Looking to tap into this talented base, My Mini Factory has launched a Christmas Design Contest, calling on the worldwide community of 3D designers to upload their designs.

Now that contest is open to voting! Click here to go see the designs and make your vote.

MyMiniFactory.com, a platform for free 3D printable designs, is hosting its second design contest. The winner will receive a Ultimaker 1 3D printer worth £1,690.

Launched in June 2013, My Mini Factory features a large range of free 3D printable objects that are original and unique, and all designs are test printed by the My Mini Factory team on affordable 3D Printers to ensure their quality.

“MyMiniFactory.com is the world’s 2nd largest platform of 3D printable files,” said Romain Kidd, Chief Marketing Officer, iMakr.com. “Downloads come from around the world. The designer base – both in-house and external – is in the several hundred, and very multinational as well.”

Looking to tap into this talented base, My Mini Factory has launched a Christmas Design Contest, calling on the worldwide community of 3D designers to upload their designs. Beautiful and functional printable objects will then be exposed to the large audience of enthusiasts who visit MyMiniFactory.com, and designers will can soon start earning money from downloads of their objects.

This is the site’s second design competition. We spoke with Romain Kidd, CMO iMakr.com about the results of the first contest.

“The Autumn contest was very successful,” Kidd told us in an interview. “We had close to 50 successful entrants. XYZ workshop (Australia) won first place with their ‘Micro Planter Chess Set‘, and the first place runner up was Billy Sides (USA) with his ‘Minion Chess Set‘. We are targeting more entrants this Christmas and the same quality of designs.”

The Autumn contest winner received an UP! Mini 3D Printer.

MyMiniFactory.com is owned by UK-based iMakr.VC, the same group that owns iMakr, the world’s largest 3D printing store. As a 3D printing value added re-seller, iMakr is solving the problem of “what should I 3D print?” with MyMiniFactory.com, similar to the relationship between MakerBot and Thingiverse.com.

Related: Video: iMakr 3D Printing Store Grand Opening in London

Christmas Design Contest Details

To enter the Christmas design contest applicants need to 3D model and upload a design to either (or both) of the submission design categories -

• Category 1 -  a 3D printable decorative object with an ‘endangered species’ theme
• Category 2 – a 3D printable object for use during the seasonal festivities / with a seasonal theme

My Mini Factory will be accepting entries until November 20, after which entries will be posted on the website for a 3 week voting period.

The competition is open to applicants worldwide, they simply register with My Mini Factory and submit an entry through the upload system.

All the entries will be 3D printed by the company to assess their printably and functionality. If it successfully passes this print test it will be entered into the contest. Designers will be provided with feedback if there are any problems with their file/design.

During the voting period each entry will have it’s own personal page to receive downloads from.

The design with the most downloads will be the grand prize winner, and will receive an Ultimaker 1 3D printer worth £1,690 in time for Christmas!

3D Printers for Peace

In the wake of the Cody Wilson’s 3D printed gun fiasco, Michigan Tech is launching a 3D printing contest for good.

Below are the details of the contest and how to enter.

3D printing is changing the world. Unfortunately, the only thing many people know about 3D printing is that it can be used to make guns. We want to celebrate designs that will make lives better, not snuff them out.

What is the Printers for Peace Contest?

We are challenging the 3D printing community to design things that advance the cause of peace. This is an open-ended contest, but if you’d like some ideas, ask yourself what Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, or Ghandi would make if they’d had access to 3D printing.

• low-cost medical devices
• tools to help pull people out of poverty
• designs that can reduce racial conflict
• objects to improve energy efficiency or renewable energy sources to reduce wars over oil
• tools that would reduce military conflict and spending while making us all safer and more secure
• things that boost sustainable economic development (e.g. designs for appropriate technology in the developing world to reduce scarcity)

1st Prize

Fully assembled, open-source Type A Machines Series 1 3D Printer
The Series 1 recently won best in class in the Make: Ultimate Guide to 3-D Printing. It has a 9-by-9-by-9-inch build volume, prints at 90mm/sec in PLA, ABS and PVA with 0.1mm resolution.

2nd Prize

Michigan Tech’s MOST version of the RepRap Prusa Mendel open-source 3D printer kit
The RepRap can be built in a weekend. It has a 7.8–by-7.8-by-6.8-inch build volume on a heated bed, prints comfortably at 80 mm/sec ABS, 45 mm/sec PLA, HDPE and PVA with 0.1 mm resolution.

Enter the Contest

Go to the Michigan Tech website to enter the contest.

Image by snapies_gi used under Creative Commons license.

3D printing marketplace Shapeways hosted a contest for designers to create iPhone 5 accessories. They announced a winner for the clever “sweater” case shown above.

We had over 70 entries to the 3D Print Contest for iPhone 5 Accessories with so many fantastic designs it was really hard for us to chose a winner among the high caliber of entries.  There was one design that really caught the eye of the Shapeways team. As soon as we pulled one out of the 3D Printer to test it out, everyone was in love…

The product page is great but we really had to share a video so that everyone could see how the design captured our hearts and won $500 worth of Shapeways 3D Printing for the designer….

The winner of $500 worth of 3D printing is ArtizanWork with their iPhone 5 – “Sweater” Case.

Below is a video of the winning design.

Via Shapeways blog.

Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic children’s book originally published in 1969 and enjoyed by kids across the world.

3D printing marketplace i.materialise hosted a contest for designers to create their favorite storybook character. The winner was design firm timeRemapper who depicted Carle’s caterpillar laid up on a couch after too much pizza.

The winning design was 3D printed by i.materialise.