Slow Down for a Spell & Watch the Winning Entries for colorFabb TimeLapse Contest 2015

Time lapse design is definitely a craft for the true artist, often requiring great attention to concept and detail. Elegant, impressive and always fun to watch, this type of art is in a niche of its own. And while it’s generally known as a painstaking process and a true labor of love, filming a 3D printer is probably not quite as difficult. What adds to the challenge though is in deciding what to print, pulling it off successfully, and offering it up as superior entertainment for viewing on YouTube.

Last we checked in with colorFabb, they’d once again invited their community of talented artists and 3D printing enthusiasts to join in for their 2015 Time-Lapse Contest. The directive certainly sounded simple enough in that upon entering all one needed to do was ‘switch on the printer, print something cool, and make a time lapse of it.’ Piece of cake, right? Well maybe for the ones having fun and doing the designing—but certainly not so for the judges who had a tough time deciding on winners due to the high caliber of work submitted.

Winners were to be chosen regarding exceptional originality, complexity, and functionality. Use of any 3D printer or material was allowed, with the finished film to be uploaded to YouTube, and then displayed on the colorFabb playlist. If you have a couple hours on your hands and want to spend a good chunk of time entirely fascinated, kick your shoes off, make a little popcorn, check out all the entries, and then see who the twelve finalists were.

As we announced previously as the 2015 challenge began, entries were to be judged by the public. That changed, however, with some ‘irregularities’ in voting, resulting in the judging being performed by an internal colorFabb jury to avoid any conflicts of interest and to make sure that everybody had an equal chance of winning. The jury consisted of:

• Ruud Rouleaux, CEO
• Gijs Houdijk, Technical Manager
• Sander Strijbos, Sales Manager

“Criteria we looked at were of course the prints themselves, the quality, application and the film itself,” stated the jury as a group.

The winner is AKLIH Design Studio, and trust us, you’ll enjoy checking out the video for their entry, ‘REuse IT!’ which details the 3D printing of a spool hanger from ‘hey what should we do with all these empty spools piling up’ to their nifty creation which seems kind of dare we say…brilliant! Check it out for yourself; we won’t spoil the fun. It’s definitely worth the watch—and you just might find yourself envying both their efficiency and innovation—as well as taking their cue in recycling 3D printing filament spools.

The runner up is Labern, who offers quite the fascinating show with music, lights, and three Ultimaker 2 printers in action all at once for dramatic—and very entertaining—effect. You’ll probably be sitting watching with your mouth agape too as the pieces form before your eyes, coming together to make a detailed replica of a cannon. It looks so real you’ll fully be expecting to see a cannonball exploding from the end at any moment.

Third prize went to Colton Anderson for ‘What is 3D Printing?’ As we watch some pretty cool stuff being fabricated, Colton offers up the secrets to indeed, what 3Printing is: simplification, education, and ultimately according to Colton—everything.

Prizes were as follows:

• First prize is a year-long supply of colorFabb filaments of choice. Every month the winner will receive four spools of their choice to keep on printing, resulting in a total of 48 spools–also to include the materials to be released in 2016!
• Second prize consists of two value packs with filaments of choice, totaling 32 spools.
• Third prize consists of one value pack with the filaments of choice, totaling 16 spools.
• Each eligible contestant can also look forward to taking home a sample pack of colorFabb materials.

Watch as many of these entries as you can—it’s like taking a fun little vacation via YouTube, and is certainly inspiring if you are thinking of taking on a new 3D printing project this weekend. Are you a fan of time-lapse art? Discuss in the 2015 Time-Lapse Contest 3D Printing Winners forum over at 3DPB.com.