For this year’s CAD competition, the sky’s the limit.

Inspired by an internal competition among Onshape staff, this year’s contest invited users from all over the world at all skill levels to create a design that tests their own creativity. 

Entries fell into three categories:

  • Part Design

  • Assembly Design

  • Custom Features


We received some amazing submissions in each category. To show off the amazing entries our users created, we chose one winner for each category, one Best Student design, and named the coveted 2022 Onshape Champion during Onshape Live ’22.

Submissions were scored on completeness and complexity, use of best practices, functionality and awesomeness. 

Of course, to be a winner means you get a prize. Each category winner received a $100 Amazon gift card and some Onshape goodies. The Best Student and Best Overall submissions were awarded a 3D printer, Onshape swag and a customized Onshape Design Competition Championship belt, albeit, without wrestling someone.

Now, on to the winning designs!

Part Design Winner

Ant-Man Helmet by Brian Chan

Artist and 3D modeler Brian Chan created a Marvel helmet worthy of Paul Rudd. 

“The goal of this project was to model the Ant-Man helmet to fit my head while being reasonably screen-accurate and easy to 3D print,” he said in his submission. “The most difficult component to model was the faceplate, which has a somewhat organic shape with a sharp ridge on the nose area, but a smooth continuous surface along the forehead.”

He explained how he designed the helmet out of modular parts that could each be 3D printed and assembled after finishing and painting. The parts have various connection points for accommodating M3 screws and headset inserts.  The complex headgear was designed in several Part Studios and put together in a separate assembly, to reduce rebuild time in the individual Part Studios.  

Brian relied on various operations using the Boolean tools and thicken function to offset volumes to create the framed eye panels. 

You can check out his winning design and also learn how to Make Beautiful Music with a 3D-Printed Violin in a blog written by Brian himself!

Note: To access these designs, you must have an Onshape account.

Assembly Design Winner & Best Overall Student

Octocanum by Imants Smidchens and Lillian Gellings 

Imants Smidchens and Lillian Gellings, students at Garfield High School in Seattle, submitted a  design of a FIRST Tech Challenge, or FTC, legal drivetrain that combines the abilities of a holonomic drive system, like a mecanum, with the terrain capabilities of a drop-center eight-wheel drive.  

In their submission, they explain that this design can help FTC teams looking for a design reference for complex CAD assemblies made with good practices, as well as provide a look into how certain mechanisms work. Some of the  components they used can be found in the FTC Parts Library created by FTC team 2901.  

“Our team of two worked together through in-person meetings, calls, and Documents to organize ideas and plans,” they wrote.

Check out their design in Onshape.

Custom Features Winner

Freeform Spline by Evan Reese

Evan Reese, Ovyl Head of Design, returns after last year’s win. In the 2021 CAD competition, Evan and his team took home the first place title. 

This year, Evan created a Freeform Spline Custom Feature that allows users to easily create splines in 3D space and relate it to various geometry types, like points, and edges.  

It is useful for wire routing, he explained, but also very helpful when doing certain kinds of surfacing because it provides more curve control than the native fit spline, sketch spline, or bridging curve. 

“Freeform Spline is a feature to scratch my own itch,” he said, mentioning that he wanted a more interactive curve creation functionality in Onshape, so he went ahead and wrote it.  

Take a look at Evan's creation and other Custom Features.

Best Overall Winner

Dutch NS 2600 Diesel Locomotive by Hans van de Burgt and Jan Bouwman

Hans van de Burgt and Jan Bouwman brought us this year’s overall winner with a complex model of a Dutch NS 2600 Diesel Locomotive.  

The team combined some already-made self-designed Onshape Documents to create this full model. They also worked together remotely from two cities in the Netherlands. 

They utilized the collaborative capabilities of Onshape to work simultaneously, they explained. They are both Onshape instructors and used Follow Mode to view the screen of their trainees to help them on the fly.  

To begin their design, they began with extensive research to get the exact measurements of the locomotive. Then “with a lot of photos we gathered, we design the separated parts,” they wrote in the entry submission.

“The main issue of course was to assembly these different parts. A very complex work. It means also very intensive communication. But we succeeded.” 

Indeed!

Take a look at the winning model in Onshape.

Onshape championship belt
This year's (shiny) Onshape Design Competition Championship belt.

Congratulations to this year’s winners!

The CAD competition isn’t the only big news coming from Onshape Live ‘22. Don’t worry! If you were unable to catch the live event, you can still register today for free and access on-demand content.

Onshape Live '23

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up on the latest from the Onshape team.