3D Pioneers Challenge To Award Boundary-Pushing Design in 3D Printing

The 2019 3D Pioneers Challenge is accepting entries in a €35,000+ design contest with a simple brief: push the boundaries.

The international competition for additive manufacturing technologies, now in its fourth year, is seeking to find designers, student and professional alike, who are thinking outside the box. Previous winners include now well-known feats of architecture and design that owe their unique structures to the use of 3D printing in their creation.

3DPC explains this year’s focus:

“Additive manufacturing is one of the innovations of the 21st century. Hardly a day goes by without that this technology surprises with something new. Meanwhile it is part in higher education programs and at technological universities or institutes. 3D printing is standing on the threshold to be integrated into industrial manufacturing processes. For some time now, the technology is not pushing its way to the fore – but as hidden champion, it acts as an ‘enabler’ of many concepts and innovations, and even of completely new business fields. The needs of humans are in the foreground through individual solutions. Spare parts procurement is being rethought. Last but not least, lightweight construction creates sustainability. Social projects are only made possible by 3D printing in some areas. Pioneer thinking also requires the courage to put it into practice, breaking new ground. The 3DPC is looking for these pioneers who think 3D printing one step further. Where is it enabler, where is it in the main focus?”

Verticals encompassed for 2019 include:

• Design

• MedTech

• FashionTech

• Material

• Architecture

• Digital

• Mobility

• Sustainability

Designs submitted to the 3DPC must be original, but do not necessarily have to be made just for this challenge; they can have been published before so long as it was within the last five years. Groups are welcome to collaborate on their designs, and anyone submitting can put forth up to three entries. Entrant categories include Student, Young Professional, and Professional.

Prizes for the 3DPC are significant, altogether totaling upwards of €35,000 in cash (supported by the Ministry of Economics, Science and Digital Society Thuringia) plus additional rewards. The best student design, for example, will be awarded a MakerBot Replicator Mini+, courtesy MakerBot EMEA. Additional prizes include The 3D Printing Handbook from 3D Hubs, subscriptions to designreport magazine from the German Design Council, and licenses to Autodesk’s NetFabb and Fusion 360.

Finalists’ designs will also be exhibited at Rapid.Tech + FabCon 3.D in Erfurt, Germany in June, at which a gala award ceremony will celebrate the winners. Finalists’ entries will also be showcased at an international roadshow.

Judging for the awards is a team effort — and I’m honored to be part of that team this year.

Alongside an impressive list of experts, I am excited to examine the submissions, which will be judged according to applicability, manufacturability, ecological aspect, value-added, conceptual and design quality, relevance to society, future viability, and how the project engages with state-of-the-art technology and knowledge, among other criteria. The final jury panel to select the winning designs will take place on-site in Erfurt.

3DPC jurors for 2019 include:

• Dr. Justus Bobke — Chairman, 3D Druck Verband e.V.

• Diana Drewes — Haute Innovation, Agency for material and technology

• Stephan Eelman — Business Director Service Solutions & Metal Systems, BASF 3D Printing Solutions GmbH

• Sarah Goehrke — Additive Integrity LLC

• Arno Held — Chief Venture Officer, AM Ventures Holding GmbH

• Andrej Kupetz — CEO, German Design Council

• Ross Lovegrove — Lovegrove Studio

• Silvia Olp — Management aed e.V., Society for Advancement of Architecture, Engineering, Design

• Prof. Gilles Retsin — Architect and designer and Program Director (AD) at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London

• Prof. Wolfgang Sattler — Bauhaus University Weimar

• Patrik Schumacher — Zaha Hadid Architects

• Dr. Dirk Simon — Director, FARSOON Europe GmbH

• Joachim Stumpp — Managing Director, raumPROBE oHG

• Andreas Velten — IFA3D Medical Solutions GmbH

• Christoph Völcker — Würth Elektronik eiSos GmbH

• Wolf Udo Wagner — Studio Wagner:Design, DDC

• Anouk Wipprecht — FashionTech Designer

Submissions are welcome now through a deadline of March 15, 2019.

Finalists will be selected and notified ahead of Rapid.Tech + FabCon 3.D, and their projects exhibited during the event at Messe Erfurt on June 25-27, 2019. The award ceremony will take place in Erfurt during a gala evening on June 26.

Personally I am very much looking forward to seeing this year’s entries; looking back through the archives on 3DPC’s site shows some remarkable creations from the previous three iterations. The 2019 3DPC should be bigger than ever, with an increase in total prize money and another year of maturity for 3D printing. I look forward to joining my fellow jurors and this year’s finalists at Rapid.Tech + FabCon 3.D in June to celebrate out-of-the-box brilliance in technology.

Full details are available here (PDF).

Via 3D Pioneers Challenge and Rapid.Tech + FabCon 3.D