 Policy Studies graduate of Syracuse University, he had this idea he “had to go to college to get a real job.” Having finished all the requisites for his major in three years, Budmen spent his last year at SU doing “whatever I wanted to do.”
That year he chose to write, with the help of Professor Anthony Rotolo, The Book on 3D Printing.
In 1984, Charles Hull patented the “rapid prototyping” machine; which, thirty years later, has developed into what is called 3-dimensional printing: a process using – most commonly – heated plastic that is molded methodically in layers according to a mathematical algorithm to create a preprogrammed shape. The invention was, for the most part, exclusive to engineers creating cheap conceptual models of their products, which made great sense verses a model in steel that could not be made at such precision and ease.
Since then, “prototyping” has been revealed to be only the very tip of the iceberg; and the technology dropping from, in the last three years, $100,000 per machine to only $699 (the price of an iPad) at your nearest Radio Shack.
“Compared to music,” states Budmen, “You have the record cylinder, the cassette tape, and then the CD; and all of a sudden, mp3’s – music turned into 1’s and 0’s – everything from 1930’s Big Band to Brittany Spears. 3D printing is just that – a digital file for a physical object!”
Budmen describes his year of scientific discovery at university as the fulfillment of a childhood quest.
“My Mom would always say, ‘I wish someone would invent something to do “X” or “Y” or “Z”!’ – and when I discovered 3D printing, I called my Mom and said, ‘Mom, I have the machine that can do all of that!’”
Budmen describes a world where you will be able to tell Siri to set the table by printing plates and glasses as soon as you leave the office; you will design your own car based on everything you like from Mercedes and BMW and Dodge in a simple, average-Joe user interface; where your same vehicle will upgrade its engine automatically in your garage overnight; where you can Tweet a link to a new furniture set you tweaked from IKEA to your friend in Tampa and the algorithm will auto-adjust to the climate difference and print more layers for sturdiness – all in an instant and in the comfort of your own home.
After quoting John Lennon’s Imagine, Budmen said, “Someday I will send my car to the store to get milk.”
“We are out of the garage, so to speak,” said Budmen, “But we are far from the ‘Macintosh moment,’” he says, when 3D printing will become as user friendly and standard as the personal computer is to every home.
In Kansas, a man made a concrete playhouse with a 3D printer. In China, they are making skyscrapers.
It’s a mind-blowing concept. Every physical thing now has a digital identity and can be recreated, manipulated, perfected, copied, enhanced, combined, transformed, and/or renewed.
“It used to take tens of thousands of dollars and a team of several scientists of many disciplines to create a prosthetic arm,” said Budmen, “Guess how much it costs to make one with a 3D printer?”
Fifteen dollars.
“It wasn’t me; it was the one-armed man.” – Harrison Ford, The Fugitive
“When I die, I’d like the real world to be a whole lot more like the digital world, and the digital world a whole lot more aware of the real world. I want to control everything with my mind – blur the line between bits and atoms [data and matter] – make everything synonymous,” said Budmen, staring with what seemed to be a dancing fire in his eyes.
Budmen currently resides in New York City and works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“One of the few places that sends my brain to inspirational places,” he said. “What I like about the Met is the old things – tables, chairs – art, but things people chose to make and surround themselves with. […] It’s like walking around in other people’s homes.”
Budmen’s workshop there includes a fairly expensive 3D printer he uses to recreate the art around him or play with it mathematically and conceptually: turning 2D into 3D, for instance. He “Google Mapped” the exact location of Van Gough’s Cypresses and recreated the scene in Van Gough-ish form in three dimensions, answering the question, “What does a blind person see at the Met?”
This!
“How can an Eskimo understand the desert,” asked Budmen, “How can a blind person understand Van Gough?”
Or Picasso’s Nude Standing By the Sea – “How do you understand the way Picasso deconstructed something?” By 3D model of course – backwards conceptualization!
His work is fascinating, and obviously genius. To the engineer, he is an artist; and vice versa, painstakingly studying, practicing, and perfecting every iota of the machinery and craftsmanship until his hands swell and bleed and his art drops jaws.
The young man’s mind tunnel is as enigmatic and surprising as the journey “down the rabbit hole” in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and one feels the fantastic aura of discovery following his every thought.
“They’ve made a 3D printed gun,” he says starkly, “In Texas,” he says, smiling. “Any means for good can be used otherwise. What did Nobel invent? [Of the Nobel Peace Prize] Dynamite.”
Pixar animators come to him to create models of their characters.
His mysterious satchel opens next to him and he takes out a false bronze (plastic) miniature of Auguste Rodin’s Man Walking. Then he takes out another – identical - except with his head on it. He smiles; they are both his 3D printed creations.
