With our most recent contest, we challenged our community to create accessories and upgrades to existing commercial products and no surprise you all ran with it and created numerous amazing designs. The entries are in now so let’s take a look at them and announce our winners.
When asked for upgrades and accessories to commercial products, it’s no surprise that many of you chose to go ahead and create projects for your 3D printers. Filament management solutions were a popular choice beating out other popular choices like lighting, tool holders, fan shrouds, and cable organizers.
Food to Filament Dehydrator Kit
Showing more of your maker spirits this contest also drew a decent number of designs for everyone’s favorite single board computer, the Raspberry Pi. Most of the designs were created to help the Pi be used as an Octoprint server but printable cases that could be used for other solutions were well represented.
Pi Skeleton GoPro mount // Pi3+Camera+GoPro mount
Accessories for Ikea products were some of our examples when we announced this contest and we ended up with enough entries to draw some attention from the big blue and yellow. Like our organization contest, one of the favorite Ikea products for this contest was the SKÅDIS pegboard system.
Alright, I’m sure you are itching to know our winners, so let’s stop with the leadup and get to the main event!
First Place
TStation – TS80p Case & Soldering Station by spTim
The TS80 is an incredibly popular soldering iron for it’s great features in a tiny and portable package. It’s good enough that for many users, it can replace their desktop irons all together. When using as your main iron on your work bench though, it could use some accessories and spTim created this all in one workstation that does just the trick. This first place entry will be taking home an Original Prusa MK3S+ Kit for their work.
Second Place
Bring your Heritage to the Moon by lordzurp
Astronomy is an incredibly fun and rewarding hobby, getting into it tough can be quite expensive. This project aims to help lower the cost of entry by taking a budget telescope and using 3D prints to the next level or performance. Lordzurp has one a Prusament filament bundle with this entry.
Third Place
Holder for Stabilo fineliners by Lopotok99
One of the best parts about design is it doesn’t always have to be complex to be great. Sometimes simple clean lines and a good flow that works along side functionality are enough to make something compelling and this is how we felt about this Stabilo pen holder. This beautiful design will also receive a Prusament bundle.
We decided to try something new for our community judging this time around since we had recently launched our Makes functionality here on PrusaPrinters. This time around instead of the five designs that had received the most likes, our winners are the five designs that have the most Makes. Each will receive a $50 voucher to our Eshop.
Under Printer Storage For MK3/S/+ |
 |
 |
MMU2S Buffer (inspired by RMU Buffer) |
MK3S Optical illusion for x-axis |
 |
 |
Portafilter holder Rancilio Silvia |
Desk Hook for IKEA T-shaped legs |
 |
Thank you to everyone that entered and if you didn’t win, don’t worry our next contest is launching right away and you have another chance to go for it!
I think we have disqualification.
The “Printer Drawers For Ikea Lack Table” has already been removed, even though the terms and conditions say you must keep the model 1 year on the site.
Maybe Prusa should make identical remixes of the winners in the future to prevent this.
Hello Johannes, I found the result of the contest really suspicious and not fair at all from my point of view. I am trying to speak to the person in charge of the contest as I feel I have been taken for an idiot, till that happens, Prusa Printers can keep the price, but my design won´t be visible at all.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it sounds a bit like you’re being a sore loser. You are upset with the results and instead of deleting the project from prusaprinters altogether, you break the rules you agreed to when you submitted your project to the contest and removed the files, uploaded the project to cults and now charge ~$2, added the buy link to your prusaprinters project page, all the while conveniently taking advantage of the trophee awarded to your project. Presumably you changed the license as well. Based on these actions, it doesn’t really seem like you intend to reinstate the files, even if the results were changed to your liking…
Don’t want to be that guy, but even if the first place is a great project and seems like it works perfectly, the rules for this challenge were different…
Just copying from challenge description
“For example, we don’t want to see you create a fully printable box for holding your 3D printer maintenance tools, instead we want to see you create an insert for an IKEA desktop organizer that better lays out the tools.”
