Nicolai shared the news that he will be teaching History at Concord Carlisle High School come January. This is a big increase in responsibility and a major milestone for him. We are all extremely proud of him. He is pictured above practicing classroom discipline or perhaps this is the only photo of him that I could work into this blog posting.
When I decided to leave Formlabs, I gave two months’ notice to facilitate a smooth transition. During that time, my boss allowed me to work at Digital Alloys for two days in exchange for two make up days to be “paid back” after my start date. Today I spent the first of these IOU days back in Somerville on a day featuring relentless snow and sleet. Pictured above is a picture I took back in August when we had just started shipping the Form3 printer. Since then the company has shipped many thousands of printers that have been well received in the market. My day was consumed in back to back meetings and I very much enjoyed spending time with my former teammates. Over the lunch hour, I met with the COO at Superpedstrian and learned of his plans to take a new position in NYC in January. I will truly miss our sporadic lunch dates.
I established a new record time for my morning commute. I managed to shave 2 minutes off my previous personal best for a door to door time of 20 minutes. The early hour helped my cause but one really long stoplight worked against me. I believe I will drop into the high teens as I fine-tune my route.
My sister, Alissa, is putting together a book of my mother’s sculptures and paintings. This evening my mom asked if I would update one of the photos of a sculpture that currently resides with us. She requested that it be photographed where it is displayed on our sunporch. To do so would require actual sunlight to look natural. Realizing that I have been leaving and returning from work every day in the dark, I thought it best to bring it into the studio. This sculpture was carved from laminated sheets of plywood and stands about 4 feet tall. My father was an avid classical and flamenco guitar player.
Yesterday morning, Jeanine and I both received a text from our cleaning lady who reported that the faucet in our master bathroom would not shut off. Jeanine was the first to return at 6 pm and was quite proud of her resourcefulness in using a big crescent wrench to turn off the stubborn supply valve. I am not looking forward to our next water bill after a full day of watering the septic tank. Today, I set about to replace the faucet with a more modern looking one which also necessitated changing out the drain flange (because it was of a different finish). By the end of the day and after two trips to Lowe’s, I replaced the faucets and drains in two other locations. The effort left me with sore muscles everywhere from contorting my body into the various small workspaces I had to navigate.
On her last day as an intern for Blue Origin, Maya was required to give a major presentation covering the work she completed. Despite her anxiety leading up to it, she reports it went very well. She received much positive feedback and an offer to return as a full-time employee after she graduates. She is pictured above with her cohort of interns. We are really looking forward to her return.
I am not at liberty to share details about this photograph other than to say that it represents a major breakthrough for my new company, Digital Alloys. At Formlabs, I really enjoyed the non-technical challenges of my job. There were far smarter people than I already working the technical issues. At my new company, I have hit the ground running and already feel I am making significant technical contributions to the team.
I am now pictured as part of the management team on the Digital Alloys website. I took great pains to match my self-portrait with the ones already in use by the company. I decided to stop short of scaling horizontally to create the head in a vice appearance of my colleagues. Either that or I have a really big head. Last week the company issued a press release announcing my addition to the team and it was picked up by a number of internet publications.
https://3dprint.com/260979/3d-printing-news-briefs-12-3-19/
https://www.3dprintingmedia.network/carl-calabria-leaves-formlabs-joins-digital-alloys/
https://www.tctmagazine.com/3d-printing-news/digital-alloys-carl-calabria-chief-technology-officer/
Jeanine hosted her book group at our home this evening and I was the beneficiary, helping myself to shrimp cocktail, a lovely cheese plate and a delightful stew. I had another very productive day at work, meeting for the first time with a customer. It was nice to get a first-hand acknowledgment of the need in the industry for what our technology can deliver. I am not at liberty to disclose the customer but their revenue last year was close to $4B.
This is a tensile test coupon printed in titanium on a Digital Alloys 3D printer. It will be machined into a standard shape for destructive testing (we pull it apart with a machined designed to measure tensile strength). The bottom plate and first 20mm or so of the tower will be cut off in preparation for machining. It is not a particularly creative photograph but I was only willing to invest five minutes for setup after a 14 hour day in the office. The print is also rather old and shows some discoloration so I will wait for a more beautiful part before pulling out all the stops.
Maya made this drawing of our family when she was in elementary school. Kyle and Nicolai appear to be larger than life, looking quite handsome and muscular. Maya is as cute as ever. Jeanine is rather small, although very fetching with her cocked head and big hair. Then we have the father who appears to have no arms of consequence, is smaller than Nico’s leg, lacks ears, and is the only member of the family, including the guinea pigs, that is not labeled with his proper name. My father, who was a psychologist and psychotherapist, would have had a field day analyzing this drawing. It is one of the dozens of drawing made by the children that I am systematically digitizing for posterity.
Jeanine and I decided to check out the Somerville Winter Farmers Market this afternoon. It is open on Saturdays from December to mid-April. There, we enjoyed live jazz while eating a very healthy lunch before setting about to check out all the vendors. The music alone was worth the trip.
On the drive home, we spotted a large group of young people all dressed up as Santas. I had to stop for a photo and to inquire about the motivation. I learned that they were on their way to attend SantaCon, a free pub crawl and mass gathering where people dress in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas / holiday characters and parade throughout Boston and several cities around the world. Last year, over 3,000 Santa’s participated in the Boston event which this year includes one route through Boston and one through Cambridge, both culminating in Fenway.
After another set of very productive meetings with the folks from Lincoln Electric’s Welding Automation team, we enjoyed lunch together. On the left is their representative to our Board of Directors and on the right their CTO. I was a little groggy today having spent several hours in the middle of last night documenting ideas I had from our meetings yesterday. We spent the remainder of the afternoon getting a tour of the Lincoln Electric Welding School, the first of its kind, set up in 1917 and of the factory floor. It is amazing how much I learned during the course of our visit. I am also now looking for the slightest excuse to buy a welder.
Headquartered in Euclid, Ohio, Lincoln Electric has 44 manufacturing locations, including operations and joint ventures in 19 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices covering more than 160 countries. The company was founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln with a capital investment of $200 to make electric motors he had designed. Today, revenues are in the billions and the company business model was listed as one of the most studied by the Harvard Business School. The company, recognized as the leader in the industry, manufactures welding products, consumables, and robotic welding systems. Our meetings with their CTO and his team proved to be unbelievably productive. It is clear to me that the project we are working on with them is going to lead to a very positive outcome.