We’ve had an awesome response to our 10-Day Design Challenge - Games and Puzzles. But that’s made it so hard to choose a final group of 15 that our judges ended up with 17, and refused to cut it back. Below you can see pictures of each puzzle, and BELOW THE PICTURES is the voting panel. If you’re a Designer of one of the winners below, feel free to invite all your friends and family to vote for you. In our first Design Challenge there was a very lively discussion about the choice of winners. So for all of you with strong opinions this is your chance to make them heard.

Please note you can click on the images of each product to go to their individual showroom page for more detail. Some are obvious in how they work, but others are intricate and may need a closer look to understand. Please remember, clicking on the image is NOT A VOTE for the product, you need scroll down to the bottom of the post and make your choice in the poll located there. Good luck everyone!

1. zen the infinite puzzle

2. Portrait Puzzle

3. Ponoku Anyone

4. Marble Madness

5. Tessa

6. Underground Maze

7. Crane Mobile - 9mm

8. Pteradactyl - 9mm

9. Layer Puzzle

10. California County Puzzle

11. Match the Typeface

12. Build (h)and Share: Maze Maker

13. Grimly Dominoes

14. Erik & Styx Double-Sided Puzzle

15. Puzzle Box

16. InterlaceCircle

17. Gears

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Our 10-Day Design Challenge - Games and Puzzles is now well under way. We hope that you’re getting your designs into Ponoko. But if you’re looking for that inspiration to get to work on it we have it in the announcement that Ronen Kadushin will be the Guest Judge for the Challenge. Ronen has a degree in industrial design from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, is a winner of numerous design awards, and is well known as a design leader in creating open designs. You can check out his portfolio to get an idea of his own work.

One other point to keep in mind for the Design Challenge, our Guest Judge will not be the only factor in deciding the winners. Due to popular request we will be adding a fan voting system for the latest 10-Day Design Challenge. This gives you an opportunity to really encourage your friends and family to get behind you and give you the votes you deserve. We’ll be announcing the voting system on the blog as soon as it’s ready so watch this space and get ready to start campaigning like Hillary and Barack.

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Hi all! Introducing myself as Ponoko’s fifth new blogger: I’m Roy from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

OK, so I may be 11,427 miles from Ponoko HQ but I take solace in the fact that I’m technically 12 hours younger than any of my antipodean equivalents! I’ll be blogging on collaborative design / personal fabrication / sustainable manufacture news from this island and on any other stuff that catches my eye on the web.

I’m an industrial designer by trade, having graduated in 2005 from the Glasgow School of Art / University of Glasgow joint course in Product Design Engineering. Since then I have been either working freelance under the name of Zero-waste Design or cycle messengering in the beautiful city of Glasgow. Recently I have been working for a local social enterprise called the Coach House Trust helping to design and produce outdoor furniture. I am really interested in developing open source products with them using distributed development tools such as Ponoko to collaborate with other similar projects.

My other great passions are music, particularly playing in bands, as well as flying kites and of course cycling, so doubtless my future posts may be biased in these directions!

I’ve had a bit of an obsession with what I call Open Source Design (basically sharing designs and early design data) for a while. Its really exciting to see how the web (along with new fabbing technology) is enabling designers and users across the globe to collaborate more in order to build increasingly efficient, appropriate and personal products.

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We’ve decided to run an ongoing poll in regards to materials. We get quite a few suggestions on materials but we also know there are a lot more out there that people are interested in seeing. So if you have a moment vote below for your choice of the next material we should add to the catalog.

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Hello all, my name is John Cromie. I’ll be venturing forth into the interwebs and beyond to bring you shiny nuggets of information that highlight the world of mass customization, rapid manufacturing, and the power of the creative class. I’m a graphic designer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my varied interests in this area include DIY projects, sustainable & appropriate design, and prototyping. I’m excited to explore and showcase the possibilities that can exist with personal manufacturing.

As a designer and obsessive knowledge freak, I tend to learn new skills to fully realize a design concept, or I use a new project as an excuse to learn a new skill. My personal interests and activities include (in alphabetical order): alternative energies, bookmaking, cooking, drawing, electronics, energy harvesting, game design, gardening, hiking, letterpress printing, metal-smithing, origami, papercraft, reading, robotics, screen printing, sculpture(ceramics), wilderness survival, and woodcarving. In between those, I tend to sleep. I hope to find a focus sometime in my mid-seventies.

Thanks for taking the time to read about me, I hope my introduction was mildly interesting, if not, I’ll try to do better next time, srsly.

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Ponoko have 5 “Adult Day Passes” to Maker Faire to give away to some lucky person who lives in the Bay Area, or intends to be there when the Faire is on (May 3rd - 4th). You can get full details on Maker Faire from their website.

