Design an improvement for your vehicle, win a 3D printed prize

Speaking of Personal Manufacturing, our fast-moving friends over at i.materialise have devised a new 3D printing competition for SketchUp modelers everywhere. The Google SketchUp and i.materialise Pimp Your Vehicle Challenge invites you to design an add-on, attachment or other accoutrement that would improve the transportation mechanism of your choice. Cars, bikes, motorcycles, pogo sticks—designs that would upgrade any mode of transit are all fair game. As an example of one such real-world object, consider the doohickey pictured below: It lets you attach a GPS device to the handlebars of your bicycle.

Judges from i.materialise and the SketchUp team will pick first, second and third-place winners. First prize gets his or her design 3D printed on a Zcorp multicolor printer and a SketchUp Pro 8 license. Perhaps even more interestingly, the engineers and product development people at i.materialise will work with the first-place winner to try to make the winning design a commercial reality.

Check out the official competition page for more details. The deadline for entries is July 14th, 2011. Good luck!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist