The Makeathon is Triton 3D’s annual community outreach event that is meant to give students a chance to get familiar with 3D printing technology in a competitive environment. There are typically two categories, either Beginner or Advanced, allowing for students with no experience to be able to compete and learn in the process as well as giving students with more experience a chance to push their own limits while competing with other like-minded students.
The 2017 Makeathon is approaching! More details are coming soon, so stay tuned to find out all the details. It will be hosted from April 14th-16th, 2017.
The event was first established in 2015 in the inaugural year of the Triton 3D club. Since the first, we have seen tremendous growth within the club as well as of the event. While T3D has been a relatively small organization, the Makeathons have all been up to capacity with a waiting list to participate. Unfortunately we are largely limited by logistics as we want to pair each team with their own 3D printer, but so far we have found that there is quite a bit more interest than we are able to handle making the event popular.
We have found support for our event through local businesses and national corporations in an effort to expand interest into additive manufacturing practices. Through their support, we have been able to host events with over 100+ students participating (with a printer assigned to each team of maximum 4). Past sponsors include engineering powerhouse and software giant Autodesk. We have worked closely with Autodesk to help spread their new and revolutionary CAD program called Fusion 360 at the grassroots level. Other sponsors include Robo3D, a local business whose 3D printers served as the backbone of the 2015 Makeathon. Without the support of our sponsors, we would not be able to host nearly as successful of an event.
We look forward to coming years in hopes of expanding the Makeathon into a total hands-on hackathon. We want to see the event expand and allow for more freedom for the participants so that they are able to interact with more additive manufacturing methods and gain first hand experience creating solutions to real world problems.