Budmen Industries

10/06/2026

We are honored to announce that Budmen Industries has won STEAM project of the Year, an award that celebrates an outstanding technology project, invention, or process designed and built in Central New York.

The honor recognizes our work digitizing Adelaide Robineau’s Scarab Vase, the “Mona Lisa of Ceramics.”

Our first attempt scanning failed. The porcelain vase was absorbing and reflecting light unpredictably. So we went back and scanned it again, this time in the dark. It worked! Scanning in the dark revealed what scanning in the light had hidden. But our challenges weren’t over when it came time to turn the digital file into a three dimensional object. Capturing the hundreds of delicate hand-carved scarabs meant developing new 3D printing techniques. The Please Touch version is on permanent display at the Everson museum. For the first time in 115 years, you can now touch the Scarab Vase.

The Scarab Vase has been asking questions of people for over a hundred years. We feel lucky we got to spend some time listening closely.

Thank you: Everson Museum of Art TACNY Think Variant

09/29/2026

If you’ve ever built something no one’s built before, you might know the feeling: hitting a wall. Getting stuck. Taking steps sideways.

The detours are part of the process, not proof you’re doing it wrong. If the path doesn’t look straight, you’re not on the wrong one. You’re on the right one. Discovery zigzags. It loops.

Applied Curiosity is a field guide for exactly those moments. It’s our attempt to put into words the method we’ve been using, told through our own failures and detours.

Get your copy: https://tryappliedcuriosity.com/

09/22/2026

Our books are here! 📙📙📙

We’re packing up preorders and shipping them out around the world this week. We can’t wait for you to finally hold Applied Curiosity in your hands.

When yours arrives, snap a photo and tag us. Share the question you’re chasing.

Missed the preorder? You can still grab your copy at: https://tryappliedcuriosity.com/

09/09/2026

Have you asked yourself, why aren’t you where you thought you’d be by now?

Because you were handed a map that goes straight there. Nobody’s route actually does.

The looping isn’t the problem. It’s the path. Walk it as it is. The work gets better, and so does the trip.

This is one of ten principles from our new book, Applied Curiosity, a field guide for the part of the road with no signs on it.

Preorder: https://tryappliedcuriosity.com
Ships Sept 18.

09/09/2026

Have you asked yourself, why aren’t you where you thought you’d be by now?

Because you were handed a map that goes straight there. Nobody’s route actually does.

The looping isn’t the problem. It’s the path. Walk it as it is. The work gets better, and so does the trip.

This is one of ten principles from our new book, Applied Curiosity, a field guide for the part of the road with no signs on it.

Preorder: https://tryappliedcuriosity.com/
Ships Sept 18.

09/04/2026

Almost everyone we talk to these days seems to be somewhere they didn’t plan to be.

The project stalled. The path closed. The thing they were told to do stopped working, and nobody can tell them what comes next, because nobody has done this particular thing before.

If that’s you, we wrote this book for you.

Applied Curiosity is a field guide for the part of the road with no signs on it. Ten principles for reframing where you are, and a method for asking better questions and finding answers when they don’t exist yet. 436 illustrated pages, fifteen years of us being lost on purpose and finding out that’s where everything interesting lives.

You’re not on the wrong track. You’re on the right one.

Ships September 18. Pre-order now, $32, TryAppliedCuriosity.com

Video: Stop motion animation. Over 1,700 individual frames, plotted on Bantam Tools Panorama.

Bantam Tools Isaac Budmen Stephanie Rose

08/27/2026

We wrote a book! 📙

No matter if you’re an educator, engineer, curator, or creator, we all find ourselves in the unknown. It can be frightening when we hit a wall. And we might not know what to do next. It’s here where some people think they’ve failed...and then they stop.

We've been working in the unknown for 15+ years. The method and principles we return to for every project and product are all written down in this book, so you can use them too.

Our new book, Applied Curiosity, is about taking that next step and navigating the unknown. And having fun while doing it.

Pre-order: https://tryappliedcuriosity.com/ Ships September 18

A new illustrated book by Stephanie and Isaac Budmen. Read the first act, then pre-order for $32; ships September 18.

06/21/2026

05/08/2026

04/30/2026

Co-founders Stephanie & Isaac Budmen have an art show this upcoming May 8th in the Hudson Valley at Bantam Tools. With their art pieces, they’re starting with questions, experimenting with new processes, and exploring what curiosity looks like.