Warner Bros. Employees Participate in 32-Hour Hackathon with Airwolf’s Axiom 3D Printer

As 3D printing continues to rise in popularity and capability, an increasing number of unexpected companies have taken unique approaches to get themselves familiar with this emerging technology. One of these companies is Warner Bros. Technology Solutions, who have teamed up with the Southern California-based 3D printing company Airwolf 3D to help get their employees well-acquainted with 3D printing technology. To do this, Warner Bros. hosted a voluntary 32-hour “3D Printing Hackathon”, inviting their employees to participate and educate themselves on the vast uses of 3D printing.

The 3D Printing Hackathon, which took place from May 11-12, hosted about 125 participants with backgrounds in engineering, design, and other innovative fields. After breaking down into teams of 17, the Warner Bros. employees proceeded to design and 3D print their own prototypes on 20 AXIOM 3D printers provided by Airwolf 3D, who released the professional-grade 3D printer around the same time last year. To ensure that the Hackathon participants squeezed as much innovation as possible out of the 3D printers, Airwolf also provided Warner Bros. with on-site staff to help with training, inspiration, and technical assistance.

Some of the Airwolf 3D staff helping at the 3D Printing Hackathon

Although the final projects from the 3D Printing Hackathon will remain in secrecy, the participants found a number of benefits from using Airwolf’s 3D printing technology. Not only did the Warner Bros. employees become more knowledgeable about and fond of using 3D printers, the event also helped provide a positive and collaborative team building experience.

Usually, when a company attempts to introduce 3D printing technology to their workflow, they find their most tech-savvy engineer to tinker around with it, or sometimes just drop it on an employee’s desk and ask them to see what they can do. But Warner Bros.’ collaborative and voluntary approach ensures that no employee feels forced into researching the benefits of 3D printing, while they also prevent the costly burden of purchasing and placing 3D printing equipment with their different departments.

Instead they turned to the experienced staff at Airwolf 3D, who loaded up 20 of their AXIOM 3D printers and transported them to the Warner Bros. studios. The Airwolf team, which has helped in the entertainment industry before, namely with the TV series Bones and the film Interstellar, provided the Hackathon participants with the proper education and guidance to make the most out of their 32-hour event.

The Airwolf AXIOM 3D printer has been utilized on a number of out-of-this-world projects; for instance, it was used by JetPack Aviation to help create a 3D printed jet pack. At the start of this year, just eight months after the AXIOM was released, we caught word that Airwolf had introduced the AXIOM 2, their newest 3D printer equipped with a dual-extruder and multi-material capabilities. Situated perfectly in the entertainment industry-driven region of Southern California, Airwolf’s collaborative effort with Warner Bros. has not only helped educate these participants about the basics of 3D printing technology, but it’s also solidified Airwolf 3D’s standing as a pioneering US-based 3D printing company.

Although the final prototypes aren’t available for the public eye, there’s a video/quiz detailing the 3D Printing Hackathon training session, which you can find here on Zaption. Discuss further in Warner Bros./Airwolf Hackathon forum over at 3DPB.com.