It’s time to announce the winners of my 3D Printing contest for accessible gaming! Boy oh Boy did this go better than I planned. To be brutally honest, I didn’t have high expectations in regards to the number of submissions. I’ve been doing this a long time and, while people often want to help, they usually don’t have the time or skills or motivation to follow through. It’s fine, it’s just the way these kinds of things go. However, I was blown away! We received over 50 entries into the contest. Many of them were simply brilliant.
Judging
Judging something like this is nearly impossible. There’s no “Best solution” to limb difference in gaming. There’s no singular fix that solves everyone’s problem. This is one of the big reasons I threw this contest, but it also makes the judging part a bit of a weird concept.
That being said, our panel of judges included 3D printing gurus (Matt Stultz, and Stefan Herman), gamers who use assistive devices (Sam and his father Bobby Neid, and Christian Deriemier), and advocates for accessibility (Christine Getman, and Bryce Johnson). They all scoured the submissions and picked their top 5. I then went through their top 5 and found patterns where they voted for the same project. This resulted in a clear 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
Prizes
I was able to put together a pretty nice prize package for this contest. Prusa not only hosted the files for the contest on their site, they also donated a prusa mini and 5 spools of PLA. Pancakebot also reached out and donated a machine for the cause. I also decided to purchase two more pancakebots for the 2nd and 3rd place winners.
The Winners.
3rd
This thumbclick helper for ps4 by Timqui is shockingly simple but it solves a big problem. This is one of those solutions where you slap yourself on the forehead and think… why didn’t I think of that?
2nd
Akaki’s single hand Ps5 kit has been making waves on gaming sites this week. I kind of expected this one to win with how much attention it has been getting. I’ve actually already printed and shipped 4 of these and have more requests incoming. I’ve contacted Akaki and offered to pay to have him design an Xbox and ps4 version. He said he’d work on it and didn’t request money saying that he’ll always request tips, but only after he publishes the files.
1st
With the most votes from our judges, the first place winner is this Xbox controller mod for top-down gaming by TheDogeBork. It is clear that he put a lot of thought into how this would actually be used. The little joysticks for the buttons is a part I particularly like, and most judges pointed out that they liked the clamping consideration.
ADVERTISEMENT
