YouMagine Announces Radical Contest for Innovators with the ‘Develop a New 3D Printing Technology Challenge’

I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with an idea for the YouMagine Develop a New 3D Printing Technology Challenge and soon you will be too, as this contest asks you not to create yet another 3D printed vase, egg holder, or keychain but rather a new technology. With 3D printing. Eyebrows raised quizzically, if you are a maker and an innovator, your brain probably starts whirring away before you can even ask, “How does this work, exactly — and what do we win?”

While YouMagine fully encourages all the 3D printing enthusiasts out there working on product designs and the 3D printing of a multitude of utilitarian and fun objects, they are on a mission to inspire 3D printing in the areas of invention and development as well.

You may have many concepts spinning around in that innovative brain of yours, many of which you aren’t sure how to take to fruition. YouMagine just wants you to submit that million dollar idea for a new 3D printing technology that seems achievable. That ‘you’ also includes groups and teams who can get together and submit an idea, but it’s imperative that you (or all of you) prepare an explanation to YouMagine as to why you are suitable not only to be the winner but also to make this new 3D printing technology a reality.

While you are scratching your head and tap tapping the fingers, spinning through ideas, keep in mind that you can also improve or change an existing 3D printing technology. Taking that further, they also open up the world of 3D printing items in alternative materials too — like glass or electronics, as an example. And as a side note, adding the electronics category should open up a host of fairly infinite ideas.

YouMagine asks that contestants go to their design ideas page for inspiration in improving or perfecting a current 3D printing technology, or in designing a new one altogether. Along with ideas such as a wifi bracelelt or a mini-arcade for a smartphone, there are a lot of interesting items and concepts to mull over and get the juices flowing.

You should be ready to explain what your plan is for making this new technology a reality and how long that will take. The winner, chosen February 1^st, 2015, will the be lucky recipient of an Ultimaker Original. It does not end there though, as with the title of winner, and an exciting new tool to work with, the winner is expected to use the Ultimaker Original to put their new technological process into place by June 1^st, 2015. The winner is also asked to provide full documentation of the project, as well as any notes on what caused it to succeed or fail so that no matter what it is a full learning experience for all the contestants, as well as the 3D printing community. No pressure!

The big reward, once all is said and done, is that the newly crowned innovator will be able to share the technological invention globally through the YouMagine open-source license.

Will you or someone you know be entering this contest? Let us know in the YouMagine 3D Printing Technology Challenge forum at 3DPB.com.