Beer Coaster Design Challenge with Brew Gentleman

Location: Brew Gentleman

Chris and Ryan met Asa Foster, Co-founder of Brew Gentleman, at the Jellybox group build event supported by 3DPPGH, and we have been thinking of a way to work with Asa ever since. Asa and Brew Gentlemen generously hosted our 1st Beer Coaster Design Challenge! The winners took home awesome prizes like a growler of Brew Gentlemen beer (from Asa), filament and merch (from MatterHackers), and bragging rights within the ‘burgh. In addition, Asa gave us a nickel tour of the Brew Gentleman brewery, and we learned why Brew Gentleman is Ryan’s favorite Pittsburgh brewery.

Chris and Ryan raising a glass of General Braddock at Brew Gentleman’s very svelte taproom. [Photo credit: Chad Elish]

We did have a couple of rules… All beer coaster designs and prints must:

  • Use a Creative Commons license (CC BY)
  • Be either a 3.5” circle or 3.5” rounded square w/ 0.25” radius
  • Allow glassware to sit flat upon it
  • Incorporate the Brew Gentlemen logo

The design submissions were rather awesome: dual filament, resin encapsulated, motorized with LEDs, chocolate, and sintered sugar with a saki binder… I repeat, “sintered sugar with a saki binder”.

A special shout-out goes to Chad Elish for taking some really awesome photos of the event.

Click here for the Google photo album.

Congratulations to the award winners:

Left to right: Jeff Bearer (2nd place), Asa Foster, Dillon Nichols (1st place), Chris Yohe, and Ryan Priore [Photo credit: Chad Elish]

1st Place: Resin-filled Three River Topographical Coaster (Dillon Nichols)

Dillon 3D-printed a topographical map of Pittsburgh’s three rivers and then filled it with clear resin. It was so gorgeous that I could not imagine covering it with a beer glass… You can download his design on Thingiverse here.

Dillon’s 1st place coaster [Photo credit: Chad Elish]
Asa and Dillon holding his winning coaster entry [Photo credit: Chad Elish]

2nd Place: Spinning, LED-Flickering, Rule Trolling Coaster (Jeff Bearer)

Jeff took his design to another level with the incorporation of LEDs and a motor to spin the beer as if it were on display. You can download his design on Tinkercad here.

Asa and Jeff holding his winning coaster entry [Photo credit: Chad Elish]
Ryan was trying out the spin function of Jeff’s coaster [Photo credit: Chad Elish]

Other Designs

Ryan’s Filament-Swapped and Buzzed Two-Tone Coaster is a dual extrusion design that incorporated a filament containing remnants from beer brewing. You can download his design from Thingiverse here.

Bringing Together Makers & The 3D Printing Community

Location: HackPGH

Wow… Just, wow…

Rapid + TCT took place in Pittsburgh this year, and our humble little 3D Printing group brought together MatterHackers, Ultimaker, Make:, Lulzbot, 3Dprint.com, and Makers for a fantastic night of 3D printing tech talk and a little southwest food flair.

I would write more in this post; however, Sarah Goehrke, Editor-in-Chief of 3DPrint.com, already did! Check out her coverage of our event here.

Sarah Goehrke, Editor-in-Chief of 3DPrint.com, wrote an article about this month’s massive meetup!

Chris and Ryan had press credentials, and they got to hang out at the conference as well. You can see more about that here!

Yohe is not only a Printrbot fanboy…