Heath Townsend, Evol Components Wins Make it Real Challenge

The Make it Real 3D printing challenge invited designers, engineers, and makers from around the world to submit ideas that take advantage of a new rugged 3D printing material, COR Alpha. COR Alpha is an entirely new additive manufacturing material that can produce products impossible to manufacture any other way. COR Alpha offers the quality and strength of an injection molded part with the complex geometry and customization of 3D printing.

“All of the finalists had amazing ideas, but Heath stood out for two reasons, explained PolySpectra CEO Raymond Weitekamp. “First, he had been actively designing his products for additive manufacturing from their very inception. Second, he was ready to sell the final product within weeks of us demonstrating a functional prototype. Heath was ready for us to make his idea real!”

Heath Townsend has been working with the polySpectra team to continue to develop his design. “We went through a number of design revisions to get to a functional prototype that was able to integrate with the rest of his hardware. Going forward, we are going to optimize the design and process for production, so that we can start manufacturing his indicator bracket when he begins selling them in January”, Raymond added.

The young designer from the UK was fascinated by nature’s way of continually proving that it already has the solution to complex problems. The completed design comprises of two pieces that pop together, using a ball and socket connection, these are connected with machined parts, including the tiny indicator itself. Along the edges of the bracket, a series of protrusions guide the cables for the indicator. The form of these small nubs derives from 3D scans of a human pelvis, which were then shrunk down and adjusted to provide the most efficient solution to contain the relevant cables.

polySpectra, a VC funded additive manufacturing company from Silicon Valley, prints COR Alpha using DLP (Digital Light Processing) printing, one of the seven main types of 3D printing. DLP printing is capable of reaching the highest standards of 3D printing in terms of part complexity and precision.