Happy Birthday to Edge!
15 September 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Wow, what a year!
Edge celebrates its first birthday, and it’s been an exciting and challenging last 12 months.
Here are the highlights:
- More than a dozen clients across two continents and 4 US time zones
- More than 25 projects, including repeat customers
- Multiple recurring part orders in the hundreds and thousands
- All equipment 100% paid off
- No investors, no debts, no diluted equity
- New IP developed in several areas including embossing of high aspect ratio microsctructures and solvent-assisted thermal bonding of plastics.
- A number of ongoing discussions over partnerships and supply agreements
I want to take this opportunity to thank the many friends of Edge Embossing out there. We’ve had a lot of help from many places, including the support of family, friends, colleagues, Edge’s Board of Advisors, clients, and of course the people who have helped out in the lab.
Of all the good things to happen in the first year, perhaps the very best is what we see today: prospects that Year 2 is going to be even better!
Mid-year report
17 July 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Here is a brief set of updates at mid-year for the company:
- Edge has completed the purchase of all specialized equipment for our work. It has been a long time coming, but it feels good to now own all of our equipment outright.
- What I call “client relations” are way up in the last 6 months. This includes both active projects as well as discussions/negotiations with new potential clients.
- The Edge website has been upgraded. Most of what was there before is still there, but there’s a bunch of new info as well. Also, we have added an image gallery of example micrographs of embossed parts. We’ll be adding new images there periodically.
- And, oh, the company is profitable.
Thanks for your support over the first 10 months. Stay tuned!
What would you do for a Klondike® bar?
23 June 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Remember those commercials? Check out the official website here, or search YouTube for all kinds of parodies.
In this case, I am asking a slightly different question, which is “What would you do to be able to collect on an invoice?”
Let’s imagine a project (not unlike a situation Edge currently finds itself in, but I’m going to keep the details vague and unrelated) as follows:
Suppose you’ve agreed to project with a client that has 3 tasks. Each task should take one week apiece, for a total of 3 weeks. After that, you can invoice for the agreed amount. Rather than putting a dollar amount on it, let’s say it’s about 6% of what you expect for your total annual revenue. (Makes sense, right, since 3 weeks is about 6% of the calendar year?)
Now let’s discuss two scenarios for this project.
Scenario 1
Let’s say on the first day of the project, you suddenly realize you greatly underestimated the difficulty of the project, and that it’s going to take 8 weeks instead of 3. That can happen for a few reasons; perhaps you failed to notice a strict requirement on the part dimensions, or that the client will require a very specific plastic resin that is difficult to acquire, or a specific milling feature that is hard to achieve. (I have made all of these mistakes in the last 9 months…so instead of imagining yourself doing these things…just imagine me!)
I think, in this case, the proper action is clear: you don’t do the project. You go back to the client and apologetically explain that you can’t do that project for 6% because it’s actually a 15% effort.
Scenario 2
In this scenario, let’s suppose you go ahead and complete the first two tasks in 3 weeks. It was supposed to be 2 weeks, but things were slightly more difficult than expected. Suppose you’ve kept the client in the loop, and their project manager is fine with the situation.
Now, suppose you go onto the 3rd task, and it turns out to be much more challenging than expected. Suppose you work at it for another 4 weeks, but you still can’t get the results agreed to with the client. You explain this to the client, and you and the client agree to a new set of requirements. It takes you 1 more week of work, and then you finish out the project and can bill for the 6%.
Discussion
There are a few odd things about these two scenarios. In both, you would end up doing the same amount of work (8 weeks’ worth) for the same presumed pay (6% of annual revenue.) Yet in Scenario 1, it’s clear that you refuse the project because it’s not enough money, while in Scenario 2, it’s clear that you finish out the project for that same amount of cash.
There are several explanations / points:
- The obvious explanation has to do with sunk costs. In Scenario 1, you’ve only sunk a few hours on the first day of work, and you’re not willing to sink another 8 weeks of work for just 3 weeks of pay. In Scenario 2, you’ve already sunk 7 weeks of work–that’s already gone and there’s nothing you can do about it. So the real question in Scenario 2 is whether it’s worth 1 week’s worth of work for the 6% payoff, which is clearly “yes“.
- In Scenario 2, some companies would go back to the client and ask for more money. They’d explain about the technical issues, come to an agreement with the client, and then explain that all the extra effort on their part has caused them to incur extra costs, and that those costs must be covered by the client. In many businesses, this sort of action might be OK. But in my case, I view the original project agreement as a sort of promise (or “contract” if you prefer) and unless the client does something to delay/expand the project, I am not going to ask for more money. This also falls under my corporate motto of “no surprises”.
