3D Printing Legend Bre Pettis, Designs Jacket, Needs Crowd Support to get it Made

Bre Pettis has designed a jacket, and he wants you to lend your voice and your vote to help him get it made.

Pettis’ jacket, the STL Tyvek Wind Shell, is a lightweight jacket made out of Tyvek, a space-age material created by chemical giant, Dupont. Pettis envisions the ultralight jacket as being your go-to when you need protection from the wind or weather while you’re backpacking. The ‘STL’ in the name of the jacket is a nod to to the .STL file format used in 3D-printing, and the design is inspired by the patterns found in mapped 3D images. The jacket would also feature a 3D-printed logo, and could have any pattern or color, since Tyvek can be printed on easily.

Pettis, who works currently at Stratasys (he created Bold Machines, The Innovation Workshop at Stratasys) and is the Co-founder MakerBot, designed the jacket as part of Battle of the TechWork Stars, a contest sponsored by clothing brand, BetaBrand.

The contest pits technology ingenues against each other to see who can use their technology-forward minds to come up with interesting new forms of clothing.

Pettis’ tech competitors include:

• TechStars co-founder Brad Feld, who created, “The Accelerator Shirt,” a Hawaiian shirt that features artwork inspired by CERN particle collisions.
• About.me and Sphere founder Tony Conrad, who offered up a dress pant/sweat pant hybrid as his idea.
• Moz founder Rand Fishkin, submitted a hipsterish, ode-to-his-mustache long-sleeved shirt.
• Jeff Bonforte, the senior vicec president at Yahoo also proposed a Hawaiian shirt. The difference between his and Feld’s is that Bonforte’s has tiny pi symbol designs.

Battle of the TechWork Stars is an off-shoot of BetaBrand’s Thinktank. Ordinarily, regular Joes can submit designs to BetaBrand for possible creation through the company’s Thinktank contest. In that contest, Betabrand tests the demand and interest for a user-submitted product online. People then vote for their favorites. If a product gets enough votes, Betabrand prototypes it and the product then goes to the crowdfunding stage. If an item reaches its crowdfunding goal, Betabrand brings it to the marketplace.

If Pettis’ design, inspired by 3D printing, is chosen, proceeds from all jacket sales would go to Mouse.org, a charity that helps underserved youth access and create with technology. The charity also teaches kids life and academic skills.

Learn more and cast your vote for Pettis’ jacket here. Discuss this clever design in the STL Jacket forum thread on 3DPB.com.