Building Remotely
Team RedWorks has been lucky enough to meet with many members of the armed forces while we built and tested our technology, and its given us the chance to learn about some of the unique challenges facing the armed forces. There is a growing movement within the military to reach out directly to startups and marshal new companies to innovate. Over the last year we’ve been lucky enough to meet members of Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), the Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC), and the United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Seabees, and the US Army Research Lab (ARL). There is a clear need for startups to work more closely with the military to address the challenges facing service members, and at RedWorks we want to do everything we can to help address one challenge in particular: building in remote areas.
US Naval engineers are responsible for a great deal of construction for disaster relief and humanitarian aid, often in places with little to no infrastructure.
RedWorks’ has always been committed to making easier to build in remote areas by creating technology to make the heaviest building materials (masonry) on-demand with dirt available on-site. This is especially important for America’s men and women in uniform, who often must operate in some of the most austere environments on Earth. As such, we see the In-Situ Additive Construction (ISAC) 3D printers we’re developing as a solution for military expeditionary construction. ISAC will be able to use local sources of sand, dust, and dirt as feedstock to 3D print masonry totally on-site, requiring no water to bind material together. This will allow military engineers to adapt building materials to meet the needs of the project, completely in the field with virtually no waste, and with far less infrastructure than is required for traditional supply chains. Moreover, making building materials on-site not only reduces the cost of moving materials to the site, but reduces project delays by eliminating shipping times, and in so doing limits the number service members that would otherwise be exposed to danger while moving materials to a potentially hostile or remote area.
AMC crews take a risk anytime they need to fly in materials and equipment to build something overseas. Developing the technology to build on-site means reducing that supply chain, and putting fewer aircraft and flight crews in harms way.
ISAC would make it possible for military engineers to build or repair air fields without having to ship a single bag of concrete or gallon of water, create forward defenses and battlefield infrastructure entirely on-site, and give naval engineers the power to create docks and piers from the sand of the beachhead itself. Furthermore, ISAC would allow the military to not only support combat missions, but the other great responsibility of the Armed Forces: humanitarian aid projects. America’s people in uniform support a wide range of humanitarian activities around the world, from disaster relief to goodwill missions in countries hosting US forces, and the more efficiently they can complete a project the more people they can help. At RedWorks our goal is for ISAC to build for whatever the challenge our service-members face, and make building in remote areas safer, faster, and less costly.
Team RedWorks recently returned from the Phoenix Spark Collider event at Travis Air Force Base, having had the opportunity to learn about some of the unique challenges facing the our armed forces directly from the men and women of Air Mobility Command. This is not our team’s first encounter with members of the military looking to startups to help innovate. Over the last year we’ve been lucky enough to meet members of Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), the Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC), and the United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Seabees. There is a clear need for startups to work more closely with the military to address the challenges facing service members, and at RedWorks we want to do everything we can to help address one challenge in particular: building in remote areas.
RedWorks’ has always been committed to making construction in the most remote environments easier and more affordable by creating technology to create building materials on-demand with what raw materials are available on-site. This is especially important for America’s men and women in uniform, who often must operate in some of the most remote environments on Earth. As such, we see the In-Situ Additive Construction (ISAC) 3D printers we’re developing as a promising solution for military construction in austere and remote areas. ISAC will be able to use local sources of sand, dust, and dirt as feedstock to create building materials totally on-site, requiring no water to bind material together. ISAC allow military engineers to adapt building materials to meet the needs of the project completely in the field with virtually no waste, and lower overhead costs than traditional construction. Moreover, making building materials on-site not only reduces the cost of moving materials to the site, but reduces project delays by eliminating shipping times, and in so doing limits the number service members that would otherwise be exposed to danger while moving materials to a potentially hostile or remote area.
ISAC would make it possible for military engineers to build or repair air fields without having to ship a single bag of concrete or gallon of water, create forward defenses and battlefield infrastructure entirely on-site, and give naval engineers the power to create floating piers from the sand of the beachhead itself. Furthermore, ISAC would allow the military to not only support combat missions, but the other great challenge the US military takes on in humanitarian projects. America’s armed forces support a wide range of humanitarian activities around the world, from disaster relief to goodwill missions in countries hosting US forces, and the more efficiently they can complete a project the more people they can help. At RedWorks our goal is for ISAC to build for whatever the challenge our service-members face, and make building in remote areas safer, faster, and less costly.
