~*~ What is this? ~*~
Got a 3D printer?
You were really into it for about six weeks. Now it lives in a closet under a tea towel. Here, it gets a job: print the one silly thing everybody voted for this week, mail it to a stranger, and get paid for your trouble.
Got a dumb idea?
A tiny throne for your TV remote. A trophy for finishing the whole bag of chips. Ideas too dumb to exist anywhere else belong here. Post it, someone turns it into a printable model, everyone votes, and if it wins, bored printers across Canada make it real.
One design wins each week. Buyers pay for it. Printer owners print it. A small cut covers insurance and hiccups. That is the whole business plan.
~*~ How it works ~*~
Every week runs on the same clock. All times are Eastern (Ottawa and Toronto time).
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| The week before | |
| Any time, until Sunday 8 p.m. | Submit designs. Ideas live on the idea board; a printable model of one gets it on the ballot. |
| Sunday night | Moderation. A human reads everything and removes anything weird (the bad kind of weird). |
| Week 1 | |
| Monday 9 a.m. to Wednesday 9 p.m. | Voting. One vote per account. Change your mind as often as you like until it closes. Totals stay hidden until the end, so no bandwagons. |
| Wednesday night | Winner check. Will it actually print? Is the licence OK? Does it follow the rules? |
| Thursday 9 a.m. | Winner announced. One. Just one. |
| Thursday 9 a.m. to Friday 9 p.m. | Printer owners sign up to print it and say how many they can make. |
| Saturday 9 a.m. to the next Tuesday 9 p.m. | Pre-orders. Your card is held, not charged. |
| Week 2 | |
| Wednesday 9 a.m. | Matching. Each order goes to a printer, as close to you as possible. Matched orders get charged. No printer, no charge. |
| By Thursday 9 a.m. | Printers confirm their orders. |
| Once confirmed | Print and ship. Printers get about a week. |
| Week 3 | |
| Thursday 9 p.m. | Ship-by deadline. Everything is in the mail. |
| Sunday noon | Gallery. Photos of the thing, out in the wild, from printers and buyers. |
Weeks overlap: while one winner is printing, the next vote is already on. The machine never sleeps. (Your printer does. That is the problem.)
Voting comes first. Printer sign-ups and pre-orders switch on after that.
~*~ Who does what ~*~
One account can be all four. Looking around is free and needs no account at all.
- Idea submitters
- You have an idea. It is one sentence long. It is, frankly, beneath the dignity of manufacturing. Post it on the idea board, and vote every week.
- Modellers
- You can turn a sentence into an STL. Pick an idea off the board and upload a printable model of it. A text idea alone cannot win, so you are the one who makes it real. You and the idea person both get credit on the ballot and in the gallery.
- Printer owners
- You own the printer under the tea towel. Sign up to print the week's winner, from 1 to 20 units, and get matched with buyers near you. You get paid per print, plus postage.
- Buyers
- You want the thing. Pre-order it, and a stranger with a printer, as close to you as we can find, makes it and mails it. Canada only, for now.
~*~ Idea of the Week ~*~
EXAMPLES ONLY
Nobody has voted yet. These are the kind of thing we mean. Every week, one of these wins the nozzle.
-
A tiny traffic cone for your sleeping cat
Place beside cat. Now nobody steps on her.
Participation trophy for finishing a family-size bag of chips
The engraving plate is blank. You know what you did.
Snack Throne
A tiny throne for your TV remote, so it stops hiding in the couch.
Pizza-slice phone stand
For watching videos about pizza while waiting for pizza.
A little podium for your best grape
Gold, silver and bronze. The other grapes need to see this.
Memorial plaque for the sock the dryer ate
Gone, but not forgotten. Mostly forgotten.
Votes: hidden until voting closes. Also, there are no votes. See above.
~*~ The rules (short version) ~*~
- No guns or gun parts. Not even "just a little bracket".
- No weapons. If it is designed to hurt someone, it is out.
- Stoner jokes: yes. Stoner gear: no. A snack throne is welcome. Pipes, bongs, grinders and anything else for consuming anything are not.
- No trademarked characters, logos or brands. We cannot afford those lawyers.
- No hate, no harassment, nothing sexual. The gallery is public and the vibe is PG-13.
- Not a toy. Nothing for kids. No magnets, batteries or electronics.
- Nothing safety-critical and nothing for food. No helmets, car parts or climbing gear. No cups, plates or cookie cutters: printed plastic is not food-safe.
- No spam. Obviously.
To get on the ballot, a design has to actually print:
- STL or 3MF file
- Fits in a 180 x 180 x 180 mm box
- PLA, at most 150 g
- About 8 hours of printing, tops
- A licence that allows selling prints
~*~ Frequently Asked Questions ~*~
- Is this real?
- Kind of. The idea is real and the plan is real. The marketplace is being built right now. Nothing is for sale yet and nobody has voted yet.
- What does it cost?
- Looking, posting ideas and voting are free. Buyers pay for the thing they order. The price covers the filament, the printer owner's pay, shipping, card fees and a small margin for insurance and the occasional parcel that falls in a lake. Each week's price is posted with the winner, before anyone orders. Signing up as a printer owner costs nothing.
- Why only one design a week?
- Because a hundred bored printers all making the same ridiculous thing is funnier than a catalogue. Also, it keeps things simple.
- Where do you ship?
- Canada only, for now.
- Who runs this?
- One person in Ottawa, whose printer also got bored. They read every submission personally, which is either charming or a scaling problem.
~*~ Status ~*~
The marketplace is under construction. Accounts, the idea board and the first vote come first. Printing and pre-orders come after that.
First vote: coming soon. NEW!
There is no sign-up form yet, because there is nothing to sign up for yet. Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or Cmd+D on a Mac) and check back.