I’m still very happy for spTim and it’s definitely not his fault and responsibility but please for future challenges follow your own rules.
Completelly agree with you VG_ST_D, first and third price don´t fufill the contest requirements at all, mine did. On top of this download and engangement of figures of my design spoke for themselves.
I have invested hundreds of hours on the Ikea Lack drawers, and I couldn´t be more anoyed.
Thanks! And let put aside the hours spent on designing and printing, cause the majority of people did that with their projects too! it’s annoying but this challenge had 800 plus entries and I saw a lot of upgrades ( much cooler and interesting than mine ) that followed the rules and the winning project is exactly the thing that goes against the rules?
Let’s just hope that future contests will be better managed!
I hate that I have to justify our decisions especially since the winners of the competition deserve all the credit for their amazing creations. The judging of these competitions is very hard and the team takes it very seriously. The larger these competitions get, the harder it gets because there are so many amazing entries to go through. One of the real sticking points we had for this one was we really wanted the product listed that the print that had been created. Many entries were disqualified because of this.
The complaints that I am seeing largely come from a difference of opinion. I personally own a TS100 soldering iron and while it’s a great iron, the stand that comes with it is awful and when I use it, I end up with my desk covered in accessories (solder spool, a loose sponge, clippers, etc). In contrast my desktop iron and setup is great because it keeps everything together. When I saw the upgrade for the TS80 I thought this isn’t JUST a tool holder, this takes the little iron and makes it a real desktop system, added bonus, it is still portable. When I talked to other team members they had the exact same thought. This sentiment was also addressed by spTim in another comment here.
As part of the judging numerous team members make lists of the entries they think should win. Both of the first and third design made everyone’s list. The third place entry isn’t just a pen holder box, it helps keep the pens organized in a meaningful way while also making room for other accessories. Is it the most technically advanced design, no. Does it do it’s job in an elegant way that we believed would be not only useful but appealing to users, absolutely. I will also add that the top two entries very much felt like they were for our more technically oriented users, it was nice to have a winner that targeted the more artistic amongst us. If we were a site of nothing but 3D printing accessories, it would be pretty boring pretty quickly.
We really value all the work everyone who enters the competitions puts into their entries but in the end there can only be a handful of winners. There are always going to be users who believe they deserved to win but didn’t, it’s something we have to be aware of when putting these competitions together. With almost every competition, I wish we could give away 5 first place prizes as there are always so many great entries. In the future, we will continue to do our best to not only pick the winners that best fit the spirit of the contest but also to adjust any rules or requirements to help prevent any future concerns like this.
I hope this puts some clarification to some of you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to me via direct message.
Wow that was an interesting interpretation of the rules! 🙂
We should be more open-minded next time and don’t forget, that sometimes the less is more.
By most of the competitions, there are much fewer winners as competitors, which makes some bad taste in your mouth at the end, if you are not in the few lucky ones, but you should not give up. Take a little break and try it again by the next competition. There are plenty of it and with time if you keep up the good work, I am sure you will be recognised and awarded.
Let me start with I’m super happy with Prusa contests and I hope that they continue in this amazing way of getting their site popularized.
The competition clearly states “The key to this contest is that you are not creating something entirely new, you are adding to or altering an existing product.” Also “ For example, we don’t want to see you create a fully printable box for holding your 3D printer maintenance tools, instead we want to see you create an insert for an IKEA desktop organizer that better lays out the tools.”
Please explain how the winner and third place did not “create a fully printable box for holding” their choice of tools?
I am unable to understand how the soldering iron or the stabilo pens have been improved upon. Or how the prints are not something “entirely new”.
I really believe that the prints are awesome and beautiful. No offense to the creators. But they simply don’t meet the parameters of the contest.
If either of those 2 prints custom fit onto a piece of furniture that anyone could buy, then I would understand. Still a bit of a stretch as they only serve to hold a very specific type of tool, but I can accept that.
Based on your choosing them as winners, a box to hold paper clips is equal to the stabilo pen holder. Which I don’t believe this competition was about.