The passes are for either day, May 3rd or 4th, and are valued at $25 each. To get a hold of them just email Ponoko Co-Founder Derek at derek.elley@ponoko.com and tell him why you deserve one! I hear he’s very partial to being told how much you love Ponoko.

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Hi everybody, I’m David Kirkland from Sydney, Australia. I’m 21 years old and I’m a designoholic. I’ll be sharing with you the cool stuff that I find relating to all things Ponoko.

Ever since I can remember I’ve designed and made things with my Dad and Grandfather. As I got older the designing side of things started to take over from the making and so I decided to study industrial design. I’m now in the final year of my degree at the University of Western Sydney. I’ve also worked for a medical company designing medical products and whenever I have time I work on some of my own furniture designs.

When I’m not doing something design related I love sport especially cricket, tennis and surfing. I also have a keen interest in photography and art.

I was very excited to find Ponoko, it really breaks down the barriers between having an idea and getting it made. I’ve always been interested in indie design and digital manufacturing. It’s a great feeling when you have complete creative control to make your own products.

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Over the very near future the Ponoko Blog will be introducing new bloggers to help add to the flavor and mix of our community. Today it’s with great pleasure that we welcome Industrial Designer, Duann Scott. Duann’s background (see below) is eclectic to say the least! And it’s for that reason that we think you’ll find his posts very interesting.

Greetings all.

I, Duann will be writing regular posts on the Ponoko blog to keep you all up to date with developments in the field of mass customisation, product personalisation, design software, rapid prototyping and digital manufacture techniques along with associated issues of copyright, I.P. and digital rights management.

I am an Industrial Designer based in Australia whose practice includes the design and development of one off projects for furniture, exhibitions, retail and exhibition environments as well as large scale public art projects. You can check out some of my recent cleared projects on my portfolio site.

Due to my interest in emerging design technologies and the democratisation of the design process I am currently undertaking a professional doctorate within The School of Communication at The University of South Australia. This position gives me the support and resources to investigate this exciting field at depth, information I hope to disseminate to the online community via Ponoko.

Prior to working in design my background is in music composition and performance. Excited by the DIY culture that underlies the independent music industry I had a couple of projects released on independent electronic music label Surgery Records. Modula was an experimental electronic outfit formed with Reece Schubert using entirely home made or modified analog musical instruments, all driven by an analogue sequencer constructed from sega games consoles found in the bottom of a pawnbroker’s dumpster. Toby-1 was another project signed to Surgery Records, this time using a laptop to collaborate with Ruth Wilson playing viola, flute, clarinet and voice.

Now you all know a little bit about my background I hope this develops into an informal and inspiring discussion so please feel free to post comments or links to any info you find relevant and subscribe to the feed to ensure you keep up to date with all Ponoko happenings.

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We have an announcement about Hardboard supply on Ponoko. Unfortunately it has stopped being made the way we know and love. No longer is it available with 2 smooth sides. It now has a smooth side and a rough side.

We still have some 6mm in stock that is smooth on both sides but no more 4.75mm. Once the 6mm with 2 smooth sides has run out we will switch to the new stuff with 1 rough side. We hope this doesn’t inconvenience people too much.

Here are photos to show what the new material will be like.

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- image via Flickr

We want to make it easy for you to do cool stuff. And with the fantastic response we got from our first Design Challenge we’ve decided to run another one showcasing Games and Puzzles. So this is another chance to show off your design skills, get your creations made and delivered to your door for free. Oh, and win $1,000 in cash plus several thousand dollars in other prizes.

Design brief

Games and Puzzles can educate and entertain. They can be a solitary exercise or a group activity and when you have memorized how it goes together, you can pass it on to friends or family.

Your challenge is to create intriguing and entertaining games or puzzles on a laser cutter – within 10 days!

Laser cutting brings a new angle to games and puzzles. The ability to create incredibly intricate detail means the games and puzzles can be as simple or as complex as you like. The traditional jigsaw shape can now be designed with much greater variety and intricacy.

Laser surface treatments can be a graphic in nature or a texture. How these are used is essential in the design of your puzzle. Every mark or line on the material becomes a clue on how to put the puzzle together.

Your creations need not be 2D. You could make a 3D puzzle using layers or shapes connected in an interesting way. Think about how multiple pieces can be combined to create an interesting design.

Attention to detail, material combinations, connections, production feasibility and quality will be key to making your design stand out.

Prizes

Up to $5,000 in prizes are up for grabs:

Open Round
Everyone is invited to submit a product design – the more times you enter the more opportunity you have of winning:

* The top 15 designs will be made for free – that’s materials, making and shipping to your door.
* Plus they’ll be invited to be submitted into the Invitation Round.

