Here is a competition with a unique twist. The inspiration and creativity of Wired Magazine's Geek Dad merges with Ponoko's making system and electronic gadgetry from SparkFun in this call for entries. A panel of judges from Ponoko and GeekDad will choose ten finalists, and then the overall winner will be decided in a public poll.
The entry with the most votes will be produced for free using the combined might of SparkFun and Ponoko.
The design challenge calls for some clever thinking to combine SparkFun electronic components with something from the broad range of timbers, plastics, fabrics, and metals in the Ponoko materials catalog. Take a look at over 50,000 items in the Ponoko Showroom for inspiration. With these tools and a burst from deep within your imagination, you can make almost anything quickly and easily.
To enter, post your bright idea to the GeekDad flickr pool and attach the tag 'ponoko'. Submissions can be in the form of sketches, product photos or final design images. Should you only have a description of your concept, you can enter it in the comments section on GeekDad.
Closing date for entries is July 31st, so you've got four weeks to get your geeky creativity flowing.
I created this design yesterday for the Shapeways SIGGRAPH competition which asked designers to submit any design that costs less than $200 to 3dprint. Our submission is a sculptural vase generated by reaction diffusion, a process which simulates how chemicals diffusing across a surface react with one another to produce stable patterns.
made with Processing, rendered in Sunflow, polygons reduced to 500,000 for 3d printing with Meshlab. all free open source software!