IMHO, it only seems fair that the winners keep their prizes and ALL the entries get evaluated again with the proper lens in place to ensure the entries meet the parameters.
I’m genuinely concerned that if these contests continue to reward seemingly random non-qualifying prints like this, Prusa’s great reputation will suffer and the goal of having the site being an amazing place for great people to openly share their ideas will suffer as well. As proof: the second place winner who withdrew their entry and refused their prize.
Please understand I’m only writing this to demonstrate (how I imagine many of us feel) that the outcome of this contest does not reflect how awesome Prusa is in our eyes and how much we love this brand. I want Prusa to be better than this. I know you are.
Sincerely,
Lasergun
@josefprusa @MattStultz
I completely agree with you! I love Prusa printers and prusa company and also prusaprinters site which I find much more organized, beautiful, and useful than other places for 3d models and 3d printing. I hope they will manage this problem and will organize a contest where everybody follows the rules!
The TStation model is not so much to be a box than to be an upgrade for the TS80p from a plain mobile iron to a desktop class soldering Station. Anyone who has got this device knows that it lacks ergonomic usability by not providing a stand, tip cleaning area etc. My model is a solution for that specific problem on that specific product.
That it is also a box is more or less an additional feature to make it more useful and maintain its portable character. Just center part (Main.stl) and your point (that this is just a box) is not applicable any more.
I am sorry to cause so much disharmony with my entry.
@spTim
Dude, don’t be sorry at all. Your print is an awesome piece. I truly believe it’s a great idea. For example, using filament as a hinge rod was something that pleasantly surprised me and taught me something. You’ve done nothing wrong. Please do not take any of my comments as meaning your work is not worthy or that you don’t deserve your prize. I mean no I’ll will against you or your work. Period. Thank you for sharing your work.
The same goes for @Lopotok99’s beautiful piece. And so cool how he learned something in F360 using lofts with a happy accident while creating it.
Please, my comments and everything I have said in regards to this contest are not directed at the competitors and their awesome work.
I have explained at length in another post above why I believe the first place absolutely qualifies as I also did with the third place entry. I continue to stand behind those decisions. Please read the post above to understand how the team viewed the winner’s entry and why it absolutely fit the contest.
I can see though how the third place entry might be contentious for some and if it will help this situation I will go back to the team and see if we can award a joint third place prize and we will look at the most fair way to award that prize as possible.
Let me just say, and I copied and pasted this from the Terms & Condition for the last contest. “We reserve the right to terminate the competition or —change the conditions of the competition at any time.— In case of violation of the terms and conditions or an attempted fraud, the competitor will be disqualified.” It’s their contest let them give the prizes to who they want.
I can’t agree with you on this one because this is just exploiting all the people who participate in the contest and spend their time making projects.
I enjoyed a lot doing this challenge and want to enjoy future challenges too… but if you don’t follow the rules of your own contest and give prizes to a random people you just killing the vibe and letting down people’s desire to do work for this site.
@Prusa Fanatic
Very valid point. Prusa can do whatever they want and have been smart enough to include those clauses in their contest. And I’m absolutely OK with that, it is the smart thing for them to do.
My point has less to do with the rules and more to do with the spirit of what Jo is trying to accomplish here. An awesome place for like minded people to gather and share… openly.
Referees in most sports have final say and players MUST respect them. But when BLATANT failures occur, referees will change their decision in the spirit of the game.
I really hope you understand it’s NOT about the contest and the winners. It’s about the spirit of the culture being developed here and trying to maintain a positive one where everybody feels welcome and treated fairly.
@VG_ST_D puts it bluntly. Lol. Don’t kill the vibe. People contributing here make this place great. Exploit them or treat them unfairly, and those people don’t come back.
Or worse, they say nasty things about you elsewhere and your reputation falls before people even try for themselves.
I hope Prusa will do something, anything, to address this.
@Lasergun I would love to speak and explain the ideas like you! 😀 Again totally agree with you and my only thought is to improve in any way this community, so absolutely no hate for Prusa or others from here but would totally love to hear from competition organizers!