SME Student Competition for Structurally Optimized 3D Printing

Design for Direct Digital Manufacturing Competition calls for college & high school submissions.


The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has launched this year’s Design for Direct Digital Manufacturing Competition. The organization is now accepting 3D Printable design submissions from college and high school students.

Peter Ried, secretary of SME’s Direct Digital Manufacturing Tech Group said, “This annual competition provides an exciting venue for students to showcase their creativity and the unique benefits of additive manufacturing for real-world applications … As a result, attendees will get a glimpse at how additive is sparking the imagination of the next-generation workforce and helping advance the technology for all.”

The theme of this year’s competition is “Structures Rule.” Therefore, there will be a focus on designs structurally optimized for 3D Printing. These structurally optimized designs will maximize efficiency while reducing design and printing costs.

Students can compete in three categories:

1.       Architectural mock-ups

2.       Healthcare devices

3.       Mobile devices (for air, space, land and/or sea)

The Direct Digital Manufacturing Tech group sponsors the competition. The group is also a member of SME’s Rapid Technologies & Additive Manufacturing Community. This community focuses on tech and processes that will improve, change and manufacture products cheaper and faster.

The deadline for submissions is April 20th 2015. Winners from each category and academic level will be announced at the SME 2015 RAPID Conference and Exposition running May 18th to 21st in Long Beach, California. First prize for both university and high school submissions is a free pass to the RAPID 2015 conference, a $300 stipend, a one-year SME student membership and more.

Source SME

Images courtesy of RAPID Technologies & Additive Manufacturing Community

Written by

Shawn Wasserman

For over 10 years, Shawn Wasserman has informed, inspired and engaged the engineering community through online content. As a senior writer at WTWH media, he produces branded content to help engineers streamline their operations via new tools, technologies and software. While a senior editor at Engineering.com, Shawn wrote stories about CAE, simulation, PLM, CAD, IoT, AI and more. During his time as the blog manager at Ansys, Shawn produced content featuring stories, tips, tricks and interesting use cases for CAE technologies. Shawn holds a master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Guelph and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.