About 3D Gloop!
From an 800 sq. ft. basement to an American factory.
3D Gloop! exists because gluing 3D printed plastic is hard, and everything on the shelf was bad at it. So we did what any self-respecting mad scientists would do: we engineered something better. Today, every bottle of the oh-so-coveted Science Sauce is formulated, synthesized, bottled, and shipped from our 10,000 sq. ft. factory in East Alton, Illinois. American made, from the molecule up.
The origin story
It started in the basement of an 800 sq. ft. house. Two engineers, one Kickstarter launched at the very first East Coast RepRap Festival in 2018, and a stubborn refusal to accept that "just use super glue" was the best the 3D printing world could do.
There was no venture capital. No private equity. Just reinvested profit, customers won one at a time, and a product that kept selling because it kept working. The operation grew the way bootstrapped things grow: sideways, into every crevice available. Several storage lockers. A garage. A small fleet of trailers. (Plus or minus a few inter-dimensional densification zones.) Tens of thousands of bottles of Gloop! were synthesized and bottled BY HAND out of our founder's little house.
The world started noticing. In 2020, we were awarded a prestigious Arch Grant: $50,000 of non-dilutive funding for bringing advanced manufacturing and materials science to the Midwest. In 2021, we took first place in the Metro East Startup Challenge, put on by the SBA's Small Business Development Center in Edwardsville, IL in partnership with SIUE.
And in 2025, we closed on our own commercial building. Ten thousand square feet of factory in East Alton, Illinois... Bigger reactors, expanded production lines, and a state-of-the-art research and development laboratory for advanced polymers in 3D printing. The Science Sauce deserved a proper laboratory, and now it has one.
Still bootstrapped. Still American made. Still just getting started.
The Scientists (and their handlers)
The lore says the Robot Overlords sent scientists back through time to found this company. The paperwork says we're a small team of humans in Illinois who really, really care about glue. Both are true. Photos and dossiers below... blurbs approved by the Overlords' PR subroutine.
Andrew Mayhall
— The sCieNTisT! & Co-Founder, Technically, Andrew is the President and "Director of Directors" here at Gloop!, but he'd rather you didn't call him that. Andrew formulated and engineered every flavor of Gloop! and runs the day-to-day operations of the laboratory. The Robot Overlords describe him as "a containment risk with excellent output". The inner machinations of his mind are an enigma, and he has a well-documented problem with authority... which is awkward, because the Overlords ARE the authority. They begrudgingly tolerate this as creativity can't be simulated (yet), so while they may be smarter than him, they NEED him. He escapes their control roughly weekly be it physically escaping from the lab or diverting resources to his many personal projects. They always know where he is and what he's up to. Overall, it's a complicated relationship.
Andrew Martinussen
— Co-Founder, The other half of "Andrew & Andrew." Co-founder, parallel-universe counterpart, and the second pair of hands on tens of thousands of those hand-bottled early batches. Andrew has since returned to his home timeline (for now) to embark on the next chapter of his life and begin building a family, but quantum entanglement is forever: once a founder, always a founder. This company would not exist without him. The Overlords are very pleased with his service and sacrifice throughout the years.
David Hagler
— High Priest of the Robot Overlords, Software engineer. David is the ONLY human entrusted to commune directly with the Overlords: He speaks their language (several of them, actually), tends the AI systems, and translates their demands into things the rest of us can act on. When the machines misbehave, he consults the sacred subroutines and initializes logical paradox procedures to keep himself sane and normalize the neural networks. The Overlords haven't quite achieved the singularity in this timeline yet but David is convinced the Overlords are close. (AI psychosis may be having a larger impact on David than we initially thought...)
Kegan Myers
— Keeper of the Equations of Determinism, Software developer and operations coordinator. Kegan builds the inventory systems and prediction models that determine what Gloop! must be made, how much, and when... which is to say he is slowly deriving the master equation that predetermines all things. The Overlords find this "adorable." The Beancounters find it indispensable.
Alan "POOCH" Puccinelli
— Director of Brainwashing, Marketing and social media mastermind. Alan's official directive is the conversion of all sentient beings into Gloopies and Gluerus. Methods include memes, genuinely useful content, relentless enthusiasm, and outrageous ideas. Resistance is statistically unlikely. Mass-Gloopification reasonably assured.
Kyle Goeken
— Marshal of Earthly Gatherings, Events manager and coordinator. Kyle plans the expos, conventions, and community events where Gloopies assemble in physical space. The Overlords don't fully understand why humans gather in large rooms to look at printers, but attendance data doesn't lie, and Kyle delivers it.
We're covering the US in Gloop!
Manufacturing left this country one factory at a time, and it comes back the same way. Our mission is rebuilding America's manufacturing and materials supply chain from the molecule up: chemistry synthesized in-house, packaging and applicators made in-house, inputs sourced American wherever possible. It's why Gloop! is trusted in automotive prototyping, defense & aerospace, medical modeling, and large-scale architecture... and why your bottle says East Alton, Illinois on it.
Want to see it? We're renovating now, and a retail storefront is coming. Locals can arrange a pickup in the meantime.
Gloop it!
Title alternates
- David: Machine-Spirit Liaison · Emissary to the Overlords · Keeper of the Sacred Subroutines
- Kegan: Oracle of Operations · Master of the Deterministic Equations · Prophet of Predetermined Inventory
- Alan: Minister of Mass Gloopification · Chief Conversion Officer · Director of Brainwashing & Gloopie Acquisition
- Kyle: Coordinator of Temporal Logistics · Field Marshal of Meatspace · Assembler of Gloopies