Southern Oswego County startup merges 3D metal printing with other manufacturing techniques, holds 90 patents
By Stefan Yablonski
Think Variant, “a machine shop of the 21st century,” is a small start-up company that is doing cutting edge products in the town of Schroeppel in southern Oswego County. They have 10 employees.
Founded by Scott Antonacci, Stephanie Budmen, Harold Watkins and Isaac Budmen, its origin is rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Budmens were running Face Shield Operation at Budmen Industries, continuously producing about 200 face shields every 24 hours using 3D printing.
“Spring 2021 is when we all officially gathered for the first time.
Steph, my wife, and I, had been running Budmen Industries officially since 2016; before that we were freelance. We started that business to manufacture desktop 3D printers for creative professionals and then when the pandemic hit, we started making face shields,” said Isaac Budmen.
During this time, “we received a call from Scott Antonacci and Harold Watkins, who proposed the idea of injection molding to scale up production,” he explained.
“Injection molds are not cheap; they’re like tens of thousands of dollars, right? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. We said that would be amazing, but I gotta tell ya, I don’t think it’s in the budget. And Harold said, ‘don’t worry about it, we think we can make that happen.’”
They quickly adapted the design; manufactured the mold and delivered the first batch of 600 injection-molded shields within five days.
“This rapid and effective collaboration allowed us to donate more than 30,000 shields statewide [between Buffalo and Albany], showcasing the power of merging 3D printing with other manufacturing techniques. That was the moment where I think the four of us thought ‘wow,’” he said. “The pandemic had brought the four of us together and there was just such great working relationship, such an overlap of shared values and purpose.”
That success led them to envision a future where they could continue to innovate together.
“Steph and I were looking at using Scott’s business R&D Design and Associates to do some of the injection molding of the component for our next project,” Budmen said. “As we got to working with Scott and talking with Harold, the four of us just started to solidify this idea — what if we could direct print 3D metal, what if the four of us work together? This feels good! That’s where it all came from.”
Their name reflects the circumstances that brought them together — a COVID ‘variant’ — “and embodies our philosophy of challenging convention at every step,” he added. “We seek to make the impossible possible, pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable in manufacturing — to accelerate the rate of human innovation by developing unconventional manufacturing technologies and providing 21st-century solutions.”
Experience
Think Variant’s team of unique individuals has more than 50-plus years of experience in mechanical, robotic and electrical engineering, software design and design thinking. Collectively, they have more than 90 patents and have been featured on CNN, Fox News, NBC, ABC and Wired Magazine for their work in additive manufacturing.
“It’s a team that has a shared set of character values and the four of us together — there is energy there — there are very few moments of adversity that we ever have any trouble coming through it,” Budmen said. “Working with these folks is like the greatest time of my life.”
They bridge their expertise in advanced technology and traditional manufacturing solutions “to help our clients move from prototype to full-scale production. Additionally, we create our own cutting-edge technologies to address unique challenges and push the boundaries of what’s possible in manufacturing,” he added.
“We’ve always been here [the L. Mike Treadwell Industrial Park]. Happy to be here, we have some great neighbors,” he said. “We share space with Scott’s legacy company R&D Design and Associates. They are primarily focused on injection molding and they have part of this facility and we just put up a new building just across from that building.”
Think Variant does two business operations. One is developing technology. The other one is they are a solutions provider, Budmen explained.
“Folks will come to us with, ‘hey, we have this one issue with this one part which we’re trying to do something better with’ — we can do that one part and help them with design issues, produce the part for them or we can do the full assembly. We do everything from prototype all the way to distribution.”
The challenges change all the time. Their favorite projects, favorite clients, are the ones who say, ‘everybody else we took this to said the part can’t be made or can’t be molded or we can’t do it in this material. Do you agree?’
“And what we’ll say is, we don’t know, but we’re willing to try and find out,” he said. “And most of the time we end up finding a path for them. We love that challenge. I think that is like the connecting tissue for the four of us — ooh somebody said it can’t be done — there’s got to be a way to do it, right?”
There is a variety of different ways of doing it [printing metal], he said.
“We’re about to file provisional patents but we’re not there yet.
A printer that we make in house, the Vault 3D Printer, is capable of printing full size car hoods. It’s the largest 3D printing services in Upstate New York,” he said. “The desktop systems we have coming on line have a build area of about 20 inches by 12 by 12 — so smaller parts.”
Genius
“We are working with two of the Genius NY companies,” he said.
Genius NY is a startup accelerator sponsored by Empire State Development that invests $3 million annually into seed-stage startups focused on uncrewed aerial systems, automation and advanced air mobility.
“One is Blueflite who makes the emergency delivery drones.
And the other is Greenjets who make propulsion systems for drones,” he said. “We were introduced to both of them this past fall. They were looking for local manufacturing and it’s a great fit for both of our teams.
“Startups are always focused on the bottom line. We are trying to get them to the next level. We are big believers in rising tides for small boats and when it comes to how we price and work with our clients we want to cheer them on and get the big win with them. So we don’t charge them too much up front; we want to truly set them up for success so we can grow together.”
Long relationship
Scott and Harold have a relationship going back about 15, 20 years, Budmen said. “Harold is a mechanical engineer who has quite the repertoire of patents; I think it’s 70-something at most recent count. He had been working in the connector industry for different organizations around Central New York. He was looking for a supplier to mold something and he and Scott formed a very strong relationship, taking on ambitious molding projects together. They were able to mold things that people were saying you could never mold. The two of them would be like, ‘hmm, let’s give it a try.’ And so the two of them built this incredible repertoire and reputation in injection molding by being willing to try things that the industry wasn’t willing to.”