GE Firstbuild, a partnership between of Louisville-based GE Appliances (NYSE: GE) and Local Motors, is collaborating with 3-D printing company MakerBot, part of Stratasys Ltd. (Nasdaq: SSYS), on the challenge. It’s aimed at developing innovations and products that can be placed inside of the refrigerator.
FirstBuild engineers already have designed test prints that include a 3-D printed pizza box holder and a motorized 3-D printed wine chiller.
“We see the FirstBuild Thingiverse Icebox Challenge as a way to empower our customers to design accessories for their home appliances that fit their own lifestyle best,” Natarajan “Venkat” Venkatakrishnan, director of GE FirstBuild, said in the release. “To be able to open up our innovation process to the public and have them tell us what accessories they would like in their refrigerators is pretty exciting.”
1st Place – IceBoxChallenge
First place winner will choose between a MakerBot Replicator® Desktop 3D Printer or a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental 3D Printer, and his or her creation featured on Thingiverse and displayed in MakerBot Retail Stores
2nd Place – IceBoxChallenge
Second place winner will receive a MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D Printer, and his or her creation will be featured on Thingiverse and displayed in the MakerBot Retail Stores
3rd Place – IceBoxChallenge
Third place will receive three spools of MakerBot Filament, a Thingiverse T-shirt, a FirstBuild T-shirt, and his or her creation will be featured on Thingiverse and displayed in MakerBot Retail Stores
If you’ve always thought your refrigerator needed an accessory that isn’t currently offered in the marketplace, this is contest is perfect for you.
To qualify, designs must be uploaded to firstbuild.com between November 3 and November 23, 2014, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Entrants are also encouraged to upload their entries to thingiverse.com using the tag #IceBoxChallenge for a chance to be featured on the Thingiverse site.
3D print testing, online community voting and judging will occur from November 27 to December 2, with the winner announced December 15. –
Good Luck!