- There is a much bigger lesson in this example, though. In Scenario 2, you really screwed up. You tried and tried for a month before you went back to the client and said you couldn’t do it. That’s an extra 3 weeks than the third task was supposed to take, which is 100% of the total project length! What the hell were you thinking? You’ve dug your own grave in this case, by already expending the effort (read “sinking the cost”) before notifying the client that you’re not sure you can reach the agreed to goals.
This actually happened to me recently. I find myself in the Scenario 2 situation where it appears I will be able to bill for the agreed price with very little additional work, but I already sunk a whole bunch of extra time. But shame on me for not “pulling the plug” a lot earlier. (And you know what our president says about “shame on me”, right? If not, see here, and p.s. I love the reference to The Who he works in!)
I find that most clients are very sympathetic when you go to them and explain that you are having difficulties, especially when it’s done in a timely manner. This has happened on a small proportion of Edge’s projects. Sometimes it’s just a delay of a few days, whereas sometimes I see no technical way of completing what I once thought I could. The fact of the matter is that this is like a parent/child situation: if the child goes to the parent in a timely fashion, head held low, and admits to the situation, the parent will handle it in a more empathetic and measured fashion than if he or she finds out well after the fact that the child has, in fact, been messing around for quite a while.
The bottom line is that it just makes sense to identify when a project is off the rails as soon as possible. It protects you from sinking more and more costs that cannot be recovered, and it will get the most empathetic response possible from the client. It’s good business sense. And cents.
Managing stress at a startup
21 June 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Everybody who has ever run a startup will tell you that time management is of paramount importance. You have to keep all critical-path activities moving forward, while keeping stress levels under control.
As founder of Edge Embossing, I have kept careful track of all my activities over the last several months. Here I present all major activities, broken out by percentage of time I spend doing them. Other than a few miscellaneous functions, everything is represented here.
Now, the big question is: Am I spending my time the right way? Am I keeping essential projects moving forward while managing my stress?
The best way to discern is to identify whether each task on the chart is critical or not. If it doesn’t get done in a timely fashion, is there significant impact on the company?
Here is a list of those wedges from the above pie chart that I consider critical, along with brief explanations:
Critical activities
- Email - everyday communications with clients, vendors, and advisors
- Tool manufacture - fabricating embossing tools from masters
- Cleaning - progress halts when laboratory is dirty and cluttered
- Embossing R&D - critical for expanding capabilities and refining techniques
- Product manufacturing - making the actual deliverables we get paid for
- Machining - fabricating masters for all embossing tools
- Consulting w/ technical advisors - only way to find solutions for tough problems
- Proposal writing - essential to attracting new business
- Client discussions - absolutely necessary for projects
- Soliciting new business - discussions with new potential clients: critical
- Purchasing - necessary to acquire required supplies
- Equipment maintenance - critical to keep everything running
- Shipping - getting deliverables into clients’ hands
- Consulting w/ financial advisors - need to make critical decisions about cash flow
- Managing workers - only way to get productivity
- Design - necessary to create masters for all embossing tools
- Banking - must deposit checks and set up lines of credit
- Creating marketing tools - necessary to attract new customers
- Reporting - contractually obligated to clients to provide
- Invoice collection - company cannot continue without cash flow
- Client visits - necessary for non-phone discussions
- Polishing - achieving required surface roughness on masters
- Legal - contracts, agreements, company filings: necessary
- Blogging - my way of recording mistakes and building efficiency
OK, now that we’ve identified the critical activities, let’s adjust the shading on the pie chart to see what percentage of the activities are critical. This will give a good indication of how much stress is involved in running a startup:
oh no!
(fyi, this is a tongue-in-cheek post)
Pros and cons of having no partners
19 June 2006 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
There are lots of ways to set up, organize, and run startup companies. Nine months into the life of Edge Embossing LLC, here is a review of my critical decision to have no partners. I list here the top 10 pros and 10 cons and I see them today.
Pros
1. No arguments: With no partners, there is no argument over any decision the company makes. I have a 5-member Board of Advisors, and I often engage in helpful debates with my Advisors on issues raging the finance to project management to company mission. However, every decision is ultimately between me, myself, and I, which means I don’t have to spend a single minute arguing with anybody.
