Shapeways & Occipital Design Challenge: iPhone 6 & 6 Plus Phone Case Bracket for Structure Sensor

As 3D printing becomes ever more ubiquitous, the associated technology will be ever more at our fingertips. And what could be more at your fingertips than your own smartphone? Most people these days seem to be in committed relationships with their phones, and iPhone users in particular seem to have a reputation for never being out of arm’s reach of their devices.

That relationship kind of works out for a contest running now through November 12. Shapeways and Occipital have teamed up to present a competition for the best design of a Structure Sensor case for the two newest iPhones on the market. The contest — Help Shapeways & Occipital Bring 3D Scanning to iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus — challenges entrants to design an open source case for the new iPhone models that will hold a bracket for Occipital’s Structure Sensor 3D scanner. 

Structure Sensor is a 3D scanner that attaches to your iPad — right now, Occipital offers brackets for the iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad mini 3, and fourth generation iPad — to make models, measure a room, and play augmented reality games. The iPad bracket is great, and all, but Structure Sensor’s use would increase greatly if it could also be used on an iPhone: and that’s where you come in.

With a bracket attached to a phone case, you could use your new model iPhone to scan anything, anywhere. Need measurements for that new house before you buy furniture? Just bring your iPhone along, scan it with Structure Sensor, and you’ve got the measurements of any room you need. Want to create some pretty amazing 3D printed models of real objects? Scan them, then use Shapeways to bring them to you. Occipital has a Shapeways shop with 3D prints of people scanned using their Structure Sensor.

The contest to design a bracket for a phone case will, of course, offer prizes to the winning designs. The single grand prize winner will receive a $250 credit for both the Structure Sensor Store and Shapeways (and, naturally, bragging rights). Five runners-up will also receive credits for the Structure Sensor Store and Shapeways, to the tune of $50 a piece. That’s $1,000 in prizes just waiting for the most impressive entrants.

The winning designs will be available on Shapeways. Because of the Creative Commons (CCo) license stipulation, designs will be open for anyone in the community to download or print; they will also be sold as finished 3D prints on Shapeways with no added markup.

Entering a design is simple, and is outlined in the official rules in six steps:

1. Sign up using the form on this page, and download the starter kit.
2. Make an awesome, original design, for one (or both) of the new iPhone 6 models!
3. Export your design to Occipital as an .stl, .stp, or .igs. Multiple files are OK.
4. Apply a Creative Commons CC0 license to your design.
5. Submit your design by 11:59pm (PST) on November 12th, 2014. Instructions will be emailed to you when you sign up.
6. We’ll contact the winners via email on November 14th, 2014. We’ll also showcase the winning designs here.

The contest will be judged by Shapeways’ Community Manager, Natalia Krasnodebska. Her scoring will be broken into four categories, with aesthetic appeal and functionality each accounting for 30% of her choice, and 3D printing cost and feasibility, as well as originality each counting for 20%. Occipital will work with the creators of the winning designs to ensure the final products have the optimal quality and phone fit for production.

Will you be entering? What’s your design inspiration? Let us know what you think about this contest in the Shapeways/Structure Sensor forum thread at 3DPB.com!