GrabCAD is excited to join consumer 3D printer company Makerbot, UK rapid prototyping firm Econolyst and charity group Techfortrade in setting a challenge to the world: How can you use 3D printing to help the Developing World? The prize: $100,000 dollars. It’s called the 3D4D challenge and anyone can enter.
3D printing is pretty revolutionary step in manufacturing to be sure. The ease in which a CAD design can be made into a physical object via 3D printing could be the latest and greatest 'Killer app'. The Economist wrote an article on it, placing 3D printing on the same level as the Steam Engine. In partnership with crowdsourcing sites like GrabCAD, this new paradigm has been called ‘Social Manufacturing’. Take a peak at the Syncho Gear Box by A.Papadopoulos. It's only a matter of downloading and printing the right parts to make a car at this point! So what ideas can the GrabCAD community think of? Utilizing 3D Printing, what kind of innovation can you imagine to solve a problem in the Developing World?
The rules are pretty simple. A winning idea is a technical innovation that addresses a significant social need (for example, access to clean water) and is an income-positive model or innovation. The finalists will be announced in the start of July, who will receive $1000 in research funds, a network of Mentors and the opportunity to present their perfected idea to the jury in October.
And it could be about anything. Maybe something like this idea – a system that recognizes the necessary CAD file from mobile pictures taken by farmers in India of a broken physical part (start at @1:40)
What ideas do you have GrabCAD? Maybe something close to Emil Pop's Popcan Solar Heater? You could 3D print a lot of the piping and assembly. You could use this design by Thaynan Pereira de Faria and create a 3D printable micro-hydro system to power homes. Lots of GrabCAD users are from these places those in the West call "Lesser-developed Countries” - and you may have a better idea of what is needed to be done. What ideas would you submit to solve local problems?