He conjectures it will be 20-30 years before the “Mac moment” when every household will easily print at home and create models as they wish with easy don’t-need-to-know-the-math software.
“If you have a passion, you will find a use,” he says. He talks of the 3D printed vertebrate that saved a life, a penguin beak that did so also – “glamorous examples,” he says.
Less glamorous – the fencing industry. Like a perfectly molded baseball bat, the precise size handle for each fencer can be the difference between Olympic gold and going home – the competitive edge, no pun intended. 3D printing allows for customization based on personalization, he summarizes.
“And I would very much like to get into the shoe industry,” he says, citing the fact that he’s an avid cyclist, being a New Yorker, “The perfect insoled shoes – instrumental for any serious athlete.”
Most Americans will never learn the bits and jargon. There will be a whole new lingo developed around the tech. Just as modern humans say, “Facebook me,” “I’ll email you,” etc. The advantage to an invisible process is an invisible question, he says.
Then, “[I]t’s not the ‘how,’ but the ‘what!’”
Budmen cited the fact that when scientists were asked what to do with the 3D printer, they were very technical and in many ways, confounded. When researchers asked children, the answers were limitless and profound.
“I’m going to print jewelry out of cheese,” said one girl.
A recording artist cannot really say they worked to develop a jewelry line these days: it’s their name on the label designed by someone else, noted Budmen. However, with 3D conceptualization, it can be easy to create your own physical objects such as jewelry.
“Tea… Early Grey… hot.” – Captain Picard, Star Trek
“I first met Isaac in my Star Trek class in 2010, one of the first I put on,” said Doctor Anthony Rotolo, Professor of Digital Communications at SU and now co-author of Budmen’s book, “In that class we studied the reality of things in fiction like the ‘Replicator’ in regards to 3D printing.”
“I remember after class,” said Professor Rotolo, “Isaac was immediately right up there talking. He was very gung-ho and wanted to know if I would work with him. He was very unique – maybe once in a career one finds a student as bright and collaborative as Isaac, the kind where it is a real challenge to challenge them. I agreed to help him learn more about this 3D printing and together, as he put it, we really ‘went down the rabbit hole.’” [Laughing]
Budmen would build their first printer and they used open source software to program the algorithms. They had bought the best version on the market at the time for consumer use at the university and Budmen alone spent, looking back, many of his 1,000+ hours on those machines there tinkering with their now “primitive” model.
The duo decided to take a summer roadtrip, like Han and Chewy (Star Wars reference) to explore the history and present state of how things were being made in America as part of their research into the application of 3D printing.
“Off the cuff, I said to Isaac,” said Rotolo, “We really should together write this down for others, so they don’t stumble around like we did; and we had uncovered quite a bit of information besides.” And so they did. They looked at large scale manufacturing, talked to museum curators, found where plants had left Dayton and Detroit – the whole time getting their minds around this belief that 3D printing really was the next Industrial Revolution and we are only on the brink.
“We actually went out there and did the research, not just sat in a lab,” said the Doctor, “I saw in Isaac that he really did want to help people with the technology.”
Budmen commented on Syracuse being rich in technological history: from the Erie Canal, to automobile manufacturing, and more great industrial deeds that should not be forgotten.
“Syracuse has a great history of making things that it needs to get back in touch with,” he said.
“I don’t feel he is my student,” said Professor Rotolo, “As much as he is my colleague. I think I would describe him as a futurist. He’s kinda like the ‘Willy Wonka’ of 3D printing; and I call him that because he’s very in tune with producing things that are enjoyable, like Wonka and his candy. You can picture Wonka in his lab tinkering away with strange contraptions – that’s Isaac! He always has several projects going at the same time, whether it’s his crazy creations or his personal passion projects or just freelancing.”
Their first edition of The Book on 3D Printing is written for people who are not “super techy” and are interested in learning about 3D printing. The second edition they are working on currently, will encapsulate many of their experiences on the road studying applications as well.
“What I’m really teaching,” he said, “Is the thought process: to really think digitally about creating things on a small scale that can solve our problems!”
Doctor Rotolo mentioned the process by which one can create a new product in the market now is extremely easy as compared to the past. Through 3D printing prototypes and crowdfunding such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, a full line of a new company can be made for the cost of the materials only, for instance in a public makerspace, such as the first 3D printing “Fab Lab” in the nation/world here in Central New York – the Fayetteville Public Library.
Susan Considine has been the Director of the Fayetteville Library for 14 years. In that time she has opened the minds of innovators internationally and citizens locally, receiving the 2013 White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama amid contestants from the Chicago Zoo and prestigious Houston Children’s Museum.
