The FreeCAD Project Association has launched its first community design contest, partnering with UK open science hardware company Labcrafter. The contest asks participants to design an open hardware pinch valve, with the full brief and entry process hosted on the FreeCAD forum.
This is a good kind of community challenge: a real technical object, useful to open science hardware projects, and well suited to FreeCAD’s parametric modelling strengths. The contest offers cash prizes of $500, $250, and $100 for the first three places, but the more interesting outcome would be reusable open hardware designs that demonstrate FreeCAD as a practical tool for scientific and fabrication communities.