Another thing that occurred to me during the judging not really knowing anything about 3d printing , was the opportunity for ‘lifting’ designs from other sources on thingiverse etc, modifying those designs/drawings or using parts of them.
For example,take a basic battery holder - 2 x 18650 cells in series with a removable lid - user Jimmyjoebloggs downloads one from the net and uses it in his design, he also downloads a switch holder and a few other ‘functional’ non design parts, but the overall outside design and internal structure is completely his own work.
Bearing in mind it would be a brand new category - would you 3d print guys consider the above scenario cheating, or playing fair? right or wrong?
I only ask as I don’t have a 3d printer, so have no idea how often it happens (using bits of others designs etc) only that presumably it does?
It would be nice for whoever runs it next year to have input from the people who use them on the new rules should there be any.
Just thoughts lol!
Stepping back from the details of 3D printing, I firmly believe any contestant that gets 3rd party help and presents the work as his own is cheating.
That said, I’m not against 3rd party help in the competition, just as long as everyone knows the extent of the help so his actual work can be judged accordingly.
As far as downloading a battery holder and printing it, it seems the same as buying a battery holder to me. It’s just another way of shopping. Again, I’m good with it as long as they don’t present it as work they did.
A good comparison there Josh. It is kinda like ‘buying’ one and using that in a way. I hadn’t thought of it like that - and is why I ask :) I’m ignorant to the whole thing :person_facepalming:
And sincere apologies for doing this in alpg’s thread :person_facepalming: , it just kinda happened, I’m so sorry! I’ll say no more :person_facepalming:
Also, most open source 3D models have a license agreement that has a bare minimum of an “attribution” requirement. This means using them requires you to include your source in any documentation.
Could you please elaborate on these mistakes?
I remember your build as something that was (mostly?) problem free. Is this because you’ve made so many errors before and are now experienced? Or maybe there were mistakes but you didn’t mention them or I missed them?
Yes, my build was mostly problem free because I have 13 years design experience and 9 years 3D printing experience. Measuring is fiddly, and at times tedious business, but there’s not really any way to share that in a build thread.
for me, with my limited 3d design skills it would be easier to make a design from a scratch, than modify an stl, i just can’t edit any stl, even my own, i can only edit 123.dx files, no one shares those files, (prbly no one uses 123design now, just like no one uses win xp, lol) you can only find stl files on thingiverse, i actually thought of getting a battery holder file there, but then figured it may be against the rules, so i designed my own, much simpler. no springs or contacts of any kind.
to answer your question, i would consider it cheating, or at least not fair. we already have reasonable allowance, like drivers, optics, leds, cells, hardware, now if people start getting some work done by someone else, that won’t be fair competition. but i’m no judge, and do not make rules, it is just my opinion
Yes, alpg88 brings up another good point about files. The STL files everyone shares online are just the part’s surface, not the original file. If it doesn’t fit as-is, you are mostly S.O.L.
For that reason I never download anything from the internet. It always results in wasted plastic and time for me.
I draw everything from scratch. Then if the measurements are off, no problem, I just edit my Solidworks file.
downloads one from the net and uses it in his design, he also downloads a switch holder and a few other ‘functional’ non design parts, but the overall outside design and internal structure is completely his own work.
