Realize President Todd Reese attended the AMUG conference last week in St. Louis. We asked him to keep a journal/diary of his experience. If you didn’t attend, or you did and want a recap, here is what Todd wrote about his time attending AMUG2016. Enjoy.

AMUG 2016 Diary of Todd Reese

Day One – Saturday

Golf outing. Brutal…I mean BRUTAL wind conditions, along with low temperatures! At least it was sunny! My team won with a score of par and I won a closest to the pin prize. It was 6’ 9’’ away.

Dinner with industry friends

Such a good time and great company and wine. Honored to spend an evening with peers of their caliber.

Day Two – Sunday

Sunday Expo.

Talking so much didn’t eat enough! Sat down with prospect for potential business opportunity.

3D Systems booth – After a few years of being absent, they’re back with a large presence.

2 days of expo – That’s good, because you can’t hit it all in one day.

Spent time in Somos, Argyle, Post Process, and Midwest booths

UofL booth – Nice Bourbon, Tim!

Day Three – Monday

It seems to be about 40% first timers.

History lesson: AMUG was formed in 1988 as Stereolithography User’s Group. SLS User’s Group was formed in 1989. They were combined in 2004. Now, in 2016, many more technologies represented and it’s basically a forum for 18 mini User’s Groups.

This year has 1000+ attendees up from 765 in 2015.

I gave a 15-minute presentation highlighting “Klarg”, our winning entry from last years Advanced Finishing Technical Competition. It seemed well received, and I received many compliments, comments and questions throughout the day.

Jason Lopes – Legacy Effects presentation. Always riveting, entertaining and educational. The guy is just cool.

Very good lunch but the table was kind of quiet.

Sat in on Carbon’s materials talk. Very interesting technology. I’m interested.

Day cut short due to Tech Competition set up.

Met with a supplier and their potential client to present/discuss my experiences, successes and failures with supplier.

GREAT entries into tech comp this year. Stiff competition.

BB8 entry was very well received. Number of visitors to tech competition up noticeably compared to last year. My voice is shot.

Many people took pictures and selfies with BB8.

The judges will have a tough decision. Broke down my display and headed to room to relax and put my feet up for awhile.

Caught the end of awesome NCAA basketball title game, now down to the bar to network a little until midnight.

Day Four – Tuesday

General session: Large Sponsor Panel assembled on stage to answer questions from audience.

Sat in on a talk about new/emerging technologies from Prodways.

Good networking lunch.

3D printing/Wall Street talk

Another awesome presentation by Jason Lopes of Legacy Effects in regards to Carbon’s CLIP technology.

Boarded buses to mystery dinner.

Caught up with Dave Flynn of Materialise on the ride over.

Arrived Six Flags. AMUG board really raised the bar this year for the awards dinner.

Food and drinks were great.

Realize wins 2nd place in the finishing contest. Congrats to all the winners. It was tough competition this year, really great entries. I’m proud Realize received recognition.

Ten DINO Awards given out this year, and much to my surprise I was one of the recipients of this distinguished and highly prestigious award. What an honor it is to join the ranks of people I hold in very high regard! This is a career highlight.

Upon completion of the awards ceremony, we were released into the park where many rides/games/concessions/bars were open, in addition to casino tables set up in different areas.

The group migrated to park theater at 10PM for a raffle. Thousands of dollars in giveaways tonight. Apple TV’s, Bluetooth speakers, Drones, headphones, hard drives, Fitbits, all sorts of techie stuff and gift cards.

Arrived back at hotel about 12:30AM. Such a long day, but a great one. Handshakes and congrats more than I can count.

Day Five – Wednesday

I arrived down for breakfast a little late. Slept in after late night. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. I was able to get my DINO Award signed by Chuck Hull, inventor of Stereolithography and Scott Crump, inventor of Fused Deposition Modeling.

There was a group picture taken with those two icons and all DINOs in attendance.

AMUG Business meeting is not to be missed.

1221 Total registered, 1064 Total attendees

I can’t believe that there is actually a zombie apocalypse clause in our contract!! That is absolutely hilarious!!

