Back in January GrabCAD ran a competition with Tern Bicycles to develop a lighter crank for their folding bikes. A tough task but GrabCAD loves a good challenge! Discussion was heated, CAD skills were flexed and out of 34 entries, Hevi received the award (a Verge Duo worth $999). The most difficult part for Tern and GrabCAD? Balancing Open Engineering and IP. It's a challenge in itself - and GrabCAD pulled it off.
Tern produces foldable bikes, a business that does not lend itself to straight-forward designs. Tern packages together a bevy of unique solutions to create a light and compact design. For Tern, the ideas that GrabCAD users may produce might open it up to patent infringement and aid competitors in incorporating a winning crank design into their own knock-offs. The solution? All submissions were private. To get a better picture, GrabCAD had a chat with chief designer Joakim Uimonen. Tern has been dealing with a number of copycat bike-makers over the past years, all of whom have been ‘knocking off our sales’ according to Joakim. Without a doubt, running the challenge this way gave Tern peace of mind.
All files from Tern were shared directly with users that requested them, all of whom had signed a binding NDA. A few users were stymied by the inability to upload their models to the library. By ensuring privacy of models, submitters were guaranteed a certain level of safety for their work as well from other less scrupulous users. Active dialogue between the users, GrabCAD and Tern made sure that a design competition could run without endangering the spirit of collaboration and competition that comes from open engineering.
At the moment, Tern is in the middle of evaluating winning design by GrabCAD user Hevi. In spite of some hiccups and delays, ‘we are still going to produce the crank’ says Joakim. When I asked him what he'd do differently, Joakim said more information like a more complete CAD file and clearer explanation of what is doable and not doable. Other challenges have been intentionally unclear and obtuse because of a fear that giving too much away would lead to piracy and patent infringement. As this challenge showed, successfully balancing a client's trepidation and the principals of open engineering depends on how well GrabCAD fosters an environment of collaboration and accountability among its members. In future, private challenges for the best and most trustworthy members of GrabCAD might be happening, if only to prove that crowdsourcing can produce excellent work.
