If you have a dirtbike and regularly hit the muddy trails, it’s a real hassle when you blow a tire out. Its not particularly easy to remove a tire unlike bicycle nor easy to carry around a spare tire and rim like you would a car tire. Rabaconda (formerly called Generat) ran the Dirtbike Tire Changing Tool Challenge to see if the GrabCAD community could develop something for dirtbike enthusiasts. Did we ever! Among 52 entries, Jamil picked up the $1000 grand prize for his compact design – congrats Jamil!
Rabaconda is a new company out of Estonia – we talked with Tönu Kallast, Co-Founder and Product Manager, about the challenge and the entries. GrabCAD is the perfect beginning point for startups. Rabaconda could count on seeing a whole galaxy of possible designs while spreading the word about their company. Design challenges are great for the community because every engineer has a chance to attack a real problem, practice their CAD skills and share advice with others.
For Rabaconda, the next step is to prototype and test the top five winners and discover which is the best mixture of function, form, price and ease of manufacture. As Tony noted, “They are drawings right now – its hard to say. So far I’m quite satisfied and excited.” Tony seemed more than willing to work with one of the five winners to perfect the design. Rabaconda’s business plan is dependant on crowdsourcing like GrabCAD. “We’d like to give motosport enthusiasts a chance to bring their ideas or already existing products they have made and make them available for every moto rider. Our mission is to offer riders the oportunity to create the moto products they use by themselves.”
That’s the beauty of crowdsourcing - the best designs are made by people that would want to use it themselves. For product design firms, crowdsourcing is the best way to get in touch with your customer base. And for those small startups, what a leaner yet more effective way than a GrabCAD design challenge?
