Jeremy Blum: A “mad scientist” with a vision for the future of tools
Jeremy Blum, 28, who claims to be a “crazy scientist” and long-time inventor, is a leader in electrical engineering, robotics and systems architecture. He was the technical lead for the Google Glass project and is currently the head of electrical engineering at Shaper, a San Francisco startup that uses machine vision to reimagine how we design and use power tools.
However, this young career in this field of technology begins with some of the lowest-tech objects you can think of: wood blocks.
Getting started with Woodshop
As a child growing up in Armonk, New York, Blum spent a lot of time working on wood. His father and grandfather were fanatical carpentry, and they taught Blum how to solve problems around the house. He said that he was impressed with the quality and longevity of the sophisticated tools they used, telling him about his work at Shaper.
Blum is more serious about the carpentry work at the sleep camp in Berkshire, Massachusetts.
“I spent too much time in the woodworking workshop,” Bloom said. “I often have to be dragged out to participate in sports competitions.
Technology meets tradition
Blum said that Shaper’s goal is to use sophisticated tools and extend the complex work they do and simplify them.
To achieve this goal, the company is introducing machine and computer vision into traditional tools. Shaper’s first product, Origin, is a good example of the company’s mission. Some engineers’ CNC routers will be familiar, while some robots, this is a step that helps professional builders and amateurs easily create complex designs.
“The shaper exists to make buildings more accessible to more people,” Bloom said.
“Beneficial means helping people – and building things that can provide those people with less, whether it be knowledge, tools or access, exploring the things they are interested in and ways to improve their lives.”
Smart hand
However, Bloom is not only a woodworking lad. He is also a born entrepreneur who founded two companies when he was 13 years old – a video production company and a computer repair company. Given his energy and tenacity, when he grabs new glamour, this may not be surprising: electrical engineering.
In 2006, when Blum was 16 years old, he released a YouTube video that he built his own computer from scratch. As of now, the video has collected 76,000 views, and Blum’s channel has grown to more than 160,000 subscribers.
Then, in high school, Bloom began to study prosthetics.
He said that the repair “allows me to study the most amazing complex and beautiful evolutionary things you can find in nature” – the human body. “It also allows me to build the technology I want to really help people,” he added.
In 2008, Blum was shortlisted for his work on a prosthetic hand in the famous Intel Science Talent Search, which uses force sensors to control it. When his mother received a phone call to inform her son of her honor, she was overwhelmed.
“I think something is wrong,” Bloom said. “She can’t speak. She’s really excited, I think it’s because she realizes that this is the first thing I really wholeheartedly invested in. It’s a decisive moment for me.”
Collective work
Bloom continues to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. There, he co-founded Cornell University’s Sustainable Design (CUSD), an interdisciplinary team of students dedicated to a variety of sustainable development projects.
In a CUSD program, Blum worked with architecture students to build a solar home that was responsible for its control system. The project opened its eyes. Its interdisciplinary nature shows him the value of seeking expertise in a variety of disciplines, even if he is fundamentally close to engineering.
“Before I graduated from college, I always focused on technology and I was very dismissive of those who were below the level of technology,” he said. “I am particularly dismissive of the art world.”