(Creaform: St. Georges Lévis, Québec) -- Last August, 3-D technology provider Creaform launched its Put Us to the Test 2010 challenge. Daring the world to submit high-difficulty engineering projects to its team of experts, the company promised thousands of dollars in engineering labor hours to the three most challenging entries. Creaform’s Put-Us-to-the-Test-2010 jury is happy to reveal the projects selected.
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Nothing is impossible
Winner of the “Nothing Is Impossible” $20,000 grand prize is Conceptual Art Technologies’ Benjamin Julian for his Walking Horse project. The idea—which has been deemed impossible by most—is to design a walking mechanical quadruped directly modeled on the musculoskeletal system of a real horse and able to support a 200 lb rider.
This full-scale robotized horse will have Creaform’s team of engineers thinking outside the square. They are ambitiously planning to reverse-engineer a full-scale horse. This way, they will have the morphological data at hand to carry out the project milestones: frame structure dimensioning, choice of materials, internal motion structure design, and construct and kinematics validity.
Consider it done
As first runner-up, FP Innovations’ Alain Albert gets the first $2,000 “Consider It Done” prize for his Aboriginal Totem Pole project. The project involves 3-D scanning of two existing pieces of Aboriginal artwork, a mask and a totem pole. The ultimate goal is to carve the artifacts using a five-axis CNC machine and provide First Nations artists of Canada with a 21st-century tool to improve their output and meet the growing demand for the fascinating art that they produce.
The second runner-up is the Helmet Project submitted by Glenn Thayer from Globe Composite Solutions. This involves 3-D scanning of a helmet to build an aluminum mold for ongoing production. This will replace the soft tooling currently used that requires substantial maintenance and reworking.
As work on these three challenging engineering projects begins, Creaform applauds the winners for their creative ideas, and its engineers for their know-how. If you are interested in Put Us to the Test 2010 project results, visit Creaform’s website regularly for follow-ups.
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