3DPrint.com Summer 3D Design Course Challenge Winner

We just concluded the summer session of our Beginner and Advanced Design for 3D Printing courses, a pair of interactive online workshops which teach 3D printing design skills to participants through a highly engaging combination of weekly keynote speaker sessions, collaborative small group work, and one-on-one mentorship with individualized feedback. The back-to-back courses culminate in a design challenge for which contestants are invited to build 3D printed solutions to everyday problems.

This summer, we received diverse entries that offered solutions to both home and office problems. Here’s a peek into the creative designs, judged by respected 3D designer and educator, and course mentor, Poppy Lyttle:

Responding to a desire to improve the customizability of a self-inking stamp, our runner-up, Ntenga Richard, designed an ambitious reverse-engineered stamp mechanism. After deftly taking the mechanism apart, he skillfully measured each component and mimicked the schematics in Fusion 360, a program he’d been using for only a week or two in the course. He even designed the helix of the spring, displaying his skillfulness with the program. Overall, Ntenga’s design was an insightful response to the challenge, and we appreciated the meticulousness of his approach. Well done, Ntenga!

Winner Katherine Krohn’s design idea stood out, however, for its wide-reaching appeal and its practical and thorough approach. Katherine noticed that when faced with the task of screwing a lightbulb into a ceiling fixture with a lampshade, the lampshade posed an accessibility problem in need of a creative solution.

Katherine responded to the problem by designing a 3D printed lampshade that can slip over a light bulb and with a little help, twist it into the socket. Her design process took into account numerous user needs, namely safety and ease of use, and featured clever details such as a weighted, magnetic rim around the hatch of the lampshade to make it compatible with a pole bulb-changer and universal compatibility in size.

Using OpenScad she also made this shape parametrically, which means that the shape can be altered relatively easily. This is great for making iterations of this design until it works perfectly. Her comprehensive, creative thinking won us over! Congratulations, Katherine, for winning the Design Contest!

We’d like to thank to our Design Contest Challenge judge, Poppy Lyttle, artist, industrial designer, 3D print expert, and former Education Specialist at MakerBot.

Join us for more 3DPrint.com online courses. This fall, join us for 3D Printing for Prototyping and Production.