Today the winners of the 0.2mm nozzle contest were presented, I’m a little disappointed by these results, I had just bought a new 0.2mm nozzle and once I had printed some parts that I had to do with this nozzle I wanted to try other prints. Discovering the contest dedicated to this nozzle on makerworld I had already noticed several models not relevant to the contest, as often happens. but to my disappointment the contest was won by some models that could easily be printed with other nozzles or models without particular details which therefore went against the contest guidelines themselves.
Am I the only one who thinks that more relevant models should be highlighted for contests of this type?
Personally, I’ll be honest, I participated in the contest with a model. that he certainly wouldn’t have won anyway (I already knew this). but if I open the contest page for the 0.2mm nozzle I expect to find models that allow me to make full use of the 0.2mm nozzle.
i think it was a poor idea for a contest honestly but yeah unfortunately it comes dow to the employees perspectives and what appeals to each of them individually. Thsi is one of the contests i didnt even want to try to participate in because just the vagueness of the idea didnt give me much hope of competing. I feel they need to really be more specific in their contests… i mena one guy now has a paint mixer on the fishing contest and claims its for mixing fish food whan asked why it was there. Many of these people will just add a keyword relating to the contest to try to validate their irrelevant entries. but agreed i would have expected some real tiny items
I’m always a bit surprised when “Fan Art”, that uses the popularity of big IP / trademarks, wins prices. Sure it attracts more people, but not sure how I feel about it in contests since it’s a pretty grey area.
The contest was aimed on getting more calibration and settings data from users in order to improve on the default stetting included in our profiles.
A real 0.2mm contest would have been for models IMPOSSIBLE to print with a larger nozzle or that would come out looking horrible.
Like, as a dead simple example: A M4 nut and bolt set to DIN specs…
A contest, no matter for what always attracts people to join in.
And while here there is real benefits for the winners and then some, the main gain is for Bambu.
They want a huge slice of the model hosting market and an even bigger slice when it come to being better out of the box.
That all this is backed by hardware going cheaper and less reliable with every new release is already a bummer.
For me though it is the total lack of consistency with these Bambu contests.
I checked quite a few in order to decide if it is worth uploading some of my creations - it is not…
Sometimes more than half the entries are just way below expectations and quite often totally out of the contest context.
They are still allowed to participate though…
We have seen this exact same development before on several platforms, like over at Instructables…
Prices that are nice for the winner but that costs the company nothing, or next to nothing.
Increased posting guidelines so all entries are looking the same and allow for easier work getting them into other formats or viewing devices.
And like over there we can see the fast growing numbers of ‘professional contenders’ - people posting in every printing contest out there and usually with quick and easy to create models.
Sometimes they even enter with stolen models and still get away with a price LOL
Don’t get wrong though, what Bambu does and tries is worth their hard hard and will pay out.
And the user incentives are good enough so no user would question the game too much.
Bambu however took all this to a whole new level (of automation)…
Explanation...
The game goes like this:
Provide machines that won’t even work without creating a registered account to bind the customer to the company.
Make it very easy to use ‘the cloud’ while making it far too complex to just switch to local network use without calling home all the time…
Every time you slice and print a model the cloud also gets all related settings and changes you made from the defaults.
Do this often enough and have other users with a similar dislike to defaults and Bambu updates the profiles accordingly.
Keep creating custom supports after rejecting the defaults and even that can be included in new algorithms…
All this of course if also beneficial for the user, especially all those relying on mainly the defaults provided.
The combination of all this however puts Bambu in a unique market position.
Just check their own statements in regards to using just the local network when you need to avoid having your priced models be stored somewhere else and then MAYBE ending in the wrong hands.
If Bambu makes clear that in such cases it is best that you use just the local network options it is clear that whatever goes through the cloud will be used by Bambu for far more than what their T’s, C’s and privacy agreements state
You wouldn’t have to remind business customers otherwise would you ?
Is it bad though?
Don’t know and it depends…
Everyone does it and did so long before Bambu.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, everything that is used with an internet connection really.
Automated feedback, ‘statistical’ data and more is constantly transferred back to the creators…
And they all made huge profits and improvements based on doing so…
We already know that AI is used in our slicing algorithms and that the use of AI will only continue to grow.
With that the integration and automation.
Question is at what price this will come…
No one really cares what happens with their data or in our case model and related things.
As long as nothing bad happens…
Who do you blame though if it happens, especially if this has a negative effect on more than you uploaded models or how you use the machine …
Like so many other services before Bambu is growing all this much faster than what they can support it - volume over quality.
Calling them if you have a serious problem that needs an urgent fix ?
Good luck unless you are a business customer AND in the right location…
Finally getting a human in a live chat or Teams call?
Are you kidding…
You are left with Emails and support tickets and of course there is no chance the same support person keeps taking care of you until the problem is solved.
Frustrating and time wasting for the user, dirt cheap for Bambu…
All I am saying is that OUR benefits are far lower than what Bambu gets our of this…
I already had used and purchased a 0.2mm nozzle. That was when the CMYK bundle came out which said you’d need it for lithophanes.
I didn’t really buy into it this time around haha but I do wonder how many people ended up buying a 0.2mm nozzle just for this and like the wireless mouse kit advertised contest. At the end of the day these kinds of specific contests are tailored towards marketing. It’s hard to set standard print parameters for every user to click and print without something being off, especially being a 0.2mm nozzle when there’s a handful of variables in place for a perfect print.
Technically speaking, you could buy the mouse kit off “MakerOnline” from AnyCubic and use your design for it and post here linking bambu labs mouse kit since anycubic’s kit is cheaper lol
In my opinion bambulab could improve the makerworld services (and therefore also the functioning of the entire platform and devices) by giving users with a registered account and printer the opportunity to vote for the winner or report any inconsistent entries. this would avoid any incorrect indexing and unearned prizes.
The 1st place actually looks like a print to me. You can see classic print artefacts and overhang issues on the back for example if you zoom in. It’s just a very well presented image.
Pretty sure it’s illegal. It’s using 3rd party copyrighted and/or trademarked materal and characters. Things inspired by other ip, such as this (sorry for the self-promo), are OK in my opinion. A hueforge using straight up images ripped from Google? Maybe not. Something that is exactly the same as the original IP isn’t legal. My piranha plant has lots of differences. For one, piranha plants usually aren’t dice towers. That’s transformative. And I designed it from scratch with considerations taken for printing. That’s also transformative. A keychain using the exact same look as pixel mario? Well, that’s like instead of copying wikipedia, you open it in split-screen and type it word for word.
This is is no way legal advice, just what I understand of this stuff. Correct me if I’m wrong
Sounds like every costume contest I’ve ever been in that didn’t have dedicated judges. This contest was basically measured by applause from the audience. And that’s never the guy in the $7,000 mech costume. Its always the hot co-ed in the fur bikini and cat ears.
This contest wasn’t anything more than a PR stunt and a way to show off whatever photographed well, not what was a good challenge for a .2 nozzle.
It will always be what photographs ‘sexy’. Not what was a technical challenge to meet: Like speaker grills a few mm across that actually have grills on them, and other small cockpit parts.
