What Will You Design for the 3D Print Flex-Contest?

April 25, 2012

The first entrants are starting to appear in the Shapeways 3D Print Flex-Contest and we are really excited to see what you make with the squishy, flexible material.

What will you design?

What is the wildest idea you can think of?

Which design will have the most squish?

12 comments

Awww, poor bunny!

Animal Cruelty!
Looks a good material, Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Be good for Gaskets and things. Any ideas if it’ll be okay with a light Hydraulic Oil, like Brake Fluid?

It’s a really bad time for me for design time, but I was wondering about a spring and suction cup toy. I get the impression that a squishy spring wouldn’t be “stiff” enough to use like that, though, so it’s not past the drawing board yet.

Don’t worry Nancy, he’ll bounce right back!

Do you think this material would do decently with 1-2mm diameter wireframe-type jewelry?

Little guy’s hollow right? Or you’re pressing really hard?

How can this material react with water? As a sponge?

First, this material is not waterproof. I put some water in the bunny (so yes it is hollow), and the bunny started sweating immediately. So don’t recommend this for anything usage that has to be air tight or water tight.

The melting point is about 284 degree F, but we are unsure when the material will start warping. We infiltrate it at about 150 degree F. So we know it can at least stand up to that temperature.

I don’t know about suction.. especially since it is not air tight. Tell you what though, send me a file, and I’ll do a free test print for you.

We are finding that the initial 1mm may be a bit too thin; I would keep wires at around 1.5mm because it comes out of the machine a bit soft and way more brittle.

From my perspective it looks like there are fewer questions on this material as its shortcomings have come to light.

This looks awesome, I can see a lot of people using this for iPhone cases, model tires, or even making your own gumby action figure with it. I hope the demo works out!

This stuff looks really interesting. I’m wondering, you said that it started to sweat when filled with water, how fast did it sweat? What does this material feel like? Is it soft, rough, smooth, sandy???

I was thinking if it holds water but releases it slowly and is soft enough it could be interesting to make some sort of cooling device for runners or other outdoor activities. What kind of lower temperatures can it take? Could it be frozen and then thawed repeatedly without losing strength and flexibility?