AMUG 2017 – Save the date! April 2-6, 2017. Orlando appears to be frontrunner location, but official announcement to be made at a later date.

Best lunch of the week so far in regards to networking. Very energetic and talkative table. Met some really great people that could potentially become clients.

Carbon CLIP technology presentation – I am really interested in this technology and the materials they have to offer. Potential meeting/visit from Carbon in the weeks ahead.

Sat in on 3D Systems SLABOT talk. Technology much like Carbon, however approach seems to be more custom based.

New 3D software in the works – 3D Sprint. Looks to be a Magics / E-stage competitor. I wonder how it will work with legacy systems and will it allow the same freedoms we have with our current preparation software.

3D Systems private event in the early evening and spoke with many people. It seems that there is a renewed energy at that company.

Played Left-Right-Center until late with a large group of people, always a fun time.

Day Six – Thursday

Feedback Session. It’s always interesting to see the suggestions that are brought to the table.

I spent my four-hour drive home reflecting on a great conference. AMUG2016 in St. Louis will always be memorable and special to me.

Realize President Todd Reese recently attended the AMUG conference in Jacksonville, Florida. The conference was celebrating it’s 25th Anniversary. We asked Todd to recap the overall experience. What were the attendees buzzing about this year?

Realize President Todd Reese meets Iron Man!

This group has morphed over the years. It started off focusing on one technology, stereolithography, but the industry was growing so the group thought it would be a good idea to include emerging, different and competitive technologies. AMUG is all inclusive now, anyone that has additive manufacturing machines, regardless of technology, is invited now. It’s developed into more of a technical forum with the people actually running the machines and solving problems while pushing the technology to the next big thing. The dream for many is to quickly print production parts off of these machines, and even do so from home. For example, a knob on your blender breaks, well the idea is that you could just download the file for that component and make the part yourself on your personal 3D printer rather than go to the store and buy it. Discovering the appropriate materials, and engineering more consistency and repeatability into the machines to create production parts is where the trick is. At Realize we are more focused on prototypes, helping clients early in their product development cycle, and that will remain an important step in the process. I expect designs will change as additive manufacturing technologies become used to make production parts, because the limitations or restrictions you would see with traditional methods, such as injection molding, don’t exist in that realm. Think, building a whistle with the ball already inside it. Again, the trick lies in developing appropriate materials and machines with better repeatability. From a pure production standpoint, I think we are still a ways off from that. The AMUG group continues to grow in size but even just a few short years ago you really did not hear about the technology outside of the industry. Now with the 3D printing buzzword the media has brought to the street it’s really come to the masses.
It’s incredible there are all these innovative people making machines in their garage and coming up with new ways of doing things. Right now there are two groups out there; guys like me who have been at it for 20+ years on an industry side, and then a new brilliant, social media generation who have recently been introduced to 3D printing. I talked to many people at AMUG on this very topic, and the common thread was that it will be a challenge to bring them together, or can you even bring them together? The new generation has done a heck of a job creating a buzz, and a cool factor, and the national media has grabbed and run with it…is it a bubble? I don’t know.
Realize is primarily a stereolithography and rubber tooling service bureau but we do offer 3D printing services as well. I’m excited to see what’s next in the evolution of the industry. AMUG is a great event for witnessing and participating in the evolution, as it’s where the technical leaders to come together. It’s a conference unlike anything else I’ve been to. The networking and information exchange is such a priority for everyone and the board does a phenomenal job of structuring the event to keep people engaged throughout the entire event experience. There were many fascinating elements during the conference but the highlight for me would be the presentation from Jason Lopes from Legacy Effects. It was very exciting to see how the technology I work with every day is applied to costumes and special effects in the movies. It is used a lot more than you might think! By using these technologies they can bring back some realism and not completely rely on the computer animated graphics, the results are pretty special. I was especially impressed with learning how rapid prototyping was used to make the Iron Man mask. A big thanks to the AMUG board. That group of passionate volunteers does an incredible job of putting the event together and improving things each year to make the conference the premiere event it is today, hats off to them.
Bottom line this is a great conference to attend. You will talk to your peers and competitors. Sharing knowledge will help us advance. I certainly walked away with some great information this year.

Itar Registered

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