2. 100% equity: It’s pretty well established these days that small business owners need to guard their equity like it’s gold, because someday it might be worth a lot of gold. There’s no quicker way to lose equity than to take on partners. One partner? Say goodbye to 50% of your equity (assuming you’re equal partners.) Two partners? Kiss 67% bye-bye. Even investors will usually take a lot less than that. Eventually, I will sell Edge, but it will go for an amount far, far south of the megamillions achieved by the top fraction of the top 1% of startups, meaning I need to preserve as much of that equity as I can. By having no partners (as well as no investors), I keep 100%.
3. Full control: The mission, vision, and path of the company are completely under my control. Whatever focus I want the company to have, that’s what the company will do. For example, if I wanted the company to focus on clients targeting healthcare issues, I can do that. Perhaps that’s how I would derive the most satisfaction from my job. Any time that I want to change that, I can do so without having to compromise my feelings and opinions with those of other co-founders.
4. Learning all aspects of the business: When a company has multiple partners, it’s natural to divide up the work. For example, oftentimes, different people take the lead on technical issues and financial issues. Because I don’t have partners to take the lead on some issues, I take the lead on everything. Consequently, I get to learn about everything. I know what percentage of company revenue Edge pays to rent and utilities. I know how new projects are harvested. I know what insurance the company carries. Simply put, I know everything. The value here is for my next venture. I’m getting experience in every aspect of the business, and whether I start another company or go to work for someone else, all this experience is going to be extremely valuable.
5. No surprises: This is the company motto I like to apply to all of my client relationships, but it also applies to me, and is another consequence of taking the lead on all aspects of business. I don’t ever need to worry that the company’s cash flow is being mismanaged without my knowledge, or that project milestones are being missed. Since I’m in the lead on all issues, I am aware of the up-to-the-minute status of everything. We’ve all experienced someone coming into our office and dropping a bomb over some situation they should have raised days or weeks ago. That never happens when you have no partners.
6. Job satisfaction: When you’re the boss, obviously the look & feel of the workplace is exactly what you most prefer. All of the little things, such as what station the radios are tuned to and the set-point of the thermostat, are set to what I want. I can check my personal email or my stock portfolio as often as I want. This may sound trivial, but it directly relates to my mood, which in turn relates directly to productivity. Without partners, there’s no silly arguing over these issues, and consequently no dissatisfaction.
7. All the credit/pride: Whatever Edge achieves, I can take all the credit. I don’t mean this in purely a business sense (i.e. what goes on my resume) but in a personal sense. It’s part of Edge’s mission to help other biotech companies develop tools to help solve healthcare issues. If any of our clients make significant progress using plastic parts provided by Edge, I can know that I, personally, can feel good about the contributions I made.
8. No obligations: With any startup, the founders are putting their livelihood on the line. Income tends to be limited up front (especially when there is no external investment.) Every person has his or her own personal financial situation, and this situation becomes a critical factor in opinions over the direction of the business. Therefore, with multiple founders/partners, that’s a lot of personal baggage affecting the business decisions. For example, let’s say I get sick of running Edge, but I have a partner who is relying on the company for income. Then I can’t just walk away. I have an obligation (albeit a sort of artificial one) to my partner. But with no partners, I know that I have no such obligations. I have only business ethics (i.e. not leaving my clients high and dry) to consider.
9. Flexibility: Obviously, I have complete flexibility on work hours, not only in terms of what hours I am going to work on any given day, but also when I take vacations, and how often. I have the ultimate flex-time schedule. Plus, I can change it at any moment. If something comes up at home (such as a broken water heater), I can just drop everything and go home to deal with it. Having a bad day? Go home and play with the dogs. Having a good day? Work late, and take a half day tomorrow. As long as I am making adequate progress on the projects, I have virtually infinite flexibility.
10. Ownership: With no other partners, I completely own the company. I am building something that has real value, both monetarily and in terms of value of services being provided to other biotechs. There is no substitute for the feelings of pride, fun, and excitement that come with that. Having partners doesn’t completely eliminate those feelings, but it certainly does dilute them.
Cons
1. Everything bad is my fault: With full decision-making authority, every damned mistake the company makes is my fault. There’s nobody to hide behind and nobody else to blame. And as with most things, the mistakes are often easy to see, and more obvious and painful than any acute positive feelings that result from correct decisions. But a lesson learned by any entrepreneur is that mistakes and bad decisions are going to happen. You can’t waste time beating yourself up over them. Learn from them as quickly as possible, make more good decisions than bad, and avoid the really large, fatal mistakes. Your company, and more importantly, you will be fine.
