Commercial space company DIYROCKETS and 3D-modeling software company Sunglass are holding a competition for interested participants to design 3D printable rocket engines. The competition launched on Friday March 8 at SXSW.
The goal of the contest is to design a rocket engine capable of delivering small payloads into low-Earth orbit at a low cost. Inventor Dean Kamen, NASA space researcher Angelo Vermeulen and a panel of experts will judge the competition. The winning teams will receive $10,000 worth of prizes from Sunglass. The top two rocket engines will be 3D printed through a $500 donation from the 3D printing company Shapeways.
"We are excited to be working with Sunglass and Shapeways to harness the power of open sourcing, 3D printing, and collaboration in the cloud, which will aid our efforts to rapidly advance space exploration," co-founder and co-president of DIYRockets Darlene Damm said in a statement. "As NASA's push towards private and public innovation finally comes to fruition and technology is now more affordable than ever, we see this as a greenfield opportunity to truly redefine space design and technology."
Winning designs will be the basis for further discussion on 3D printed rocket engine design. The public will be able to view and comment on the designs through Sunglass. Ultimately the companies hope to create a sort of marketplace of rocket parts that engineers can choose from for their own projects.
Designs are due by June 1 and winners will be announced on July 1. The companies plan to hold additional such competitions in the future as a means of promoting creative technology and collaboration.
"Our goal at Sunglass is to help take the next amazing idea to production faster through global collaboration," Sunglass co-founder and CEO Kaustuv DeBiswas said in a statement. "By joining forces with DIYROCKETS and Shapeways for the 3D Rocket Engine Design Challenge, we will be able to see a preview of the incredible impact that 3D printing and cloud collaboration will have in advancing aerospace technology."
More details are available here.
