Student wins challenge and Stratasys FDM 3D Printer for The University of Oxford

Daniel Fahy, an Irish PhD student, has won first place in Stratasys’ annual Extreme Redesign Challenge Awards.

Fahy took first place in the ‘Art, Jewelry and Architecture’ category winning a $2,500 (approx. £2,000) scholarship, a free Stratasys FDM 3D Printer for his university for a year and a printout of his winning design.

Fahy is currently completing his DPhil in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. Having previously won the same category in 2017, for this year’s competition he leveraged his extensive knowledge of engineering and past experiences with 3D printing to recreate a fond childhood memory, a Hoberman Sphere, from scratch.

Fahy said: “I feel privileged to have won this competition. The main reason I entered was because it allowed me to be creative and explore my passion for engineering and design via a project of my own. While the Extreme Redesign Challenge provides guidelines, 3D printing gives you the design freedom to bring ideas to life that I previously thought not possible. This can be liberating, but also challenging, as you need to create a design that looks good but also functions as a 3D model.”

The Extreme Redesign Awards, hosted by GrabCAD and Stratasys, invite students globally from secondary to tertiary education, to either redesign an existing piece of art, jewelry or architecture, or create an entirely new one. A jury of distinguished industry figures evaluate all entries based on their creativity, but also how mechanically sound they are and whether they could realistically be produced.

Gina Scala, Director of Marketing, Global Education, Stratasys, added: “Daniel’s winning design perfectly exemplifies the level of creative innovation we receive globally each year as part of our Extreme Redesign Challenge. Fifteen years on from the inception of the competition and students still continue to amaze us with their ability to push the boundaries of design and creativity with 3D printing. The bar was particularly high this year, with our panel impressed with so many diverse designs – making the winners this time round truly deserving having shown exceptional levels of creative design.”

The Stratasys FDM 3D Printer has been installed at the Department’s Oxford Thermofluids Institute, enabling students to accelerate their research by turning design ideas into functional prototypes within a matter of hours. 

Fahy concludes: “3D printing is going to be around for a very long time, especially as the technology becomes more mature, less expensive and as a result more accessible to different fields. Since it provides such a valuable opportunity to accelerate learning and development, I believe it is critical that students, educators and people within industry know this technology is available and learn to use it.”