Every year a significant design contest takes place in Eindhoven, the Additive World Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge, in which both professional and student designers can attempt to out-design the competition with the most innovative designs for additive manufacturing. This is the third iteration of the event.
This is what this challenge is all about: design for additive manufacturing, and also why this publication supports this contest. The goal of this event is to encourage and inspire effective design skills specifically for 3D printing applications.
While it’s easy to 3D print “something”, that’s not really the best use of the technology. Traditional designers tend to create items that could be made on conventional equipment, but 3D printers have far fewer constraints. This enables designers to develop parts and products that could not otherwise be made, and those that can exhibit production performance characteristics not seen before.
But that happens only if designers are able to properly understand the technology and appropriately leverage its benefits. That requires experience, time and the ability to think differently about a design.
This event specifically addresses those needs by creating an environment in which competitors must do all of them.
Both entry categories, professional and student, are “encouraged to redesign an existing conventional part of a machine or product for 3D printing.” It could be a rocket engine nozzle, a wing strut, a prosthetic component or a collapsible tool. Or anything – so long as it takes full advantage of the possibilities of 3D printing technology and is a functional product.
For the notable entries selected from the submitted designs, there are plenty of very interesting prizes. The winning entries will each receive a complete Ultimaker desktop 3D printer (Ultimaker 3 printer – for a professional winner and Ultimaker 2+ for a student) and their designs will be 3D printed in metal. The winning entries will each receive a complete Ultimaker desktop 3D printer and their designs will be 3D printed in metal. The top three selected in each category (finalists) will receive free admission to the Additive World Conference that takes place on March 15-16, including attendance at their awards dinner, and software licenses from Altair (Inspire) and Autodesk (Netfabb).
But the real winners here are actually all the participants: the folks who spent the time to consider how to properly design for additive manufacturing and thus add a new skill; and secondly those who witness the event and are inspired by these example designs to create things they will build differently in the future.
If you – or anyone you know – might benefit by taking up this challenge, entries are still open until the end of the month. Full details are at the link below.
Via Additive World (Challenge) and Additive World (Conference)