2. No help with problem-solving: I am not a business expert, and my experience is limited. I don’t know how to solve every single problem that comes down the pike, and that includes technical problems as well as business development and financial problems. Having additional partners with varied experience helps with creative problem-solving. More than that, I’m just not going to catch every issue. I have the same number of bad days as anybody else. Having one or two other people around here to pick up the balls that I drop would be helpful. I try to get around this pitfall by maintaining active contact with my Board of Advisors. The more I fill them in about the goings-on of the business, the more specific and helpful their advice will be.
3. No backup: If I get hit by the proverbial bus, it’s bye-bye to Edge Embossing. There’s nobody to pick up the company. All of the existing clients are screwed. Game over, man. But seeing as I am very careful whenever crossing the street, the more realistic issue is that if I come down with a cold and can’t come to work, there is nobody who can make business decisions, communicate with clients, or do any of the detailed technical work. Luckily, I happen to come from good genetic stock and I rarely get sick, so this hasn’t been a problem at all in the last 9 months.
4. No additional resources: I’ve put a lot of personal resources into the company. I have provided startup funds. I have worked weekends. I have driven my own car all the hell over the place for meetings and such. I have put in large amounts of blood, sweat, and tears. It would be nice to have some co-founders who were willing to do the same. But that doesn’t happen, even with the people I have had working here. Only true partners could be expected to sacrifice resources on the same scale as me, and I have no true partners. In tough times, when I feel very strung out, this can be a lonely point.
5. No sharing of liability: Edge Embossing is a single-proprietor LLC. For tax purposes, it is counted as part of my personal return. To prevent piercing of the corporate veil, I filed all the appropriate documents with the state of Massachusetts, and keep completely separate (and accurate) books for the business. But that doesn’t change the fact that if something bad happens, it’s only my neck on the line. It would be nice to think that there might be others to share my burden, but that’s not the case.
6. No empathy: I have gotten and continue to get a lot of support for Edge from my immediate and extended families, my friends, and my Advisors. But, on those occasions when things get really tough, there’s nobody who can fully empathize with the situation. There is nobody else involved at the level I am, and nobody as emotionally invested as I am. By the way, this is true not only of tough times, but also of good times. I get plenty of congratulatory remarks, and they are extremely appreciated, but nobody else feels the pulse of the company quite the same way as I do.
7. Limited networking: Just about all of Edge’s business has come through networking. Most clients are interested in microfluidics, and that’s my expertise. I know most of the big players, and I have worked to get the word out through that network. However, additional partners would expand that network, perhaps within microfluidics or even to other disparate markets. I certainly don’t know everybody, and there are those folks with whom I don’t have a good relationship. There’s little I can do with respect to networking beyond those people I have in my own network.
8. I have to do everything: This is the corollary to the Pro above. I have to do practically every single job, regardless of whether it’s fun or mundane, easy or hard. I don’t get to do any picking and choosing at all. The only tasks I have managed to off-load are the bookkeeping, which one of my Board of Advisors members does, and some of the routine embossing work, which I have hired help to do.
9. No breaks: I mean, sure I can take breaks if I want. But the company grinds to halt. When I’m not there, Edge makes no progress, creates no value, and generates no revenue. To a small degree, this is not entirely accurate since I can instruct folks to emboss a bunch of parts and ship them, but there is certainly no business development, marketing, or negotiating happening when I’m not around. This creates pressure on me to feel like even though I have total flexibility, every hour or day I take off is an hour or day where the company does not progress. Such a feeling can be overpowering if one is not careful to recognize the importance of breaks and vacation.
10. Devoting time to filling cracks: When a startup has multiple partners, ideally each partner is bringing an essential and different set of talents. I bring only my own expertise, and there are many aspects of the business in which I know next to nothing. Examples include maintenance of milling machines, investigating a business line of credit, and installing plumbing for compressed air and water. These things all need to happen. They are not so high-level that I would take on partners just to do these things. But, the upshot is that I need to find other people who can do these things. Every time a problem crops up, I need to drop some fraction of what I’m doing and find a solution. This is the frustrating alternative to not having other people here who can handle these things. Eventually, when the company grows enough, I hope to hire an “uber-technician” who can manage all of these issues. But for now, it’s another sink on my time.
The above lists are a pretty accurate representation of how I feel today. Let’s see in a year or two how I feel about the decision to have no partners.
