Celebrate 3D Printing with Award-Winning 3D Printers, Materials, Leaders

We’ve got plenty of 3D printing awards news to share with you today, as some of the industry’s biggest names are receiving accolades for their innovation, hard work, and dedication.

First up, Polish-Swiss 3D printer reseller BIBUS MENOS is at the 10th Jubilee edition of 3D Printing Days, the largest trade fair in Poland, this week in Kielce. The company recently announced a distribution partnership with Sintratec, which specializes in SLS 3D printers and is the top 3D printer manufacturer in Switzerland. At the event, BIBUS MENOS won an award for launching the most innovative product on the Polish market this year with the affordable and easy to use Sintratec Kit, the first and only SLS printer in kit format.

“We are very happy that we got this award,” said Tomasz Weis, Team Leader at BIBUS MENOS. “This shows that this desktop SLS system is a very interesting product on our market.”

Every year, this prize is awarded by the Association for Innovative Technologies in Poland, which also organizes the annual 3D Printing Days trade fair.

“We are delighted that BIBUS MENOS has won this award for the launch of our product. Making SLS technology with innovative engineering accessible to a broad audience worldwide has always been our declared goal,” said Gabor Koppanyi, the Head of Marketing and Sales at Sintratec. “The fact that our product is regarded as the most innovative product in the Polish market, which has been developing dynamically for many years in terms of technology, particularly honors us.”

BIBUS MENOS is also a distributor for Verashape, which provides industrial 3D printing solutions from its Polish headquarters. At the Przemysł 4.0 conference in Warsaw this week, the company’s VSHAPER PRO 3D printer won the “Product of the Year 2017” award, which was granted by the Inżynieria & Utrzymanie Ruchu magazine.

Products from Poland and other countries, which are new, upgraded, or modified and introduced in the Polish market for the first time in 2017, are considered, and the goal of the contest is to promote the best products used in Polish industrial plants.

“VSHAPER PRO is immensely popular among customers around the world,” said Tomasz Szymański, the CEO and Founder of Verashape. “This industrial machine enables creating 3D Prints of highest quality from high-temperature polymers. It is successfully used in research institutes as well as the industry.”

Submitted products are assessed in stages, including by a jury of experts and readers of the magazine. Additionally, actual users of the products can vote to reward the products for their ease of use, economic benefits, and innovation.

Next up, the already award-winning company Desktop Metal, headquartered in Massachusetts, was in New York earlier this week attending the Edison Awards, which are dedicated to fostering future innovators, named after prolific innovator Thomas Edison, and put on by non-profit organization Edison Universe.

The company’s DM Production System, the first metal 3D printing system for the mass production of complex metal parts up to 100 times faster than current laser systems, was voted the Gold Winner for innovation in the Applied Technology/3D Printing category.

“We are truly honored to join the prestigious roster of recipients of the Edison Award. Until now, metal 3D printing has failed to meet today’s manufacturing needs due to high costs, slow processes and hazardous materials,” said Ric Fulop, CEO and Co-Founder of Desktop Metal. “Desktop Metal is committed to making metal 3D printing accessible for engineers, and the Production System enables a rapid go-to-market production capability that marks a fundamental shift in how products will be made.”

One of the highest honors a company can achieve in terms of business and innovation is an Edison Award, which celebrates over 30 years of honoring the best in excellence and innovation in new products and services. A panel of over 3,000 top business executives, including academics, past award winners, and leaders in multiple fields like design and engineering, judged the ballot of award nominees.

DM Production System.

Frank Bonafilia, Executive Director of the Edison Awards, said, “Our judges recognized the Desktop Metal Production System as a true innovator out of the many products in its category.”

The Silver Award in the category went to Microstructure Control for High Performance Additive Materials by HRL Laboratories, while the Bronze was awarded for the EVOLV3D Universal Support Material (USM) by The Dow Chemical Company.

At this week’s annual IDTechEx Show! Europe awards ceremony in Berlin, additive electronics provider Nano Dimension was awarded the Technical Development Materials Award for its multi-material 3D printing inks from UK-based independent market research provider IDTechEx.

Amit Dror, Nano Dimension’s CEO, said, “We’ve designed our inks to break existing technology barriers for functional multi-material 3D printing. We combine 3D printing with printed electronics, so designers and engineers are now able to print fully functional free-form electronics that were previously unimaginable.”

The company’s conductive and dielectric inks break 3D printing technology barriers, and solve some of the issues that prevent more widespread adoption of 3D printing electronics.

“It is clear that the development of Nano Dimension’s materials was a key enabler for creating their multi-material 3D printing for electronics. Truly groundbreaking,” said one of the IDTechEx Awards judges.

This marks Nano Dimension’s third award since launching its Dragonfly 2020 Pro 3D printer just seven months ago.

Stephen Nigro, President of HP’s 3D printing business.

Finally, the Rochester Institute of Technology, which takes 3D printing very seriously, presented its biannual Cary Award to Stephen Nigro, president of HP’s 3D printing business, in a campus ceremony this week. The prestigious award, named for distinguished graphic arts pioneer and collector Melbert B. Cary, Jr., is given to individuals who have, according to HP, “made an indelible mark on the industry.”

Dr. Shu Chang, the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the School of Media Sciences at RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, presented Nigro with the award for his three decades worth of print leadership and contributions to printing innovation.

“Stephen has made a tremendous difference in terms of advancing the printing industry, its technology and graphic communications. He’s demonstrated incredible leadership,” said Dr. Chang.

Nigro, who has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, leads a team that’s pushing a digital transformation of the $12 trillion global manufacturing industry. Before entering the 3D printing realm, he was also part of the group that developed HP’s first color inkjet printer.

Two years ago, Nigro and his team debuted the company’s innovative and disruptive Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology, and its line of Jet Fusion 3D printers.

HP Jet Fusion 300/500 3D printing solution for functional prototyping and short-run production. [Image: HP]

Dr. Chang said, “Multi Jet Fusion has such amazing potential. It has the ability to tap into entirely new design processes and print with unusual materials.”

In addition, Nigro has long been an advocate for democratizing 3D printing technology, and was one of the architects of HP’s 3D Open Materials Platform and partner ecosystem.

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