The winners of the nationwide 3D printing competition have now been announced

On Wednesday, 17 November, the winners of a nationwide 3D printing competition for vocational school students were announced.

The project was launched by the Knowledge Centre for Crafts, Design & Architecture and the Knowledge Centre for Automation and Robotics Technology to support vocational students’ interest in 3D printing technology and increase the overall motivation to work creatively with technology in vocational education programmes.

The competition aims to spread awareness of—and interest in—working with additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies. The use of 3D printing technologies is growing explosively worldwide across many different industries, and it is therefore important that Danish companies and educational institutions embrace the technology and its many opportunities, so that we do not fall behind in international competitiveness.

A well-thought-out solution

The competition judges emphasised that the team had clearly gone through a well-considered and solid process, resulting in an adaptive design that solves a specific problem. It was also clear that the solution is tailored to the capabilities of the 3D printer, and the print itself was of high quality.

“It has been a fun challenge, because we had to find a solution to a specific problem, and we immediately knew what we wanted to take on,” says Emil Birkeholm Lund.

Despite a high level among the participants, Simon Møller Jensen and Emil Birkeholm Lund took the win.

“It’s pretty wild that we won! I’m very surprised, because we have seen the others’ solutions, and I think the standard was very high, so I’m just really happy,” says Simon Møller Jensen, who is currently completing his GF2 programme in the industrial technician programme at Herningsholm.

Winning design: A practical holder for the workshop

On Wednesday, Simon Møller Jensen and Emil Birkeholm Lund were named the skilled winners of the 3D competition with their innovative parallel block holder. They 3D-printed a holder for parallel blocks, which otherwise tend to be scattered around in everyday use: “[…] all these parallel blocks usually end up in a haystack in the workshop, and it would be nice if it were easier to quickly find the right one,” says Emil, who—like Simon—is training as an industrial technician at Herningsholm.

3D printer for the lucky winners

“It’s simply a really great prize, because none of us has a 3D printer at home. The competition has truly been an eye-opener for us in terms of what you can use a 3D printer for, and what opportunities there are for exciting new solutions to very specific problems,” says Emil Birkeholm Lund.