Additive Manufacturing: first forays
When I was 15, I managed to get some prize money from a coding competition and made what felt like the most important purchase of my life: a secondhand 3D printer that had definitely seen better days. Living with my retired grandparents, they often chided me for "buying [unnecessary] work with money" whenever I spent afternoons after school working endlessly on that machine. Yet, even through the mass of plastic spaghetti and deformed prints, I still felt like I had unlocked a new world, where anything I wanted could simply exist.
For most of human history, turning ideas into reality has required specialized knowledge, expensive equipment, and years of training. Manufacturing was something that happened in factories, not in bedrooms or schools. The distance between having an idea and holding it in your hands was vast—measured in specialized degrees, industry connections, and significant financial investment.
That old printer I bought taught me this lesson quickly. It arrived partially disassembled, with mysterious issues that online forums could only partially explain. What should have been an exciting entry into making became weeks of frustration—replacing parts, calibrating endlessly, and learning terms I'd never heard before.
Despite the challenges, something profound happens when an idea transitions from your mind into physical reality. There's a conversation that starts happening between your hands and your thoughts—each prototype revealing something new, each iteration refining your understanding.
I remember shortly after I finally had that secondhand 3D printer working, I accidentally tipped over a desk fan and broke part of its housing at home. My grandparents were understandably not too happy about this, so I decided to try to repair it. I designed a replacement part and printed it in bright pink, fixing it and having a very odd looking fan in my room till this day. That moment where I showed it working still stays with me, as my grandparents finally saw the value in having even simple fabrication abilities. My grandfather even asked me to show him how to use the printer and suggesting little fixes to be printed around the house.
Design Is Human
The most important insight from these experiences wasn't technical—it was deeply human. Design and creation aren't primarily about machines or materials; they're about people solving problems for other people. The best solutions come when the people experiencing problems can directly create solutions.
We don't believe in a future where technology replaces human creativity. Rather, we're working toward one where technology accelerates the acquisition of making skills. The goal isn't to have machines that make things for you, but tools that grow with you—supporting your first uncertain steps and remaining valuable as your expertise develops.
My own journey illustrates this. Before founding this company, I spent weeks trying to cast silicone flanges for a compressed air piston engine project in my first semester in SUTD. With limited equipment and knowledge, I tried method after method, failing repeatedly but learning continuously. Those failures ultimately caught the attention of my future co-founders, who saw potential not in my success but in my persistence and learning process.
When more people can translate thoughts into things, ideas become a new kind of currency—shared, built upon, and valued for their merit rather than their source. In a world where making is democratic, the best solutions can come from anywhere.
When I was asked to judge the NUS High School hackathon as an alumni judge, I was deeply inspired by the ingenuity of the solutions pitched by my juniors. One group proposed low-cost oil spill monitoring and containment with autonomous surface vessels, reimagining a soil moisture sensor's function and demonstrating it successfully detecting oil on a floating platform. These kinds of connections could be made by anyone, but realizing and refining them is a process that unfortunately still remains out of reach for most.
The Future of Making
The future of manufacturing isn't found in making existing factories marginally more efficient. It's in radically redistributing the power to create. When specialized knowledge becomes accessible knowledge, when prohibitive equipment becomes affordable tools, when complex processes become intuitive actions—that's when we'll see true innovation flourish.
This isn't just idealism; it's practical necessity. The complex challenges facing our communities—from healthcare to sustainability to education—require more minds working on solutions from more perspectives.
Too often, the people with the deepest understanding of problems lack the tools to address them, while those with manufacturing capabilities lack context. We're working to close this gap—not by making expert makers out of everyone, but by lowering the barriers enough that anyone with determination can bring their ideas to life.
When I look back at that second-hand printer I struggled with as a teenager, I don't see just a machine. I see both the promise and the problem—the incredible potential of personal manufacturing and the unnecessary complexity that keeps it from fulfilling that potential.
That's why our vision is simple but powerful: enabling rapid accessible creation. We believe making should be as natural as thinking, and that when more people can turn their ideas into reality, we all benefit from a world shaped by diverse ingenuity rather than limited expertise.
What ideas will you bring to life when the tools don't stand in your way?