By Victoria Martinez
reporter@santaynezvalleystar.com
Three seniors at Midland School in Los Olivos have taken the unique college prep boarding school’s focus on experiential education one step further with the launch of their business, LEViTTY Computers.
During his sophomore year, Braeden Swidenbank and other Midland students set out to build their own computers to play video games. The machines they were building were big, bulky, traditional PCs.
What started as a personal challenge for Braeden Swidenbank has developed into a business with the establishment of LEViTTY Computers.
Swidenbank, who is headed to UC Berkley to pursue an engineering degree, decided he wanted to build something better and smaller.
The following school year, he started working on what would eventually become the company’s flagship computer, the iTTY 1. He knew that to build the machine he envisioned, he’d need to build the casing for the computer himself.
“You can design anything and make it,” he said confidently.
When Swidenbank realized he would need a 3D printer to make some of the computer’s parts, he ordered the parts to make the 3D printer himself, and then he started printing the necessary parts to build his computer prototype.
“It took 10 hours to build, and months to get it working,” he added.
The iTTY 1 measures less than 9 inches long, wide and tall. The machine is built with standardized parts, meaning that many parts of the computer can be upgraded with ease such as the CPU, GPU, RAM and storage. It’s made with an eco-friendly polymer case and a removable dust filtration system, and Swidenbank said he developed the machine with size, efficiency and functionality in mind.
Last summer, he took the next step and added friends and fellow Midland students David D’Attile and Noah Lawrence to the LEViTTY team and started looking at turning his hobby into a business.
D’Attile, who is headed to Pomona College, is the company’s chief financial officer and website manager. Lawrence, who is headed to Bard College, is LEViTTY’s chief marketing officer and also manages customer relations and support. The team took over an empty Midland cabin in September for their business office.
D’Attile explained that LEViTTY lives by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s philosophy of being “customer obsessed” to make sure everything they do as a company is to benefit the customer.
The baseline model of the iTTY 1 will cost approximately $800 with customizations adjusting that price. The team is working to secure seed money to complete its first small production run of the machine this summer.
Swidenbank credits Midland’s “do it yourself” culture and his desire to play video games on the rural campus for turning the idea into a full-fledged business.
“I wouldn’t have been inspired to build the computer,” Swidenbank said.
“It’s work that brings us together,” D’Attile added.
For more information about LEViTTY, visit www.levitty.com.
