‘Twas Christmas Eve of the year Two-thousand Twenty-One, and it was upon this day in the small college town of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, that two young people were hanging out in a cramped basement filled with a couple IDE-era computers, nuts and bolts, random electronic goodies and model rocket parts.

William Ziegler and Mason Erdman had met prior to this and had worked on things together before, despite being two grade levels apart and only getting to see each other somewhat biweekly, or on the occasional Scout trip.

It was a few months before this that they discovered they both operated on a brain that was based on that disorganized, oddly functioning creative power source. It was the first person they both personally knew who understood what the heck a “cloud variable encoder” was. (In their words, an experienced irl Scratcher)

During the 2021 Rocket Rodeo, the first official Ziegler/Erdman partnership formed. In October, the first ZE launch occurred, followed by a couple more days that month where Mason’s dad brought them out to the field behind the middle school and they shot a few more rockets off. They continued to bond over their love of building, making, taking apart, putting back together, realizing the inability to put back together because that one screw is missing, figuring out which one it was, it was probably the little one that covered up that piece, there it is, wait nevermind, giving up, and moving on to the other computer. (Don’t think they give up that easily though!)

So, on that Christmas Eve, with that old Lenovo Thinkcentre previously collecting dust up and running for the first time, Mason had the idea of forming a bigger group. Not just aerospace but… more. And so, the Erdman and Ziegler partnership officially became a “thing”. (Yes, the order of names was discussed, and the current way was settled on because of “EZ” being a nice branding option.)

After several tweaks and changes, company reorganizing, meetings and hangouts, and a lot of sb3 files, the Erdman Ziegler Company became what it is today. The small team sometimes works together on projects, but the OG pair of just Will and Mason can often be found messing around, plugging in random things, and coding Scratch and Turbowarp projects upstairs or in the original founding place (the basement at Mason’s house). This partnership is like a small club right now, but some of them want to follow it as a career path and make it into a real company someday.

Will and Mason are working hard to introduce Erdman Ziegler to the world, but mainly have fun.