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YSU graduates, students work to build leading 3-D printers
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Five aspiring entrepreneurs — all educated at Youngstown State University — are excited about the maker revolution taking place here.
That excitement, along with a drive to engineer the next best 3-D printer, has led a team of three and a team of two to create their own LLCs.
Bravura 3-D was founded by current YSU students Jessie Tuscano and Brian Alls with the goal of dissecting the limitations of 3-D printers and eliminating them.
And Juggerbot 3-D was established by Jim D’Andrea, Zac Divencenzo and Dan Fernback, who want to build a better printer than what is out there right now.
“[3-D printing] is going to grow jobs for graduates,” Divencenzo said.
3-D printing is the process of taking a digital file and turning it into a solid, three-dimensional object. From custom chess pieces to parts for major industries and even human organs, the possibilities and potential of 3-D printers are seemingly endless.
As the industry takes off, and Youngstown leads it with the first maker hub of its kind here, discussions of how to expand the printer’s capabilities are taking place.
They are in their infancy and still are considered rudimentary, Tuscano said. Alls compared the current stage of 3-D printers to the once-clunky computers back in the early 1990s or the old dot-matrix printers filled with paper that had holes in the side.
“Once we nail the [3-D] technology, we will be looking at selling the technology,” Alls said.
Both Bravura and Juggerbot founders initiated their 3-D printing ideas at YSU. Tuscano and Alls became study partners while both were in the university’s mechanical engineering program. In the process of studying, the idea to build a better, more-efficient 3-D printer originated.
Alls, 33, a graduate of Warren G. Harding High School, is still a mechanical engineer student at YSU with an expectation of graduating in a few years. He has had some extensive internships with General Motors and Toyota.
“I have learned I can essentially do this on my own,” Alls said of engineering.
Tuscano, 23, a graduate of South Range High School, switched her major to industrial engineering and will graduate next spring.
Both recognize the need for Youngstown to stay on top of the maker game.
“All around the world, communities are re-branding themselves or re-making themselves,” Alls said.
After attending the additive manufacturing, 3-D printing and scanning conference RAPID this year, they realized how cool it is to say they are from Youngstown. People from all over the world would ask them what it was like to be in Youngstown where America Makes is headquartered, and they would say you cannot be in any better place to start a 3-D printing business.
Their goal is to unveil their product at RAPID 2015, which is in June 2015. For now, they keep plugging away at their research. They recently purchased a printer to help them test out their ideas and see if they are right.
“This printer represents the vast majority of 3-D printers that have a set of limitations,” Tuscano said. “We want to dissect what we have identified as limitations and test some of our ideas.”
What those “limitations” are, the two would not say because then their ideas would be unleashed.
The idea is to start with a “business-to-business approach” with their printer and then develop consumer printers down the line.
They have an office in the Youngstown Business Incubator downtown on the fourth floor to overlook the city they take pride in.
Just downstairs at the incubator are the three twentysomethings of Juggerbot with ideas to take on the 3-D printing industry with the “next generation” of 3-D printers.
D’Andrea, 25, of Columbus, Divencenzo, 23, a Struthers High School graduate, and Fernback, 22, a Boardman High School graduate, met in class at YSU during their industrial-engineer studies. They worked on a project to make a whole 3-D printing chess set.
“It was different, and it was a lot of work,” D’Andrea said. “The great thing about YSU is you have access to some of that equipment. If you wanted to learn about it, it was all up to how much time you put in.”
D’Andrea had the idea of housing a 3-D printing kiosk for all students to use at the university. Once the 3-D printers were in, Divencenzo oversaw the kiosk in the lobby of Moser Hall.
“Our idea was let’s get this out there,” Divencenzo said. “I want to see it blow my mind in a few years.”
Getting hands-on with the machines led them to believe they could improve the 3-D printing business. The goal is to come up with a powerful, robust image and a sturdy, fast and reliable printer. D’Andrea and Fernback are doing this while working as full-time engineers. Divencenzo is finishing up his degree this year.
“That’s the picture we want to paint. We want to be the leaders of the 3-D printing world,” Fernback said.
The three are in the process of building a prototype and will then get it patented. They think they will set themselves apart from other companies by “drastically decreasing the build time for 3-D printing parts.” In other words, it will be a lot more user friendly, they said. They hope to be done with the prototype in May.
“I think it can change more than manufacturing,” D’Andrea said of 3-D printing.
Martin Abraham, dean of the STEM college at YSU, said the development of 3-D printing at YSU is positive for the university.
“We are at [the] leading edge for technology when it comes to 3-D printing capability,” he said.
YSU has 3-D printing built into the curriculum in some of the STEM programs. The university is also in the early stages of developing a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing engineering.
“[Our students] have two advantages here [in Youngstown] that they will not get anywhere else in the world. First is America Makes, so they have an opportunity to work with the best people and the best equipment, and [second] the YBI,” Abraham said.