Teacher Incentives Created for Extreme Redesign Contest

By DE Editors

The Dimension 3D Printing Group, a business unit of Stratasys, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN), announced teacher incentives for encouraging students to participate in its third annual “Extreme Redesign: The Ultimate 3D Printing Challenge,” a global design and 3D printing contest for high school and college students that awards scholarships to student winners.

Following on the success of last year’s Extreme Redesign contest, which received more than 500 student entries from around the world, Dimension will award teachers of first-place student winners in this year’s contest a Dell notebook computer for use in the classroom. In addition, the teacher with the most student entries overall will also receive a Dell notebook computer for encouraging student participation in the contest. To qualify, the instructor’s name and email address should be included on the contest application form, available by clicking here.

To enter, students need to identify an existing product, piece of art, or architecture and redesign it, making the original design better by adding new functionality or aesthetic qualities. Once the design is complete, students send a .stl file of their Extreme Redesign via Dimension’s Web site along with a completed submission form, including a 200-word description of the value and benefit of the Extreme Redesign part. Dimension will then send entrants a 3D print of their redesign they can hold in their hands and evaluate. From there, entrants have the opportunity to make any necessary design improvements and develop a second iteration for final submission.

Final submissions must be postmarked by Dec. 31, 2006. A panel of independent judges from various industries will judge final entries on the basis of creativity, usefulness, part integrity and aesthetics. Winners will be selected in February 2007 and will receive $2,500 or $1,000 scholarships. First place winners will be featured in a live “webinar” that will be broadcast in early March. Also, the winning designs will be featured at the International Technology Education Associations (ITEA) annual conference in San Antonio, Texas, March 15-17, 2007. Complete contest rules, submission information, and photos and descriptions of last year’s winning Extreme Redesigns are available by clicking here.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.