50,000 and counting
13 June 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I haven’t made many posts lately, mainly because I’ve been busy, which is of course a good thing. I’ve posted a bunch about the big (and final) payment coming up at the end of June. I made a push to get enough work finished by the end of May so that we could accumulate enough cash to make that payment 30 days later (since our billing terms are net 30.) In the past, when I’ve been faced with these deadlines, there has often been a letdown afterwards because in the push to get work done 30 days in advance, there tended to be a lack of much billable work afterwards. Not so in June, thankfully. All three of our most recent new clients have short timelines and projects on which we made substantial progress quickly. So more invoices are going out. That feels good.
A few notes, now, about the Edge website:
- We have just switched providers, away from Yahoo and to a much smaller provider. Yahoo was just too slow, and our outgoing emails were too prone to getting filtered out as spam (since so much spam comes from Yahoo.) You should notice that both the main site and the blog load much faster.
- We are making improvements / changes to the main website (none have been posted as of yet.) I like the website as it is, but the fact of the matter is that as we approach Edge’s first anniversary, some of what was written on the website is just wrong. We’re really not doing some of the types of work represented there (because they were nothing more than intelligent guesses when I wrote them), and some things we are doing are not listed. So, we’ll be updating the copy, and also adding a picture gallery of example parts.
- The Edge website has had 50,000 total hits so far, although the actual number of daily visitors is around 100. As web sites go, this is a pretty small number (after all, my buddy Mark had 50,000 readers of a very interesting blog post he wrote in one weekend!) But, it’s important to remember that Edge does not get a lot of casual traffic to its site. Most visitors are either reading the blog (which turns out to be pretty good advertising) or have arrived after searching for plastics, microfluidics, embossing, or some other relevant technology. To date, a number of serious inquiries have come through the website (something I never expected to happen–in fact I’m pretty sure I posted here that I predicted that would never happen) and some have turned into paying clients.
By the way, there are a bunch of funny search terms that have led folks to the Edge web site. I made this previous post listing some of them (a ways down the page.) There have been a lot of funny ones since then…I’ll need to post some more later.
Comments, “Micorfluidics”, and more
1 June 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
A few quick notes:
Matt, a guy working for me for the summer, used his self-proclaimed “special powers” to fix the comment issues on the blog. You can now enter comments directly on the blog page. But watch out–if they are interesting enough, I will post them publicly! (I won’t post them if they are obviously meant to be private, plus you can still always email me instead of submitting them here.) My company received a brochure from a company selling equipment for “micorfluidics”; that’s their typo, not mine. Would you buy anything from them? Mind you, it is a foreign company from a country where English is not the primary language, but still–they spend all that money to print brochures and ship them internationally and they misspell the name of the specialty market they are targeting? Oops. Lastly, a topic that deserves its own entire post. My wife first raised this with me a week or so ago. It seems that Edge is now getting a fair amount of buzz that is resulting in referrals. In the last few weeks, I’ve had a quite a few emails from unknown parties that start off saying “I was talking to <So and so> about my project, and <he or she> recommended that I contact you to make parts for me.” This is a kick-ass way to get new business. Because if I really know and have some trust for <So and so>, then I am immediately reasonably comfortable to jump right in with the new person. Also, if <So and so> is pretty intelligent and knows something about Edge’s capabilities, then the project is probably a good fit. <So and so> is an unpaid salesperson for Edge!
What’s in a name?
18 May 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
On the way to work this morning, I saw a truck that made me think.
I’ve seen these trucks before. They are for a company called Xpedx, and see if you can figure out they do from their website (I couldn’t.)
But here’s a photo of the type of truck I saw:
So what’s so interesting about this? Well, here’s an advertisement that explains it all:
This company name has the same property as Edge’s name, at least when the letters are structured properly. In fact, when I was trying to come up with a name that could be rotated as Edge can be, “xpedx” was a name I came across but skipped over. I guess I’m glad I didn’t try to use it, since it would probably have caused confusion.
One of those days
4 May 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Today was one of those days.
I’m working hard on projects for two clients. Not only are both clients eager to get their parts, but I want to be able to bill for some work before the end of May so that I can get paid before the end of June, which will help with the last big bill I’ll have to pay for Edge’s equipment.
I have some embossed parts for the first projects, and I want to measure them. I do this using a microscope equipped with a CCD camera. The camera sends images to a PC where I can measure the size of various features.
In the meantime, I set a master milling for the second project. I want to emboss the first parts tomorrow. The master will take about 4 hours to cut, and then I can make embossing tools and first parts tomorrow.
