sp190220 Designing the XSTREAM press: A smart press for smart teachers

 If I wanted to design a press that works in Africa as well as in America, I’d take a global view and make it competitive with Chinese and Russian press designers.

Cost would be my first target – I’d get the price down to less than $500 and yet make room for a reasonable profit. Plus, in addition to the profit margin, I’d make a rule to provide 5% of each press’ net gain to a fund to grant and send a press to a teacher who doesn’t have the money to buy and ship one.

Start with the rollers of the press. I’d make them of pipe, and the bottom roller would have only enough thickness – perhaps 3/16 or ¼ inch. I’d thread the inside on each end to accommodate an off-the-shelf plug that would require a minimum of machining to make it fit the hub of the driving wheel.

The top roller I’d give a thicker wall – perhaps ½”. It, too, would be threaded on the inside to accommodate a shaft or stub.

All the while I’m thinking about these small changes in what used to be my Halfwood Press, I’d be comparing my thinking procedure to that of a Chinese or Russian designer making a press as part of a STREAM teaching package.

STREAM means augmented STEM by adding an R for Reading and an A for Art through books and art. This will be a press associated with the rudimentary history of STEM, that is, printing – the ancestor of all sciences, technology, engineering and math.

My mind would be blending engineering and art, so I’d incorporate features which have less to do with smart engineering solutions and more to do with art – such as the overall appearance of the press and the back story of how the design got started in my mind.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is the beauty of my Halfwood Press Design that sold more presses to people for its looks than industrial design features of most etching presses. People paid as much as twice as much for my presses than presses of the same functionality.

There is an entertainment value, too, as the emphasis on printmaking with a hand press is like a performance art. It’s a magical moment when the proof is pulled after the crafts of making, inking, and wiping an etched plate or a collagraph, for example.

When I achieve this, imagine what I could do with a new market, emerging in Africa because of the growing concern of educators in both the sciences and the arts.

It’s likely this demographic is dominated by the X-generation - the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding Millennials. Demographers and researchers typically use birth years ranging from the early-to-mid 1960’s to the early 1980’s.

For example, African educators over 40 are working hard to catch up with developed nations. They do more with less. It’s an old story – by working with available and sometimes cast-off resources, educators in less developed countries have worked near-miraculous results.

They have encouragement, too. Sunny Varkey, for example – in his ‘sixties - sponsors the Global Teaching Prize. It’s a million-dollar award given annually to exemplary teachers and most of these prizes have gone to teachers in developing countries.

As someone who lives a life in a country like the USA of such luxury that we thoughtlessly discard a huge part of our resources (both natural and human resources) I have the benefit of time and money to design an XSTREAM press.

With the help of my friends around America and around the world, I can.