Six finalists (teams) presented their 3D printing projects in front of the audience and six jury members after a welcome speech by HNU Vice President Prof. Dr. Elmar Steurer. In addition, interested parties had the opportunity to follow the event in a livestream by 3D printing expert Andreas Weiß from AMPRrO 3D on YouTube and to vote for the audience award. For the first time, the Challenge was held on a European level.
The jury consisted of company representatives and other experts in 3D printing: Christina Kwade (TUM.Additive), Monika Ruhkopf (PROTOTEC GmbH & Co. KG), Andreas Weiß (AMPRrO 3D), Christoph Hilscher (Hilscher GmbH), Dr. Fabian Frommer (Alumni HNU and organizer of the last three Challenge) and Johannes Mayer (Daimler Truck AG). In addition to 3D-printed trophies, the teams won filament and construction space vouchers and technical workshops. The team favored by the online audience will also receive a video published by Andreas Weiß on the 67,300-follower AMPrO 3D YouTube channel.
When ideas become reality
First place went to the "AIRGAE" team with its idea for a bioreactor in which microalgae can be grown as feed for fish living in aquacultures. The highlight: this way of obtaining feed is much more sustainable than conventional methods and at the same time the designed bioreactor is smaller than bioreactors already existing on the market.
"We are very happy and proud to have won the European 3D Printing Challenge and the Audience Award!", says Andrea Vazquez. Kaung Myat adds, "In the last few months we have put a lot of time into our project. Now to see that our idea actually works is just a great feeling." Olesia Omelko concluded, "The Challenge was a super way to test our idea and now takes it to a whole new level. We'll definitely keep going!"
Second place went to Malte Zachow of StampForge for his customizable stamp that can be used for pastries, for example. Third place went to Marco Ederer with his TÜV-approved 3D-printed motorcycle sidecar, in which he had already traveled 800 kilometers with his wife as a passenger.
Also presented at the finals were: Project "Kleinstein," a building block that children can play with but that is also suitable for constructing furniture (4th place), Project "Stufenlehre" for measuring O-rings (5th place) and Project "Obolite Wallet," a coin in which an access key for Bitcoin can be stored (6th place).
Prize sponsors included:
- Daimler Truck
- AMPrO 3D
- EOS GmbH
- Filament World
- Formnext
- Honold Logistics
- Max Hilscher GmbH
- Nano Dimension
- PROTOTEC GmbH & Co. KG
- TUM Venture Labs
The 3D Printing Challenge consists of three rounds. In the first round, all submissions were evaluated by a panel of experts. The submitters of the best ideas were asked to develop a business plan. Based on this, the six finalists (teams) were selected.
The live stream video will soon be available at www. 3d-druck-challenge.de.
