3D Printers

An Interview with NVBots CEO AJ Perez: Bringing Automated, Cloud 3D Printing to Classrooms

In the numerous desktop 3D printers that have come to market, one has set itself apart from the rest in many ways.  At first glance, the distinctions between the NVPrinter from Massachusetts-based NVBots and other machines may seem to lay in the hardware and software, as the NVPrinter offers some advanced features, such as a patent-pending robotic arm that removes prints upon completion and transfers them into a finished object bay.  After speaking with the CEO of NVBots, AJ Perez, however, I’ve learned that some of the company’s most important distinctions lay in their approach to the 3D printing market, partially driven by the company’s surrounding environment at MIT.

nvprinter from nvbots cloud-based with robotic arm

Housed in its cubic enclosure and outfitted with dual extruders, the NVPrinter is an FDM/FFF 3D printer, which, like the MakerBots and Ultimakers out there, melts filament into a three-dimensional object layer by layer.  Unlike its counterparts, the NVPrinter isn’t designed specifically for consumers, but for larger institutions.  And, examining all that it offers, you can see that institutional approach in the machine’s design.  The robotic arm, developed by MIT Mechanical Engineering grad Mateo Pena Doll, precisely slices a print from the print bed using a thin blade and moves the finished print into the accompanying bay. This allows the NVPrinter to perform batch printing, so that, once one print has been removed and placed into the bay, the printer can get to work on its next job.

Accustomed to blue painter’s tape and my flimsy metal spatula, I wondered how the machine was able to remove prints without damaging the printbed and/or its material coating. AJ explained that, “When you’re removing a part manually, you’re stabbing at it, which tends to cut the tape that you’re using. Ours gets perfectly flat and the sharp edge doesn’t touch the tape, but gets underneath the part.”  He adds that, with this process, there is no need for bed calibration, as the lack of human intervention prevents the platform from being knocked out of whack. Additionally, AJ says that the frame’s sturdiness and the platform’s kinetic coupling ensures that it remains level over time.

I also asked AJ why they had decided to pursue a patent on their robotic arm, rather than open the design up to the open source community.  He said that it wasn’t out of a hesitation to work within the community to improve the design of the printer, and all 3D printers as a whole, but as a defensive measure against larger 3D printer manufacturers who might take their idea and use it for profit.

nvprinter with automated print removal and cloud software

In addition to the convenience of automatic part removal, this feature opens up the NVPrinter to its next defining characteristic, its cloud-based printing interface.  With the browser-based software, users can upload their model or choose one from the company’s 3D printable curriculum library and print to the networked machine. Using the software’s print preview, they can also see the correlation between print time and layer thickness of an object so that the more finely detailed a print may be, the more time it will take to print. Then, they click print, where the administrator of the machine, such as a teacher, is able to manage the print queue and monitor print jobs. For instance, they can examine a model and leave notes for their students (“You need to change this or this before printing”) and print.

An increasing number of add-on solutions are being made to hook desktop 3D printers into the cloud so that multiple users can operate the fabrication device remotely.  This allows for institutions, like schools and libraries, to offer institution-wide 3D printing services and for individual entrepreneurs to launch small 3D printing businesses to others around the world.  With other cloud-based add-ons, a user still needs to be present, continually monitoring the machine, to remove prints on a regular basis.  With the NVPrinter’s built-in webcam and robotic arm, the maintenance performed by the printer’s administrator becomes less demanding. This ties into NVBots next distinction: its pricing model.

There are skeptics out there that don’t believe we’ll ever see a 3D printer in every home.  Instead, consumers will turn to service providers to 3D print objects for them.  Though not necessarily influenced by the same ideology, NVBots isn’t marketing their machine to consumers.  Instead, they’re geared towards institutions, educational and commercial.  Rather than sell the NVPrinter to individuals at a one-time price, NVBots is selling them to schools with a starter package for $2,999 per year or an unlimited package at $4,999 per year. The former charges $300 per admin and $70 per kg of filament, while the latter offers unlimited filament and admins, and both allow for unlimited users, servicing of the equipment, and access to NVBots’ 3D printable curriculum. The commercial packages offer similar deals but at increased prices, with the starter package charging per user.

aj pereze ceo of nvbots with automated 3D printer
CEO of NVBots, AJ Perez.

The reason that they’ve decided to pursue this institutional model, AJ explains, is that they see the 3D printer as capable of serving a large number of people. He says, “We don’t market this machine as a 1 to 1, but as a 1 to 50. The software we’ve developed is meant for sharability, not just for you to have remote control over your machine. Put it this way: a user would benefit from our machine if they plan to fill up their queue 24/7, but if they’re going to let it sit around for most of the year, they’re not going to get the most bang for their buck. And that’s why we’ve priced it for the person that’s going to run it near 24/7. That’s the university. That’s the high school. An engineering firm. Or the marketing arm of whatever business.”

More specifically NVBots is focused, currently, on the educational market. Because engineers at big businesses have been trained to design objects for traditional manufacturing, teaching them to design for additive manufacturing has its obstacles. Instead, AJ believes that the real revolution in design and production with 3D printing will be led by the next generation of designers. With three pilot programs in local schools, AJ is finding that young students already have an intuitive grasp of the technology, that 3D printing works well with the way that the human mind works. So, the company is perfecting its NVPrinter for schools and classrooms, where he thinks the next generation will be able to implement the technology and drive it forward.

All of this thinking is partially cultivated by the company’s surrounding environment. AJ and his team are all graduates of MIT, a university that has combined industry and education in such a fluid way that it’s natural for its students to seamlessly invent innovative new technologies and bring them to market. The school is home to such 3D printing pioneers as Michael Cima, one of the inventors of powderbed 3D printing technology, and Marina Hatsopoulos, co-founder of Zcorp, both of whom are advisers to NVBots alongside Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Alexander Slocum.

Altogether, and with the help of NVBots’ CEO, the school is becoming a hotbed for new 3D printing technology.  As a graduate student, AJ took part in establishing the school’s first graduate-level 3D printing class, where he’s worked with students on a number of projects you may have read about, including the ice cream 3D printer. He continues to help cultivate a culture around the technology where students and professors from various programs will cross-pollinate over the field of 3D printing.  As he guides his business, and his students, AJ has promised to share with us more news from the school, where we are sure to see some very promising projects arise to affect the entire 3D printing industry.