Before MOCBoxing - How it all began

Welcome to MOCBoxing!

I’m Alex - I founded this company a few years ago, and I wanted to give you all an introduction to what we do as we kick off writing blogs. These blogs are intended to give you new information about what we do, new developments, community ideas like building techniques, interesting information like that about the history of The LEGO® Group, and ultimately serve as another source of entertainment for those who are interested.

But first - how did we get started?

When I was in high school, I started to get really interested in product development. The idea was sort of “Why wait to climb the corporate ladder for a fraction of freedom to create something, when I could begin to develop on my own?” Now of course, there’s disadvantages to doing this - start-ups have a notoriously bad work-life balance, and products designed at a large company may have many more levels of security built into them and benefit from being produced by many minds instead of a few. But I’m a creative, and progress is impatient. So with my own LEGO collection, I began testing different methods of mechanical building. We only had one motor, so I had to rely on complex gearing and planning to build reticulating mechanisms and I took a lot of inspiration from Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs). My initial goal was to work on prosthetics, and my interest in mechanisms that could mimic human joints turned into a more general interest in manufacturing.

Then, in college, I studied mechanical engineering. I was the type of kid who would be about to go to bed, and then my roommate (who was a philosophy major) and I would start up a conversation about stocks or technology, we would have an idea, and then decide to spend all night building it. We tested ideas for language software, digital 3D planners, Augmented Reality for business solutions, and a host of other things. And in class, we worked on designing robots to complete obstacle courses, piping designs, medical technology - the whole 9 yards. So I had the benefit of studying the physical side of engineering in school and the digital side of engineering in my free time. 

All the while, I was trying to find technology that was fun, actually innovative, and legitimately useful to people (for counter reference, see technology like shakeable egg scramblers). So, my first product was a very very basic graphics engine where you could just move an object around in 3D space. Then I developed a digital planner. Then I worked in Germany and developed some linguistics software. Then I made a forum-type website for university students and engineers to cross-pollinate their ideas on. I even tried techy jewellery. And all the while I was participating in business competitions and taking business classes. And then I finally stumbled upon it - a 3D printing company.

MOCBoxing, or more formally, Vasari Design LLC, was originally born in a lab at the University of Florida, where I learned 3D printing. So I gave myself two weeks to finally do what I had been putting off: build a useful product and get my first sale. And I did it with one day to spare.

You know what that product was? A toothbrush holder.

Because the idea was - “I can use any starting block to get to where I’m going. The important thing is to keep building things that will actually improve people’s lives.” So as I kept developing the company, I realized that the bigger problem for people 3D printing was actually the time and effort required to run a print farm, despite the fact that it was automated. Printers may get 45 hours into a print and suddenly have a layer shift that ruins the build. Printers may disconnect when there’s a power surge. Every print needs to be manually removed and post processed. And arguably the biggest problem - 3D printing takes forever.

So I tried to improve the process. I connected the printer to a raspberry pi so I could run the printer remotely. I set it up so orders from my Etsy store got fed directly into the printer. I had the code pre-process the models so that the printer could clean itself. I developed addons for the printer so it could move the model onto a tray for packaging, and even an automated boxing system. And I started experimenting with faster manufacturing methods where I could make a 3D printed mould and use resin or concrete to make products in large batches. And just as things were really getting interesting, the inevitable problem hit: running a business is expensive.

So, with minimal orders coming in, and money running out, I started a business course specifically for start ups at Broward College. And that was game changing. After another two weeks in the first of 5 courses I would eventually take with them, I threw out everything my company did and started from scratch-ish. (By the way, this is not the first time this has happened - you’d be surprised how often literally destroying everything builds innovation that allows you to reinvent a product). The last night of the program, after asking myself what I was really interested in, I made a new business model: using my existing program that automated 3D printing to run a logistics network to get the parts to make custom models out of something that I really loved: LEGOs.

And this is sort of where part one of the story ends: a boy, his bricks, and a torturous education in engineering, moulded into the beginnings of a logistics framework. From there, we eventually partnered with over 50 designers from around the world, interviewed more than 300 people to design our system, and tested and failed a spectacular amount of advertising. And I began working with a marketer that I met in Japan, and a childhood friend who I used to make stop-motion animation with. And you’ll be hearing from them soon in these blogs as well. But all that is a story for another day. I hope that in the meantime, you can appreciate the story of a thread that goes full circle from playing with Legos to building with them, and the idea that any tech can morph into anything else, so long as you’re willing to make it. And that as we go forwards, the goal will always be to bring useful ideas to life, and make people’s lives better, whether it is for LEGO fans, or the world at large. But to see where we end up, you’ll have to come along for the ride.

So, Welcome to MOCBoxing.