The winners of the Formlabs Tough Resin contest have been announced, ranging from underwater robots to digital prostheses to space rovers.

A team at the Technical University of Hamburg working on underwater robots is one of the winners of a giveaway by Formlabs to find uses for their sturdy new 3D printing material, Tough Resin.

Axel Hackbarth is part of the team at Hamburg’s HippoCampus creating a swarm of miniature, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for detecting leakage in harbors. Axel and the team hope to use the impact resistance of Formlabs’ new Tough Resin to protect their AUVs against unforeseen collisions.

Formlabs, the creators of the Form 1+ printer, ran the contest to find applications for its new Tough Resin. They put out a call for ideas, asking makers what they had always wanted to 3D print but had found that the materials available weren’t strong enough.

The other two winners are Naked Prosthetics, who are investigating if Tough Resin can meet the demands of their prosthetics for digital amputees; and a teacher who plans to use the material in a model space rover built by his engineering students. The winners will receive supplies of the material and a new resin tank. (Via Formlabs blog)

The resin, a photopolymer plastic, has been developed specifically for parts of 3D models that need to withstand stress and strain. It is available in four colors alongside an upgrade in Formlab’s PreForm software. To publicize the launch of the material, designers at Formlabs created a ‘Rube Goldberg’ machine showcasing its uses.

Formlabs marketing manager Sara Bonomi said: “When we launched Tough resin we were very excited to see what our users would use it for. Bringing to market such a durable, resilient material really meant opening up a lot of new engineering and prototyping possibilities.”

“We had a great response to our Tough resin contest, with hundreds of submissions, ranging from prosthetics to gears, from robots to actuators. We are proud of the three winners and we are looking forward to see how Tough resin will hold up to their needs for medical prosthetics,underwater vehicles and space rovers at the same time.”