S7E32 Steven Szymeczek | From Taking Things Apart to Teaching Engineers How to Build

What this episode covers

Steven Szymeczek, a mechanical engineer and adjunct professor at Boise State University, discusses his journey from designing crop-duster components to launching a product development business and now managing a university lab. He details the challenges of early entrepreneurship, including the difficulty of pricing projects appropriately and the importance of building a network of manufacturing partners rather than relying on unreliable early 3D printing technology. Szymeczek also explains the rapid evolution of additive manufacturing, highlighting the shift from messy resin printers to accessible, fast systems like Bamboo Lab and Formlabs X1, and how these tools enable engineers to fail early and learn quickly. Finally, he describes his current role at Tech Help Studio Blue, where he leads a product development lab that gives students hands-on experience with real client projects, ranging from 3D-printed combat robots to medical devices.