Invitation Round
The top 15 designs from the Open Round will go head to head:

* The top product will win $1,000 cash.
* The two runners up will each win $500 cash.
* The ‘People’s Choice’ product will win a $500 Ponoko voucher.

Design requirements

* It must be possible for Ponoko to make the main component of your design.
* Designs must be new (i.e. not already hosted on Ponoko).
* You can only use materials in the Ponoko materials catalog.
* You can use extras such as fixings in your design (supplied and assembled by you).
* If you submit multiple designs, they must be unique. Please don’t just submit iterations of the same design.
* Designs may be as simple or as complex as you want.

Judging

There are two phases to the judging process:

Open Round – Submit your product design idea to win up to 15 prizes

* The first round will be judged on a graphic representation and a description of your idea uploaded to your Ponoko Showroom. (See ‘How to enter’ below for more information about submitting your design).
* Entries will be accepted between May 1st and May 10th 2008.
* 15 designs will be selected by a panel of judges.

If your design is selected among the top 15 entries, we will make it and ship it to you free of charge. We will also invite you to enter your product into the Invitation Round …

Invitation Round – Submit your finished product to win up to $2,500 in prizes

* This final round will be judged on photographs of your assembled product and a description of it uploaded to your Ponoko Showroom. (See ‘How to enter’ below for more information about submitting your product).
* Entries will be accepted up until May 30th 2008.
* 4 winning products will be selected by a panel of judges and community voting: 3 products will be selected by the judges and 1 will be selected by the community. If a product selected by the community has also been selected by the judges then the next best as voted by the community will win the ‘People’s Choice Award’.

People’s Choice Award

Community voting for the Invitation Round will be held on our blog between May 15th and May 30th 2008. We will post the top 15 on our blog for the community to vote. So tell your friends and family to head over to our blog to get voting for you!

Judging criteria

Entries/finalists will be judged on the following criteria, in no particular order:

1. Innovation in design concept.
2. Clarity and resolution of design and final product.
3. Originality.
4. Presentation and photography.
5. Interesting use of material(s).
6. Attention to detail.
7. Production feasibility and quality.

Judging panel

The judging panel is made up of representatives from Ponoko along with the Ponoko community – people you give a nudge to come and vote for you on our blog for the ‘People’s Choice Award’.

How to enter

There are 2 rounds to enter:

Open Round –

May 1st to 10th 2008 – you’ve got 10 days to enter!
Go to your MyPonoko account and upload the following elements into your Showroom:

1. Product design .eps files;
2. Photos/images representing the final product;
3. Up to 200 words describing your idea;
4. Enter the tag “PuzzleChallenge”.

Tip: The key here is getting your idea across. The images need to show what your design looks like (sketches, renders, photos, 3D drawings) plus you need to include a description of up to 200 words that communicates your design concept. 3D sketches and photos of well-crafted cardboard models are great ways to show what something will look like. Remember, your entry must be submitted between May 1st and 10th. This means you have just 10 days to come up with an idea and upload it into your Ponoko Showroom. This is the challenge – we want to see how good you really are!

Thursday May 15th 2008 – we announce the winners of the Open Round

Congratulations! The top 15 entries will be made and shipped for free and go through to the Invitation Round. We will post these top 15 on our blog for community voting to commence. So you can tell your friends and family to get voting to win the People’s Choice Award.

Friday May 23rd 2008 – we will have delivered the top 15 products to the Open Round winners

If you’re one of our Open Round winners, we’ll be busy making and shipping your stuff to you. Once you get it, you will have about a week to assemble your product, add any finishing touches, photograph it and upload the new photos into your Ponoko Showroom to be eligible for the Invitation Round prizes.

Invitation Round –

Friday May 30th 2008 – entries close for the Invitation Round

Go to your MyPonoko account and upload the following elements into your Showroom:

1. Photos of your final assembled product;
2. Put your product or product plan on sale in your Showroom, with a price to buy it;
3. The tag “PuzzleChallengeFinalist”.

Tip: Photos on a plain white or black background look best. Use a tripod if possible and avoid using a flash. If your camera has a macro function using this will help with any close up photos or detail shots. And remember to get your friends and family voting for you!

Tuesday June 3rd 2008 – we announce the winners of the Invitation Round

Congratulations! The grand prize winner will receive $1,000, the top 2 finalists will get $500 and the People’s Choice Award winner will receive a $500 Ponoko voucher.

Some important details

For those who are interested in the fine print, here you go - Ponoko 10-Day Design Challenge – Games and Puzzles terms, eligibility, intellectual property and copyright

Please contact us if you need help with any aspect of this challenge.

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