Stepping into a growing market, four students from Cerritos College have founded Astanark 3D, a company with 3D printing capabilities, to help other companies with New Product Development, the process of bringing a new product to the market.

Luis Mendez, one of Astanark 3D’s founders, explained how a school project helped create the company.

“I became involved in the creation of Astanark 3D through a school project where Elias Lopez and I built our own 3D printers together,” Mendez stated.

Mendez and Lopez then met fellow classmate Jonathan Valdivia, who also expressed interest in starting up a company.

In December of last year, the three met Robert Delgado who completed their group of founders.

“My position came about the same night Airwolf 3D set the world’s record on December 12 for the Robohand,” Delgado said.

He added, “That is where the network began with Elias, Luis and Johnathan while I helped supervise the 3D printers during the time frame the record was being set.

“We had dinner that night as a group and discussed goals, ideas and interests which allowed us to share a chemistry like no other. That’s when the connection couldn’t be more obvious for us.”

By building their own printers, Lopez and Mendez obtained a better understanding of how the machines worked and what they could do to help others whose knowledge of 3D was limited.

“Right now the company is still in development and we are trying to adapt to the rapid changing market,” Lopez said.

“So at the moment we are working locally with people that have issues with their printers and also give one-on-one lessons on how to maximize the resolution of [their] 3D printer. Also we help to assemble 3D printers and do upgrades on any 3D printer,” he added.

While the company is starting with the intention to help others with printers already in existence, the ultimate goal would be to design and sell their own 3D printers.

With the market expanding at such a fast rate, the company hopes to continue expanding its portfolio of available services to companies that seek help.

“We seek to offer more services such as engineering consultations, rapid prototyping and new product development,” Delgado said. “We are working on building more resources to allow us to develop products of our own for the near future.”