With Mother’s Day just around the corner, we’re already preparing for Father’s Day. So, we’ve teamed up with our friends at Tinkercad for the “Thanks, Dad 3D Challenge!”

From now until Friday, June 1st at 12 midnight P.T., create a design on Tinkercad for Father’s Day, take a screenshot of it and upload it on their Facebook challenge page along with a link to your design posted in the caption.

One winner will be selected from the top 5 designs with the most votes. The winner will receive a 3D print of their design in time for Father’s Day on June 17th AND a voucher for 100€ in 3D printing.

And because every dad is special, we’ve decided to give each person who enters the challenge a promo code good for a 15% discount on a 3D printout. Oh yeah!

Here are a few rules to get you started:

• Only one entry per person, please.
• Your design must be your own creation and not a re-tinker.
• Something about dad should be included in your design. “Best Dad!” “My Hero!” “I love Dad!” are a few examples.
• Tag your design with #dad2012 in the header.
• Winner selected from the top five designs with the most votes.
• Winning design cannot be printed in metals.
• Depending on the winning design, we may need to make a few adjustments for printability.
• Hollow models are acceptable.

Ronia the Robber’s Daughter by DT Community member FLYNN
See the work in progress here and the final entry.

Billy Goats Gruff by DT Community member madics@madics
See the work in progress here and the final entry.

The Very Full Caterpillar by DT Community member timeRemapper
See the work in progress here and the final entry.

We would like to congratulate the winning challengers and also thank all participants for being a part of this wonderful challenge. We’ll make sure to showcase the finished 3D prints on this blog as soon as we’ve got them done.

In the video you’ll see how Christopher models a carbon nanotube in Lightwave 3D and uploads it on i.materialise. He shows the ordering process and the unboxing of the model when it arrives. Whether you’re new at all of this or not, we think it’s a great video that shows how easy an online 3D printing service can be. Christopher Barnatt definitely knows how to explain the future!

After finishing the video, he discovered how easy it was to create a designer page and offer the carbon nanotube for sale in our gallery.

Carbon Nanotube by Christoper Barnatt

On March 29th, Wilfried Vancraen (CEO Materialise), took the stage at TEDxLeuven. He showed how 3D printing is not only reshaping how things are made, but also our way of life. In this video, this 3D printing pioneer shares his insights on how this rapidly expanding technology has the power, not to become a future form of mass consumption, but to create a better quality of life on a grand scale. Enjoy the movie!

Okay, we’re running a design challenge with 3DTin during the following 4 weeks. Before we get started and to get everyone up to speed, here’s a small recap on 3DTin:

3DTin lets anyone make anything simply because it’s easy and intuitive to use. It simply runs in the browser (though it has to be up to date, as it uses something called Web GL), is free to use and requires no experience in 3D design. All you need is the will and imagination to explore the 3D world.  3DTin lets you save and share the designs (which are called ‘sketches’) you make. The tool also lets you export your files for 3D printing.

“We are running out of excuses to not build something.” – Jayesh Salvi (Founder 3DTin)

So, how does the challenge work?  Easy, design as many awesome models on 3DTin as possible during the month of May. Everyone who makes sketches during this time automatically enters the challenge. Both 3DTin and i.materialise will rate your sketches. The total ratings of all your sketches will define your score. The top 3 will receive a FREE 3D PRINT and a lifetime 3DTin premium membership.

What you need to know:

• Go to www.3dtin.com
• Contest Duration: May 1st to May 31st, 2012.
• All Sketches must be original. Although 3DTin encourages sharing via Creative Commons licensing, for this challenge only sketches made by single users from scratch will count towards the final score.
• All Sketches must be new. Those created before May 1st will not be counted towards the final score.
• Scores will be calculated from the ratings given by a panel of judges from 3DTin and i.materialise.
• The top 3 winners will get a FREE 3D print of their chosen sketch from i.materialise. They will also get a vendor account with at i.materialise to sell their models and earn money from their work.
• i.materialise will decide the material and the size of the winning 3D prints.
• You can submit any number of sketches to win the challenge. Your total score will be the sum of scores you receive for all your sketches.
• Decision of the Judges will be final.

Good luck!

First, the business news… It seems that 3D Systems got back into its spending habit of last year by acquiring My Robot Nation and Paramount Industries. Could it be the beginning of another spending spree this year? Only time will tell… On the other hand, they also got to present the new Z Printer 850. It promises higher print volume, greater productivity and vibrant full color that empowers designers, engineers, and architects to create more and larger parts faster.

The New Z Printer 850 by 3D Systems

At the same time we can’t really say that the other 3D Printing giant called Stratasys has been quiet. They recently announced the merger with the Israeli 3D printing company Objet and saw their stock value rise from $34 on April to $51 around the time this is being written. This an increase of a third! So for all you guys out there that want to earn some fast money, this is how you can. It might also be interested to mention that Stratasys is clearly up to something big as they have a countdown timer on their main website with the message “The magic begins on May 8. Check back to see what’s new in the world of 3D printing.” I wonder what they’ve got up their sleeve?

Then, onto another 3D printer that recently went on sale… the world famous chocolate printer by Choc Edge. It’s still a bit on the pricey side for me, but for the true chocolate lover it’s a nice investment. On a side note, we also had this 3D printer at the Materialise World Conference. I can confirm that the chocolate was indeed still yummy.