Considine defines librarians as facilitators and connectors, instead of the usual misconception that they only organize books. When the job market crashed, it was her library’s mission to be “community educators” and create opportunities for computer training, resume and interview coaching, job skill workshops, etc.
Their precedent-setting Fab Lab includes not only 3D printers but Arduinos, laser cutters, vinyl cutters, and hand tools – all the things people to need to make a new, big idea move forward. With their café, computer lab, video production studio, and advanced children’s learning centers, the Fayetteville Library is an incredible resource for entrepreneurs, artists, and scholars of all ages.
In an hour, anyone from 5 to 105 years old can be certified to operate the 3D printers. Over 2,700 people have been certified over the short time they have had the technology. It is a prime example Considine seeks to replicate worldwide as a true Mecca for learning, creating, and discovering in a way that permeates the community and society at large.
“You can throw a rock in every direction and reach a library,” she says, “There should be a Fab Lab in every one! Maybe the book, as we know it, is going away. Be relevant. We are a community education center,” – in the broadest and best sense of the word.
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“‘If you want to change the paradigm, you have to render the old way obsolete.’ – Buckminster Fuller” – Isaac Budmen
Life, from a tech side, he says, can always be better; however, some people fight the technology. “The music industry,” cites Budmen, “Won the lawsuit against Napster but lost the war.” Being unable to adapt to the change in innovation, music revenues have never come back to where they were. Film and television, on the other hand, have adapted much nimbler and smarter: Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go.
“You have to cannibalize the iPod to make the iPhone,” said Budmen, who is thankful to have always grown up with Jobs’s ingenuities in his home.
“Many companies would have held onto the pod since it was an incredible recurring revenue stream,” Budmen observed. Apple recently “killed” the iPod altogether to make way for the change that would keep them not only alive but thriving.
Paraphrasing GE’s motto, Budmen commented on the role of technology, “To make life better.”
“Money will come,” he said, “The important thing is to not lose sight of the goal, which is to keep opening up new possibilities.” He uses the Shrek analogy: the first film was simply great; whereas the three sequels were obviously made with less tact just to make money.
“You don’t want to dilute something with the wrong intention,” he said.
He noted the convergence of his prophecy in bio-medical: how the Apple Watch, coming out next year, and other physical monitors (he was wearing one) quantified and analyzed body metrics to make sense of life situations.
“You took a new job six months ago,” Budmen’s mind blooms, “And according to the trackable data, you are sleeping less, eating worse – and surprise, may not actually like this new job. That’s quality of life on a micro, measurable scale. You made this major life decision: here’s what happened. Or,” he leaps – “New relationship, serotonin levels are a lot lower – she is not the one.”
Amazing!
On intellectual property in the 3D world, Budmen mentioned Hasbro as a true innovator in the realm.
“They’ve partnered with a company called Shapeways and have invited artists and superfans to create 3D models of their copyrighted characters (Transformers, My Little Pony, etc.); and – both the artist and the company gets a cut of the sales. Instead of cease and desist letters, as with Super Mario™ characters someone was printing, they found a way to encourage open minds and new fantastic possibilities.”
With an art background and a love for math, Budmen has always had a “very deep curiosity and wonder about the world around me.” He was that kid that took apart all his parents’ electronics.
“It’s the dawn of a new renaissance,” he said, “Our parents’ generation trained for highly specialized employment which has turned to unemployment, in many cases. To be silo-ed is dangerous. People need to be willing to open themselves up.”
“I don’t fit in one box, but many,” he said.
“Seek not to be like great men of the past, but seek what they sought,” proclaimed Budmen, “Don’t try to be like them but look at what drove them.”
“Charles Emes,” he points to a chair in the coffee shop – a popular design, and notes that the same man who was the architect of that chair was a filmmaker, designed buildings, and invented molding plywood.
“Eventually everything connects,” he said, with contagious wonder in his eyes.
Budmen spends his time freelancing in between the MET, consulting, and speaking gigs (SxSW, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts). His work has been displayed at the London Science Museum and featured in WIRED.
A “career coxin,” Budmen was in rowing club for 12 years and on the Syracuse Chargers team. On his LinkedIn he lists “Lifeguard, Easy Coast Properties 2009-2010,” and underneath: “Lives saved: 1427; Number of Lives Lost: 0.”
As he leaves, Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower plays over the café speakers.
“Good song,” says a patron.
“It’s a great song,” says Isaac, with a big smile.
He turns to go after an enthusiastic handshake and walks energetically and excitedly unlike any man one has ever seen.
The sun shines louder over his shoulders as he smiles into wherever he is going, but it is somewhere good; it is somewhere that is going to be better.
“You gotta keep asking those questions and make people uncomfortable.” – Isaac Budmen
