Nicolai turns 21 next Wednesday. This afternoon we had a small advanced celebration with his girlfriend Karuna and her parents at the Beehive in Boston’s South End. The Beehive is a cool little bistro cum jazz club buzzing with daily live entertainment. Featuring both an outdoor patio and a bi-level cabaret stage, it is equal parts theater and speakeasy. The food and music were outstanding but the highlight of our brunch was the opportunity to meet and get to know Karuna’s parents who are positively delightful. It is easy to see where she gets her great intellect, charm and beauty.

For the last twelve years, our family has attended the Metzold’s Fourth of July party. Tom Metzold was my high school wrestling partner and we have remained great friends ever since. After 15 years, however, Karen announced that this would be the last one. Tom seemed less committed to that decision and I for one will show up next year regardless. As usual, the food was fantastic and the company entertaining (I ran into the referee from my match last week and was shocked to learn he had 9 children). Also true to form, Jeanine’s desert was the first to disappear, this year a No-bake Strawberry Ice-Box Cake.

Last night for the first time in a very long time I stayed up all night. I had an idea for a new printer head design and once I started the 3D model for it I could not stop. Finally, at 7 am I went to bed. I was up again at 10 am and spent most of the day continuing with the work. I paused only for food and a nap and finally took a break to watch some tennis with Nicolai who is still taking it easy after having his wisdom teeth extracted earlier this week. The photo is of the Sudbury River which I took last night shortly after sunset on my return commute.

Thus far in my career, I have had minimal exposure to material science. At MarkForged we are into this in a big way. Every day the team is cooking up and testing new materials to improve the strength and utility of the parts we print. Pictured here are some of the guys, including founder and CEO, Greg Mark (on the left), after a successful experiment with an exciting new material.

Maya left today for a three week vacation in the French Alps near the border with Italy. There, she and her best friends Sarinnagh and Emma, will spend time with Emma’s  family helping to restore an old French chalet. They took advantage of a brief layover in Dublin for a quick tour of the city before heading on to Barcelona to visit family.

Motivated by the failure of my plywood prototype bike rack carrier bracket yesterday, I completed a design for a bracket that I hope to print at work when time permits. It looks nothing like my prototype because I wanted a design that would not require a left and right version and also one that would accommodate a wide range of bicycle handlebar grips. Only time will tell if the new design fares better than the wood model.

Very pleased with the bike carrier I created for my car, I decided to take my bike into work with me today for a noon ride. Less than 2 minutes into my commute, one of the two handlebar grip brackets failed catastrophically. The plywood I used to build the holders delaminated along a plane containing a wood knot. Fortunately, I had the foresight to add a safety strap to my design which prevented my bike from spilling into traffic. It was my plan all along to replace the rather crude looking prototype wood blocks with an elegant 3D printed part from a MarkForged printer. Looks like I will need to do that sooner rather than later paying particular attention to part strength which is clearly going to be an issue.

Today’s post takes the form of a short article I submitted to the Concord Journal.

In a dramatic come from behind win, the Concord United Over 50 Men’s Soccer Team won the New England Over The Hill Soccer League (NEOTHSL) Division 1 Championship in a penalty kick shoot out this past Sunday in Taunton. Concord trailed the Stoneham Spartans, last year’s champions, by one goal at the half. Minutes into the second half the Spartans scored again making the score 2-0. The Concord men remained composed and earned a goal late in the second half. With 30 seconds remaining in the match, Concord pushed everyone forward on a final corner kick including goalie, Rob Morrison, who scored the equalizer, forcing a penalty kick shoot out. Morrison went on to save three sudden death penalty kicks before his teammates won the shoot out 5-4 in the ninth round.

I started at left wing (midfield) and had a strong first half, playing with the intensity you would expect in a championship match. I did not play as well in the second half and was thankful I was not on the field for the penalty kick phase. A smart man of my age would graduate to the Over 56 division in the fall. I am not that smart. My last D1 championship was in 2008 as a member of the Concord United Over 40 team and I would like to win another before moving up another age group.

I have owned my BMW i3 for more than half a year now.  I love everything about it except two things; the coach-style rear doors and the fact that there is no decent way to transport a bicycle (no factory roof rack or tow hitch available.) As of today, I only hate the rear doors. Based on a product I saw on the internet, I fabricated a vacuum cup mounted carrier which looks like it is going to work perfectly.

Two weeks ago I had never done any engineering work in 3D. Last week I designed my first part using a 3D CAD program called Onshape after a couple of hours with their excellent tutorials. Today my boss sent an e-mail asking if we could figure out a way to help customers align our printing plate during installation. Five minutes later I had an idea for how this could be done. In less than an hour, I had an alignment guide designed in CAD (most of that time spent taking measurements and entering dimensions). An hour and 18 minutes after that, I had a physical part in hand ready for testing on the printer that made it (it is the white colored component in the photo below, taped in place). It is hard to describe the creative empowerment that comes with the ability to make prototypes so quickly. The time from concept to component has never been shorter and if I knew it before intuitively, I know it now concretely, that 3D printing is going to change everything.

Incidentally, the design worked perfectly and the part won second place in our regular Part of the Week show and tell, held each Friday afternoon over beers. On my drive home, I thought of a good way to attach the guide to the plate and will refine my design this evening.

This evening was my last soccer practice of the season. We play for the Division 1 Championship on Sunday and then we are off until the fall season begins in September. During competition I wear contact lenses but for practices I generally wear my glasses. While up for a header, a rather nice one at that, my glasses did not fare so well when I played a well struck ball off the side of my head. Play was suspended while the entire team combed the field looking for the detached temple which flew quite a distance from the crash site. Fortunately, I have a back up set of glasses and the damage looks like it can be repaired.

Note for my mother in anticipation of her next email:  No head damage was sustained by your son.

One of the things I appreciate most about living in Concord is the amount of open green space. Mattison Field is located just down the street from our house. It was particularly beautiful this evening as I passed it on the way home from work. For the first time in the 12 years we have lived here, the farmer who cares for the town-owned land has planted wheat, probably as a matter of good crop rotation.

While the commute to Somerville is a major pain, the neighborhood where I work is a very interesting place. The variety and number of places to eat are staggering. Jeanine quizzes me nightly on where I had lunch and what I had to eat. Everything is within walking distance of our facility and you never know what you are going to see along the way. MarkForged is growing very rapidly and we will soon be out of space. This afternoon I met with our commercial realtor to review options for a new building. We will probably move in November which gives me several more months to explore Somerville.

I have photographed many spider webs over the years. I am usually attracted by the beauty of their symmetry. This morning I discovered one which was remarkable for its lack thereof, but a natural work of art nonetheless. At work, the windshield wiper motor bracket from my BMW i3 partially pictured below was used as the model for a 3D print we will make to illustrate potential high volume automotive applications for our technology. One of our talented interns was working on a CAD model when I left work and I expect to see an actual printed part tomorrow morning.