Makers are having a moment—there are hundreds of millions of dollars being thrown at projects conceived and crowdfunded by total strangers, largely produced by small teams or even solo entrepreneurs. The movement even has its own reality TV show: All-American Makers.

The show makes its season two debut on the Science Channel this week, in which contestants—the titular all-American makers—come with a product and a dream. Those products are subsequently dismantled, smashed, and torn apart—literally—by a trio of judges in the name of seeing what's inside, how it works, and ultimately, building something better; like Shark Tank by way of Mythbusters. The makers are looking for investments; the judges are looking for passion and true potential.

The judges are mechanical designer and robotics expert Brian Roe, venture capitalist Marc Portney, and self-avowed DIYer Brook Drumm. Drumm is the founder and CEO of Printrbot, a company that offers affordable 3D-printers and accessories.

We called Drumm during a break in filming to talk tear-downs, why he believes that children are our future, and why nobody needs a robot to smell baby poop.

Have you always considered yourself a maker?

I used to call myself a Do-It-Yourselfer. That was from Popular Science and Popular Mechanics —I've been a subscriber for life. I identified with those guys with tools hanging on their walls. When my wife got me a subscription to Make magazine, Bre Pettis from [3D printer company] Makerbot was on the cover. I was so inspired by a tool that you could use to make other tools. So I started this community of people who were also interested in 3D printing, and it grew really quickly in the Sacramento area, where I'm from. I had all these people around me—some of them were literally rocket scientists, or they worked at Apple and HP, in electronics, software, hardware, this big mish-mash—who liked to DIY. Eventually I came up with the design of a 3D printer that would cost $500, and when I put it on Kickstarter it went crazy and raised over $800,000. I was at the center of this convergence of hardware and software and materials and electronics. The timing was right and I got struck by lightning. It just happened.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

You were able to convert your concept—and funding—into a viable business. Do you feel like there's a tension between the promise of projects on crowdfunding sites, and how often they're actually fulfilled or realized?

Technology and platforms have evolved to the point where guys like me in their garages can do things that it used to take a big company to do. Those are superpowers that we all now have. Crowdfunding has really opened that up for people. Anyone can create a business—the rub is whether or not they can run it, too. So you get a lot of people who are wet behind the ears and it all falls apart.

But that's what you're trying to coach people with on the show, right? You must get a lot of submissions that have been featured on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.



Crowdfunding really helps our show a lot. We find a lot of products there—unique ideas that haven't come to market for one reason or another, and they do need help. It's bleeding-edge stuff, and sometimes it bleeds a lot.

Not literally, I hope.

Sometimes we really, really want to feature a specific product. The makers will get excited about being on TV and it will come down to the week—or even the day—before filming, and they'll call and say: 'We're not ready. We have to drop out.' That's happened to literally dozens of dudes even in the last three days. People get freaked. Maybe they just have one prototype, and they know we're going to rip it apart.

I'm guessing you also see a lot of completely cracked-out products that don't make the cut?



This season we had to test a dirty diaper detector. And I'm a parent, you know? I'm like: My nose works. That's all I need. That should not have been made. They solved a problem no one has. You get that with the makers, though, where they're like: 'Look what I can do!' And it's like: No one cares, dude. It's not a product. Just because you could do it doesn't mean you should. Sometimes it's just strange.

Let's talk about the teardowns. I found that there's something cathartic about watching this process. Because as a (potential) consumer, it's easy to be cynical. Like, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I think the whole thing about any of these products is that you don't really own them unless you can take them apart and play with the insides.

What do you mean?

It is so telling when we get these products in. We can see what it does, and explain the science is behind it. That helps you as a user to understand why it was built, but it also reveals a lot about it and the maker. Something isn't necessarily exciting just because it works. It's exciting because they managed so much with so little; or they have so much knowledge and they did this clever trick. There's a lot more there than just looking at the final product.

I also appreciate the educational asides that are shared during the process, that give more insight into the techniques used in the construction and engineering beyond the context of the product itself; like the iced coffee maker that uses the same geometric space frame design as a jungle gym or train station ceiling.

What kind of projects are you super into?

I get excited when I see passion in the maker; when their personality just lights on fire when they start talking about their inventions. If there's a story there—you get get that 'aha!' moment, or hear how their wife has been putting up with the whole thing strewn across the kitchen table for months on end—that's what I get excited about. You can't make that, you can't buy it, you can't invent it. You either have it or you don't. And that becomes really obvious in the show.

Who do you feel your actual audience is for the show; and who would you like to be watching?

Well, the maker movement is like 90-percent males aged 30 to 40. We're trying to fight against that.

How so?

My passion is kids. There's so much potential at this time in history for kids that just need to have their eyes opened. I mean, I had Legos and Tinker Toys, a 1950s erector set, and bunch of crappy tools. But today there's Arduino and Raspberry Pi and all sorts of crazy mechanical toys and robots. All kids need is the green light to believe that they can do it; to have a positive experience with building something. Anything. I really believe that the maker movement is starting to catch on in America because it's so full of hope; it's so full of possibilities that can be realized within our borders—not just shipping everything off to China, which drives me insane. We can do it here! Especially if we've got people—all ages and all genders—who believe it can be done here, rather than just going to Target and buying something off the shelf.

Catch All-American Makers on the Science Channel, Wednesday November 4th at 10pm.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io