Never doubt the highly imaginative mind of a growing adolescent! The famous psychologist Jean Piaget published his first scientific paper at age 10, and French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator as a teenager. While not everyone grew up as a child prodigy, anyone given the right tools and ambitious attitude can strike genius. Take the story of Riley, equipped with a second generation Cubify Cube, he distributed a hundreds of 3D printed models through the help of 3D Systems and Kickstarter.
Over the past summer, Riley had the once in a lifetime experience to travel to Honolulu, Hawaii– not for the warm weather and surf– but to intern at Skaai Ventures, an up-and-coming biotech company. After meeting Skaai’s CEO Hank Wuh, at a 3D printing event last May, Riley joined the Skaii team to assist as a summer intern.
When they needed a custom built plastic part for the project, Riley offered to print the part himself using the Cube 3D printer. According to Riley, the process saved a the company a lot of time:
“I finished the first design in about thirty minutes. Normally, getting it manufactured would have taken over a week in turnaround time, and cost over a hundred dollars. Luckily enough, 3D Systems sent a cube along with me.”
Hank Wuh was so satisfied with the part, he bought a Cube for Skaai’s office:
“We got the initial first design and over 5 iterations done over the course of three weeks, and my supervisor at Skai was so happy with the printer that he purchased one to keep in the office for in-house manufacturing.”
Riley enjoyed printing parts that had real world applications. So when he returned from Honolulu, he started a Kickstarter project to distribute a design for a ring which shot rubber bands.
“My dad helped me put together a marketing campaign around it, and we were fully funded halfway through the campaign. Normally, kickstarter delivery time is usually three to four weeks delayed, but we managed to get our delay down to less than a week by using our home lab setup, printing over one hundred rings in five days. A backer even commented that we had the fastest delivery he’d ever seen on our page.”
Riley’s not sure what he plans to print next do next with his Cube, but given the success of his Kickerstarter campaign, the future is looking bright!
by Saskia via Cubify
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