The MakerBot Customizer Challenge has over 200 entries and over 100 participants, and there are still eight full days to go. Whoa. It’s the home stretch with just over a week left, so let’s have an update and make sure everyone gets the chance to enter.
If you’re just hearing about the MakerBot Customizer Challenge for the first time, get some background information here. We’ve seen a ton of great activity for this challenge. It’s great that MakerBot Customizer has given a lot of you who were already being awesome with OpenSCAD a chance to spread your designs a bit. Big shout out to you parametric veterans.
It’s also encouraging people with no experience in this kind of design to jump into the game, and quite a few of you have uploaded your first thing to MakerBot Thingiverse just for this Challenge. Score!
IMPORTANT
● You have a week left to enter. Enter as many times as you want.
● There will be a winner in each of three categories: Useful, Wearable, Artistic.
● We’re announcing the winner during SXSW in Austin, Texas.
● See all of the entries here!
Questions and Answers after the jump. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS- How do I find MakerBot Customizer on MakerBot Thingiverse?
- To use MakerBot Customizer, you have to be logged into MakerBot Thingiverse. Then you have to enable the Customizer App.
- Which tags do I need to use in order to enter the competition?
- Be sure to add “Customizer”, “Customizer Challenge”, and a tag for one of the categories: “Useful”, “Wearable”, or “Artistic”.
- Which category do games fall under?
- Great question. We’re leaving that decision up to you.
- Is this a USA-only Challenge?
- Anyone can enter! We welcome designs from around the world for this Challenge.
- Will entries be reviewed for changes throughout the Challenge period?
- Feel free to change your entries up until the end of the challenge (March 8, 11:59 PM ET)
- What do you mean when you say you will judge entrees by “the number of times people use your design to create new things”?
- Great question! Part of your score is how many times someone uses Customizer to make their own customized version of your design. We are not taking into account how many times people upload derivatives of your work.
- If I have uploaded multiple OpenSCAD files as part of a Thing, how do I get Customizer to use the file I want?
- Your customizable thing can only consist of one OpenSCAD file. Separating out the components of your file into customizable parts is something you do in your OpenSCAD code. You can learn more about OpenSCAD by following MakerBlock’s awesome tutorial series.
- Can I use .stl files, or files from Proengineer, Solidworks, or Inventor?
- Customizer is built on OpenSCAD, a 3D design program/language that we think is accessible to people who want to learn this kind of design. This is the only kind of file you can upload for use with Customizer. We hope you’ll give it a shot!
- Is there any way to test and tweak the Customizer script with your interface prior to uploading?
- Yes, you can test out your Customizer script now before you publish it to the world.
- What are the rules surrounding derivatives and remixes? Can I upload a customizable version of someone else’s design?
- For this challenge, we are rewarding the use of MakerBot Customizer. There is no rule that says you can’t use someone else’s design to create a customizable thing, as long as the license of the original thing permits it. However, we hope you do this in a creative and original way. The best remixes on MakerBot Thingiverse are the ones that take an original work to an interesting new level.