If you’ve followed our blog posts over the last months or even years, you’ve seen some of the amazing work our team here at re:3D does in engineering, design, and other departments. But who are the amazing teammates who are hard at work here in Austin (and elsewhere) pushing the boundaries of 3D printing day in and day out? Over the next few months, we’ll be publishing a series of blog posts highlighting and recognizing our great teammates who develop, design, build, and support our bots, starting with the engineering and R&D team!
PATRICK
Patrick Ferrell is Senior Engineer here at re:3D. His main role is to lead some of our important advanced R&D initiatives for NASA and the Department of Defense, as well as supporting development for other ongoing projects. He’s worn a number of different hats here at the company, having joined in 2020 developing outreach curricula and then transitioning into engineering roles, becoming Senior Engineer in 2022. But Patrick’s history with re:3D goes back even further–he’s actually worked with Gigabot since 2014, when he established and ran the pioneering public makerspace at the Clear Lake City County Freeman Branch Library in Houston! There, he maintained and used their original Gigabot assembled at the library from a kit, not realizing that one day he would work for the company that made it and support the future development of Gigabot technology.
Among his projects, Patrick is excited about working with NASA on a prototype system to recycle packing foam into printed material in space: the Gigabot XS, a miniature granulator/printer system to be used in low-G or zero-G environments. He has also led development of a 5-axis thermoset printer to print TPS (Thermal Protection System) materials onto spacecraft structures to protect them during atmospheric entry. In his spare time, Patrick is an aficionado of stringed instruments–and, an engineer to the end, Patrick not only enjoys playing these instruments, but actually builds them as well.
WILL
Will Drakas is one of re:3D’s hardware engineers, focusing most of his time on developing and executing prototype designs and implementing iterative changes to our tech in response to team and user feedback. He is currently assisting Patrick Ferrell on our major contracts with NASA and the U.S. military, though his duties often shift in response to changing project needs. He initially joined the team to work with Patrick on the NASA AMTPS and then took on the Gigabot XS project as well. Most recently, he’s built a large prototype FGF (Fused Granulate Fabrication) printer, a next-level Terabot X for prospective military use in the field.
Will has been at re:3D for two years, joining the team after completing his engineering degree at Purdue University. He is a lifelong engineer and builder, as well as a hardcore 3D printing enthusiast–he actually built his first custom 3D printer in high school, and is currently working on another custom printer design in his spare time! He most appreciates the opportunities for on-the-job learning re:3D offers him; for example, he is pursuing an expert level certification in SolidWorks this year.
ERIC
Eric Gohl is the newest member of the engineering team, joining re:3D as Hardware Engineer in spring 2025. Eric comes to our Austin HQ from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where he completed his degree in mechanical engineering. Eric is actually a third generation mechanical engineer!
Eric’s professional trajectory into engineering was sparked by an early interest in robotics and inventing; for example, in college he designed a device that uses machine learning (and a water jet) to repel squirrels from encroaching on bird feeders. As he’s begun to settle in here on the re:3D team, he’s assisted Patrick and Will with various aspects of their major ongoing projects–designing a magazine for Gigabot XS that loads foam feedstock into the printer and an automatic granulate feedstock loader for the oversized FGF printer. Eric’s interests are varied; he is a fitness buff, a freediving enthusiast, and–as some of us have come to find out–an avid (and dangerously competitive) disc golfer.
CHARLOTTE
Charlotte Craff is Project Manager here at re:3D, having started out in the Ambassador role in 2019. Like many of our teammates, Charlotte came to the company out of a passion for 3D printing and its potential, rather than starting out with a background in engineering. With a dual education in computer science and performing arts, Charlotte worked in the latter field as a production manager for many years before first encountering the world of 3D printing–ironically, by learning to use the GB2 at the branch library in Houston that Patrick Ferrell once supported.
Charlotte’s current role is as co–principal investigator and project manager of ReCreateIt, an NSF Convergence Accelerator funded project initiated in 2022. This project is implementing an ambitious plan to enable communities to divert plastic waste from landfill and manufacture durable household goods from such waste at the local level. Charlotte coordinates teams located at re:3D, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and several universities in the ReCreateIt project, which has placed a re:3D Gigalab (a portable manufacturing module) at the Austin ReStore. The Gigalab will enable a small but dedicated team at the ReStore to sort, process, and recycle discarded bins and totes made of polypropylene and other nuisance plastics into attractive, usable goods instead of consigning this material to landfill. Charlotte’s enthusiastic about the future of the ReCreateIt project, making a more sustainable future possible one plastic bin at a time! (Fun fact: Charlotte enjoys hiking and backpacking, and can teach you how to start a fire without matches.)
CHRIS
Chris Hong is the re:3D R&D Engineer working with the ReCreateIt project. He spends much of his time developing a process by which waste plastics can be productively and reliably 3D printed and upcycled. Chris has been involved in 3D printing since he was an undergraduate student at Rice University.
While earning his Master’s degree at the University of Texas-Austin, Chris became part of the ReCreateIt project under the guidance of Prof. Caroline Seepersad (formerly UT and now Georgia Tech, leading their team of researchers working on the interactive design component of RecreateIt). Chris is excited about the potential of the ReCreateIt project to have a real, tangible effect on communities in Austin and beyond as the use of re:3D’s FGF technology is scaled up and the model of harnessing, processing, and redeploying waste plastic for the consumer market is further developed. He looks forward to a time when the Austin ReStore’s Gigalab is able to produce a wide range of products, including home goods and furniture, and the technology can be shared with new markets.
MITCHELL
Mitchell Mashburn joined the re:3D team in early 2023, right before the company’s move from Houston to Austin. As our resident Software Engineer, Mitchell has a wide-ranging role, managing full stack development for Gigabot tech, from front-end user interface elements to back-end applications. He has worked to optimize and update existing software applications; developed new applications; branched out to provide customer support and company IT support; and often helps out with aspects of hardware development as well.
A computer science graduate of Troy University in Alabama, Mitchell’s initial interest in 3D printing stemmed from a single class on 3D modeling; this led to an opportunity to work at his school’s 3D printing lab. A mentor’s connection to the company led Mitchell to discover re:3D, and he joined our team right out of college. Among his current projects, Mitchell is supporting development of the next version of Gigabot, particularly a mesh compensation feature; implementing improvements to our printers’ user interface to allow for greater personalization; and designing the circuit board of our prototype large format Terabot X. His proudest achievement at re:3D is his creation of the web application Helm, a fleet management software that would allow unitary control of a Gigabot print farm.
DOMENIC
Domenic Cordova heads product development at re:3D, helping to improve existing company tech and pave the way for the rollout of new products in the future. After earning his BS in physics at Southwestern University, Domenic began a Master’s program in mechanical engineering at UT Austin. He first came to re:3D as an intern last year while working on his Master’s, and has joined the team full time now that he has completed his program. He is now working on designing, prototyping, and implementing improvements as Gigabot 5 and Gigabot X3 are prepared for public release.
Domenic has focused in particular on the mesh compensation system for Gigabot X that uses a beacon sensor to map the print bed and allows the printer to adjust to maintain a consistent Z layer height. Another process he has spent significant time on is part cooling, which allows for faster and more complex printing because filament solidifies and deposits faster. Domenic loves the more academic aspects of his job–he especially enjoys research–and how he’s been able to turn his curiosity about how things work into a full time job.
Michael Pregill
Blog Post Author