While that master for the second project is cutting, I go to the microscope/PC to get measurements from parts on the first project. The PC won’t turn on. It’s been a week or so since I’ve used it. Nothing I do works. Looks like a dead power supply. My only alternative is to take one of the PCs from the office, move all the hardware over, reinstall the software, set up the camera, and go from there. Well you know how that kind of operation can have bugs, and that takes me about 3 frustrating hours.
I measure the parts and find that they are considerably off. I will have to design and cut a new master. That’s OK–that’s typical for these projects.
I go check in on the master that’s currently milling for the second project. It’s done, but I immediately see I made a mistake in the design. Four hours wasted, and now I won’t get the first parts tomorrow. Sigh.
I get a phone call from someone I need to talk to about some business. While I’m on the phone with him, my call waiting chimes in and I can see it’s one of my clients calling.
Now, a word on calls from clients. At my last job, it was pretty much always bad news when the client called. The reason is simple: the technology was so new (dare I say cutting edge) that it had lots of bugs and hadn’t been time tested. Almost without fail, if the client was calling, he or she was calling to say that something wasn’t working right and they were pissed.
Luckily, I haven’t had that problem at Edge. While a lot of our clients are doing very advanced work, the actual stuff going on at Edge isn’t rocket science. Good project planning and good communication usually leads to good results. I get very few calls from clients saying that there is a problem, and I have yet to get a frustrated or angry phone call from a client. So, I don’t have the same kind of fear when the phone rings as I did at my last job.
Anyway, while I’m talking to a colleague, I see the client calling in on call waiting. I decide to finish the conversation with my colleague, and call the client back immediately afterwards.
Then, my call waiting clicks again, and it’s the client calling again. I figure he wasn’t sure if he dialed right the first time and decided to take another shot. Again I decide to wait and call him back.
And then…the client calls my personal cell phone. I gave him that number for emergencies, because my work cell phone (Verizon) doesn’t get much signal in Kentucky, while my personal cell phone (Sprint) does. When we visited my sister-in-law’s family there recently, I wanted the client to be able to reach me if he needed to.
So, for the first time, I feel that pang of fear I remember from my old job. If he’s trying this hard to get ahold of me, it must be urgent.
I tell my colleague that I’ve got to take the other call, and we hang up. I pick up the call with the client and nervously ask him what’s up. Instantly, I can tell he is delirious on the other end. There are people shouting in the background. I admit to you that I freaked out a little bit at this point.
He goes on to tell me that they have just made the first fully-integrated system incorporating my embossed prototype parts, and they have achieved fantastic results, well below their error tolerance. He’s delirious all right–deliriously happy.
What follows is a quick-hit discussion of when they can get more parts, how quickly Edge can scale up production, and what the next steps are.
My contact at the client is really happy. His project management has led to a successful launch of their prototype system right on schedule. They are making progress toward developing their system, which will provide a valuable tool for heathcare applications. Happy people, and a company making real progress.
Edge has made a real difference today.
I’ll take as many days like today as I can get.
Man, what a great feeling.
Tessellation
30 April 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Like many people, I’ve always had a fascination with M. C. Escher’s tessellating designs. I decided to make a new giveaway for Edge. It’s simpler to fabricate than the previous one, and shows most of the same critical features. It also features even smaller features, as we’ve recently expanded our milling capabilities.
Although I drew the design by hand, it has a close resemblance to one of Escher’s own prints.
A few things to notice about the design:
The Edge logo appears on the lower left leg The eyes are actually through-holes There are a series of grooves that run perpendicular to the spine, starting around the shoulders and continuing in the dorsal direction. These start with a width of 250 microns and go down to a width of 50 microns. (Previously, Edge advertised that its smallest in-house features were 150 microns.)
Now, my biggest problem is figuring out: what do plastic lizards eat?
A few acknowledgments:
My parents, for buying me an Escher book quite a few years ago. I was able to observe a nice high-resolution print from the book and use it as the basis of my own drawing. Eric Schilling, who gave me the confidence and knowledge to try milling down to 50 microns. My wife, for suggestions with the design My father-in-law, who pointed out to me how much nicer adjacent parts look when they have a beveled edge (notice in the second photo!) And Mark Chang, who had the best line about this giveaway, since the parts are made from plastic BB gun pellets: this is my own version of toys for guns!
One reason why I finally finished up these lizards is because I have a big meeting this week with the largest plastics provider in New England. I thought they would find these parts amusing. (Hopefully amusing enough to give me another free 20 kg bag of plastic…)
I happened to notice this web site, where they apparently sell this same type of thing. Then, there are lots of toys like this.