235: Robots and Rebar

Daniel Blank, CEO and Co-Founder of Toggle Industries, and Matt McMullen, AOC Executive Director, join us for episode 235 of Art of Construction. Toggle Industries is a New York-based company that is focused on increasing safety and efficiency for reinforced concrete and rebar assembly processes, serving the urban high rise, renewable energy, precast concrete and civil construction sectors of the AEC industry. With rebar and reinforced concrete processes having always been a manual labor-dependent practice, Toggle has created a start-to-finish digital system that still fits people into the mix, pushing for productivity rather than total automation.  Originally an outsider to construction, Daniel Blank came from a graphic design background. This helped him immensely, as he utilized his design thinking approach to immerse himself into the current rebar assembly process. He knew there was a better way: prefabricating a project's rebar shapes offsite and having robots take on the heavy lifting and positioning. With this solution, Toggle has seen an overall production rate that is five times higher than traditional assembly methods.  Tune in as Daniel, Matt and Devon discuss the foundation of Toggle, creating a material-agnostic construction technology, the push for a manufacturing approach in our industry, and some tips for entrepreneurs to be seen by venture capitalists.