MakerBot Announces MakerEd Project Challenge Winner

In November, the MakerEd Project Challenge was made to Thingiverse users: design projects to help educators bring 3D printing into the classroom. Finalists were entered into a lottery to win a MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D printer, and they could submit as many designs as they wanted, so long as they met the qualifications. Perhaps that explains why there were 785 entries in a challenge with a deadline of February 28, 2016. Over a month later, a winner and runners up have been announced; can you imagine being a judge and sorting through that many design entries?

The winner of this year’s MakerEd Project Challenge is 14-year-old Tuna Tumer (“TnaTmr”) of Turkey, who contributed a Fillet Gauge. Tumer got the idea while watching Noe Ruiz from Adafruit’s Layer by Layer while he designed a case for the Apple TV remote. As Tumer explains:

“And when he was trying to measure the fillet he couldn’t get an exact measure so he had to guess. And I’ve had this issue as well when designing stuff with a curve. Then I thought: how can I solve that? Well I have a printer, and a computer, so why not make something on my own. I tried to do something simple, both to design and print. With this, you can measure most curves on objects, like a phone’s corner for example. I think this will be quite useful for people that are trying to design something that is to fit an object. Its also very easy to use.”

The fillet gauge design started with a simple sketch with fillet sizes ranging from 1 to 12 mm, then the sketch was extruded to a “modest 2 mm.” The numbers were initially engraved onto the gauge, but they were difficult to read so Tumer switched to extruding them on the gauge as well. Since this is an education project, Tumer also lists the objectives of the project, which is geared toward students grades 5-10 who already have some experience with advanced modeling software. These are the project’s overall objectives: “Learn new designing tips; design objects from a reference that has fillets; learn how to design objects that are to fit something with fillets; get experience in design softwares like Fusion 360; learn new vocabulary such as; fillet, arc, corner and their use in design softwares.” Sounds educational to me!

Other challenge winners include a pulley system, a chemistry and biology kit, a mousetrap racer, an ultimate parametric box,  a dividing head, a lever principle and equilibrium, a gear education set, an introduction to parametric education,  and a sine and cosine waves stencil. Wow. Those are lots of cool 3D printed education-themed objects that were competing for that MakerBot Replicator 3D Printer.

But when all is said and done, Tuna Tumer is the one fortunate to walk away with a new 3D printer, and all other runners up received one roll of MakerBot filament. In the meantime, 785 new projects were generated that can help teachers introduce beginning and more advanced 3D printing ideas to their students. What do you think of the winning entries? Discuss in the MakerEd Project Challenge Winner forum over at 3DPB.com.