Humans have landed men on the moon, programmed cars to drive themselves, and put the knowledge of our entire civilization in your back pocket. But no one<U+2014>from MIT nerds to Army Corps engineers<U+2014>has ever built a robot that can lay bricks as well as a mason. Unlike the controlled conditions of a factory line, where robots are now ubiquitous, no two construction sites are alike, and a day<U+2019>s work involves countless variables<U+2014>bricks that range in size and quality, temperamental mortar mixes, uneven terrain, fickle weather, and moody foremen. Twenty-five years ago, on a challenging construction job in Syracuse, architect Nate Podkaminer had a vision of a future full of efficient, automated machines that freed men from the repetitive, toilsome burden of laying bricks. (Bricklayers lift the equivalent of a Ford truck every few days.) Offhandedly, he mentioned the idea to his daughter<U+2019>s boyfriend, and after some inspired scheming, the architect and engineer<U+2014>soon to be in-laws<U+2014>cofounded a humble start-up called Construction Robotics. Working out of a small trailer, they recruited a boldly unconventional team of engineers to build the Semi-Automated Mason: SAM. In classic American tradition, a small, unlikely, and eccentric family-run start-up sought to reimagine the behemoth $1 trillion construction industry<U+2014>the second biggest industry in America<U+2014>in bootstrap fashion.