Waterjet cutters have been around for a long time – however their size and cost have put them out of the reach of individuals or small businesses. The first desktop waterjet, WAZER cuts any hard or soft material with digital precision, using a high-velocity jet in a combination of high-pressure water and abrasive particles.
The co-founders of WAZER, Nisan Lerea and Matthew Nowicki met at Penn Engineering in the US when they were building custom racing cars for the Formula SAE international competition. Their quest for a solution to make precision cuts in hard materials sparked their interest in low-cost waterjet technology. In 2012 Nisan led a team of undergraduate students on research in developing the technology and in 2015, the project had advanced to the point where both he and Matthew quit their jobs to continue developing the waterjet.
By January 2016, the team temporarily moved to Shenzhen in China to join the Hax Accelerator, the world’s first and largest hardware accelerator. Most of that year was spent in Shenzhen to develop the business and refine the design and engineering of WAZER.
During that time an engineering team was assembled to assess market needs, subsequently building five generations of prototypes and testing performance across on a wide variety of materials. The design of the final prototype considered the need for production processes and involved building relationships with key manufacturing suppliers. When the final prototype was shown, market response exceeded expectations and a few years later, the founders decided to focus full-time on manufacturing the first desktop waterjet.
Today, the Wazer team comprises mechanical, electrical and manufacturing engineers who collectively have led the designs of multiple products both at start up and large companies.
The WAZER small-format waterjet can cut through sheets of any material including metal, stone, ceramic, composites, plastic, rubber and foam. It is great for professional-grade fabrication. Users have been attracted by its simplicity of set-up, which can operate through standard connections to electricity, water and drainage infrastructure.
The unit’s compact size fits in any workspace and brings professional-grade fabrication into any workshop. It is ideal for on demand cutting of custom parts and its in-house capabilities reduce costly outsourcing.
Available in Australia from Hare & Forbes/Machinery House, WAZER has already attracted high levels of demand from small manufacturing businesses, research & development facilities, universities and technical departments where it is used for prototyping, manufacturing, fine art and instruction.
The WAZER concept: How did it start?
In the words of Nisan Lerea: “I met my future WAZER Co-founder, Matt Nowicki during orientation of my freshman year of college at the University of Pennsylvania. All of the extracurricular clubs had lined the main walk on campus and were trying to recruit new members.
“Parked on the side of the path was an open-wheeled, Formula 1-style race car. Matt, a senior and clearly the leader of the club, explained that the Formula SAE Team builds a new car each year and races it in an intercollegiate competition in Michigan. I didn’t love cars, but I knew this is where I would really learn how to make things. I immediately joined the team.
“I would go on to spend hundreds of hours in Penn’s machine shop, CNC-milling metal parts for the race car, for research labs, or for my own coursework. Because of all the set-up and breakdown time that machining necessitates, I would regularly work late into the night making a part.
“Whenever possible, the engineers would avoid the shop because of the time commitment and instead would design parts that could be laser-cut, which was faster. The downside to using a laser was the parts had to be made in acrylic or MDF, because as is the case with lasers at most makerspaces, ours could only cut certain soft materials.
“What we really needed was a waterjet for cutting sheet metal, but Penn never had one because they were so big and expensive. In 2011 my professor suggested that we attempt to build a small waterjet for our yearlong senior design project.
“I loved the idea for many reasons: it was an engineering challenge, it involved my passion for making things, and I knew that there was real potential for the product — and I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. By May of 2012, our team had built the first small-scale waterjet, capable of cutting through quarter-inch aluminium and eigth-inch steel. After we graduated, I felt this could be more than a school project, but I figured it would be beneficial to get some real-world experience working as an engineer before embarking on this adventure.
“Matt, who had been working for the start-up BioLite called me and said they were looking to hire a mechanical engineer. I signed up and worked there for two years and was involved in two complete product-development cycles designing portable camping gear.
“In 2014 Hackaday got wind of our senior design waterjet project and published a blog post about us. Hundreds of people emailed, asking if we had plans to commercialise the technology. It was eye-opening for me because it wasn’t just engineers who were asking; there were artisans, makers and small businesses who had enquired.
“By 2015 I was ready to make the leap to start a waterjet company. But I needed a partner and Matt, who had since moved on from BioLite, was looking for a change. It wasn’t hard to convince him to join me as co-founder and CTO.
“We started out by researching the market from my parents’ basement and testing the Penn waterjet prototype in the backyard. Then we googled ‘hardware accelerator’ and discovered Hax, an accelerator for hardware start-ups in Shenzhen, the electronics capital of the world. We joined Hax in January 2016, hired Dan Meana and Christian Moore — two engineers from the Penn race car team — and moved to China.
“We were amazed by the speed and affordability of prototyping at Hax. WAZER utilises a lot of off-the-shelf hardware like hoses, fittings, valves, solenoids, and motors. We found that commodity hardware near Shenzhen was roughly one-tenth the cost of that in the US. At Hax we were surrounded by entrepreneurs with whom we could share ideas and receive unbiased feedback.
“We launched WAZER in September 2016. The campaign was a huge success, but we knew it would be difficult to transition from prototype to production. After qualifying vendors and redesigning the machine for volume production, our team established WAZER’s headquarters in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where we are part of a mission to revitalise manufacturing in New York City.”