Xometry’s Injection Molding Service Helps Inventor Improve Daily Life for People With Disabilities

Andy Garbarino founded Make Life Easy in 2024 with a goal of creating products that address the specific needs of the disability community. This mission is a personal one for Garbarino, who was born paraplegic. He is well acquainted with the everyday challenges facing people who use wheelchairs.

“I wanted to essentially open up an innovation hub where folks like me — and hopefully, as the company grows, more people that want to design products — can help the disability community and really interact with them,” he said.

Before starting Make Life Easy, Garbarino worked for more than a decade in the finance industry. Translating those skills into his new role as an inventor and startup founder has been a fun challenge, he said.

“This is the most fun I've ever had at work, and I really didn't know anything about any of this. I was a finance guy, so I had to learn CAD, I had to learn technical drawings and all that.”

Garbarino is grateful for the help of his brother-in-law, who works as a machinist and helped with designs for Make Life Easy’s first product, the Easy Hang. When it was time to take the versatile wheelchair accessory —  which can be used to hang items such as bags and water bottles — from prototype to production, his brother-in-law suggested he reach out to Xometry.

After working out the basic design of the Easy Hang wheelchair hook through a series of 3D-printed prototypes, Garbarino began exploring injection molding using the Xometry Instant Quoting Engine® to compare the cost implications of different design choices.

“The fact that Xometry does the automatic quoting in real time was super helpful throughout the prototyping phase … And when I went to actually do my production run and quoting, Xometry made it really easy.”

To dial in the right price for his project, Garbarino worked with his Xometry case manager on material selection and tool design. Xometry’s in-house engineering experts review designs and provide design for manufacturability (DFM) feedback before injection molding tooling is made to prevent potentially costly tool design errors. His case manager explained how factors like the lifespan of the mold or different surface finishes would affect the overall cost, which was a big help to someone working on an injection molding project for the first time.

Based on feedback from his Xometry case manager, Garbarino decided on ABS plastic as the material for the Easy Hang due to its strength and heat resistance. Xometry produced the injection molding tool and the initial run of 500 Easy Hang units, which are available for purchase on the Make Life Easy website. The company also has a Sponsor Program that allows anyone to gift Make Life Easy products to people who can benefit from them. 

To continue his mission of creating products that ease everyday struggles for people with disabilities, Garbarino has several more ideas on the drawing board. A gyroscopic cup holder, luggage tow device, and wheelchair umbrella holder are all in development. Once he secures funding for these projects, Garbarino plans to continue working with Xometry to bring them to market. He’s already started quoting for the cup holder project, which involved a CNC-machined metal clamp.

“I won't even bother reaching out to any of the other vendors at this point,” he said. “I think [Xometry] has shown that you're the ones to work with.”