Project Scope
BSX is a small organisation who run an annual charity BMX event that raises much needed funds primarily for the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation. The Kinglake West CFA also benefit running a popular and quite lucrative BBQ. The first event was held in 2006. Over the years it’s attracted international attention and boasts an impressive list of Australian and international BMX stars who have attended the event, as well as household names like cyclist Cadel Evans and Australian rock icon Russell Morris who have supported the event.

After 11 years the event was ready for a makeover a new location, a new track, a whole new look and feel. We wanted to come up with a trophy that was unique to the event, something that riders would be proud to win and proud to display in the trophy cabinet. After discussing possibilities with Joe Farr from Thinglab we knew we were in good hands and decided to go with a life like “bust” of event founder, Shane Jenkins. The trophy could also act as a number plate mount (competitors won a number plate to display their seed ranking in the first round of eliminations) but would work just as well as a stand-alone trophy.

The idea appeared simple in theory but in practice there was quite a lot to the process. Scanning and post-processing the scan files and of course printing the trophy and post processing those as well, and we’re not talking about three or four trophies here either.

Scanning
Since BMXers love their shinny helmets which of course always seem to have large black areas in the designs, that often don’t scan well, the helmet required a little masking and dulling spray in preparation for scanning. Goggles were also used, with mirrored lenses, which also required masking. Once that was done Joe was able to quickly capture the scan with the Artec Eva 3D scanner.

Some time had passed and Joe had processed the scan attached the base and included the slot for the number plate and was able to present the model that was ready to slice and print.

Printing
We had awards for all of our finalists, the top four competitors from each class, so we needed gold, silver, bronze and a third colour for fourth place. We decided to go for black because it looked great. Joe pointed out Thinglab’s own Australian Made PLA range of filaments that had all the colours we need, and you would have to agree they printed up very well.

Given the volume of prints a number of printers were put to work including the Makerbot Replicator Z18 and the Zortrax M200 all of which produced an awesome trophy that not only reached our expectations but far exceeded them. The trophy was impressive to say the least.

The Response
The response to the trophies was amazing. All the efforts that went into creating something a little different was well worth it. We received commented like “It’s the best trophy I’ve ever won” and were even questioned where they could be purchased.

Winners of our pro classes were disappointed they didn’t receive the trophies along with their cheques, which to us means the trophies were a real hit if the guys racing for money were paying attention to them.

We’d like to thank Joe and the team at Thinglab for their assistance and highly recommend them to others looking to do something similar.