* Original post from early 2013 *
In October 2012 an eclectic group of friends submitted an application to StartUp Chile, a Chilean Government program that recruits early stage, high-potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap startups in Chile, using it as a platform to go global.
Our vision:
We wanted to leverage our passion for community & innovation by introducing 3D printing to emerging markets. On November 29th, 2012 our dream became a reality when we were selected as one of 105 companies out of more than 1400 solicitations for StartUp Chile Round 6. With StartUp Chile’s support and equity from our six teammates, we have spent the past three months incorporating and preparing for two of our co-founders to move to South America. Most importantly, we began prioritizing the many opportunities we identified for the 3D printing market in Chile as well as the developing world.
What is re:3D?
re:3D is a distributed community of makers, scholars and creatives who aim to inspire 3D printed products from commercially available filament as well as other inputs such as recycled materials. These goods are being designed at the request of our mentors and partners located in the Atacama region of Northern Chile and Central Texas, where some products are already being sold.
However, we quickly learned that when you dream big, you print big!
While we draw our inspiration from the makers that have printed before us, large format objects such as composting toilets and/or large volumes of small 3D printed objects that we are piloting demand a bigger build platform than traditional printers. Unfortunately, to date, an affordable large format 3D printer has yet to be commercialized. So we decided to make our own solution.
In Jan, we unveiled our flagship technology at the Houston Mini MakerFaire. While there, we asked attendees to re:magine the possibilities they saw for our new device. Custom train sets, large quantities of brackets for electric cars, children’s museum displays, custom packaging materials, rockets, rapid prototyping of prosthetics- the opportunities are endless.
Our hope is that with your help, we can create open source experiences to re:volutionize 3D printing applications and transform the tangible world. We invite you to join our community and follow our Chilean adventures by commenting on our forums & subscribing to our email updates.
Samantha Snabes
Blog Post Author