A picture from the Materialise World Conference Fashion Show

That brings us to the actual Materialise World Conference itself… It ran from April 18th until April 20th and attracted grand guests such as President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. Materialise itself hosted a wonderful 3D Printed Fashion Show. We’ve extensively covered this event on our blog, facebook and twitter accounts and got to expose the Top 20 of the Hats off to 3D printing Design Challenge.

Another interesting crowd funding project on Indiegogo is one by Anarkik 3D who would like to take their creative solution called Cloud 9 to the next level. They are in search of $120,000, have managed to get $2,900 so far and still have 63 days to go so if Cloud 9 is your cup of tea, show the people at Anarkik 3D some love by supporting their cause.

And then of course there is the crowd funding project of the Scrappies by Ulrich Schwanitz which we featured on our blog. Our friend Ulrich is in search of $1,000 on Indiegogo in the name of uniting the wonderful theme of love and the modern technology of 3D printing. He has passed the halfway mark and has 31 days left. Do you know someone special and would like to give him/her a customized 3D printed gift? Then Ulrich’s project might be something for you.

On our side we brought you a very nice and new pricing model for all laser sintered models that fit within a bounding box of 125cm³. The great thing about it is that half price is guaranteed and it only gets better the more copies you order. Definitely worth a look if you’re interested in a large order of small 3D printed works of art.

At the same time we introduced the ability to turn your polyamide designs into colorful fluffy works of art by adding colored fibers onto your model (we call it adding velvet fur). The results were quite nice and its feel lovely in your hands. We covered it in this blog post.

The many different options from the iPhone covers of KEES

We also saw the launch of KEES, a wonderful solution for customized 3D printed iPhone covers by Studio Samson which was also covered on our blog and where we also offer the ability to add velvet fur as a nice finish. Another fellow designer PeLi Design started offering his impressive door handle collection that i.materialise 3D prints at izé.

And last but not least, one of our designers got his work shown on WIRED with his 3D Printed Pulsar.

However, there are some rules and remarks to get the 20% STUDENT DISCOUNT.

• You have to be enrolled at a College, University or Technical school.
• You must contact us using an .edu or other university/school email address to verify this (sorry about this but someone always will play unfair even though virtually all are fair). In case you didn’t know yet, get in touch with us through contact (@) i.materialise.com (just to be clear, leave out the brackets and the spaces when you use it).
• The 3D print(s) you order are for a school or school related project.
• When your project is finished, you provide us with images to show your work. We love seeing the result of your hard work. If we’d like to show them on our blog, we will ask for your permission first.
• Enter the promo code MASTER3DPRINT2012 (quite a mouthful, isn’t it) during the checkout process.
• We have the right to refuse selected orders in some cases. We probably won’t ever but we thought we’d put that in to be sure. Now, we wouldn’t want other 3D printing services ordering from us would we.
• As always, free shipping is applied above a $99/99€ order value.
•  The 20% discount is valid on all of our non-metal materials: polyamide, alumide, multicolor, high detail resin, paintable resin, transparent resin, prime gray and ABS. The offer also applies for dyed and velvet polyamide AND for the polyamide priority service. We know this can particularly come in handy as deadlines approach.
• Don’t worry about pricing too much. Our 3D print lab is, without any doubt, the quickest and most straight forward way to get an instant price for your model (with the exception of transparent resin though). No login required, upload your model, select different materials, and see which one suits your project best.
• The most popular material for student projects is by far polyamide. And as not everyone needs make big things, prices for small models in polyamide and alumide were recently cut in half. Just remember this is a temporary offer ending at the end of May. Read more about the price drop.
• Don’t forget about the production time of your model (generally between 5-15 working days) and the actual delivery time (1-2 days). Sending in your project in time will save you (and us) a lot of stress. That’s a promise!
• The 20% student discount is valid only until the end of this school year, meaning the 30th of June 2012.

We hope to see a lot more of your inspiring work in the future. And don’t forget we have a great Customer Service team with talented support engineers to help you in getting a wonderful result.

Ula Miami Concept Car by Josh Henry

Transportation Design student at The University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Material: transparent resin

Mars lamp by Pieter-Jan Debuyust and Laurens Dekeyser

Civil Engineering and Architecture students at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
Material: polyamide

Movementor by Kiran Gangadharan

Postgraduate in Arts, Media and Design at Transmedia (Sint -Lukas Brussels University College of Art and Design), Belgium.
Material: polyamide

Soft Surface by Jung Woo Yeo and Wonshok Lee

Coursework for ‘Saturated Models’ Seminar GSAPP, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Instructors: Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid
Photo courtesy of Julie Jira – www.restlessimaginings.com

Material: polyamide

The Appear Lamp with a Happy Mother's Day message

Mother’s Day is just around the corner in a great numbers of countries. How cool would it be to get your mom a customizable 3D printed Lamp or some nice 3D printed jewelry? We’ve made a list of polyamide based 3D printed gifts that you might want to look at as a starting point. Alternatively you might want to tell your mother a special something through our Appear Lamp? I’d say, have a browse through our options and make sure to select that perfect gift for that special mother of yours. Below you’ll find two examples from our Mother’s Day Selection.

Stone by Dario Scapitta

Heart of Time (Talisman) by André Greiner-Petter