There are not a lot of AM-industry events that start as early as Sunday while lasting until Thursday and that at the same time require flying for half a day (if you are based in Europe). Despite these maybe unfavorable circumstances, we set out for AMUG for the first time after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Why leave Europe? Because of the goal of the AMUG: To connect users and concrete approaches of AM to solutions. In other words, the same goal that our network is pursuing! While our focus is on Europe, AMUG’s is on the United States. The willingness of all participants to inspire and live change is what makes largest AM conference in America so unique.

And there are A LOT of participants: To keep the sheer volume of people from overwhelming you, attendees are purposefully mixed and seated by lottery at lunch alongside other attendees. The guests bring new technologies and materials to the market, expand our network, or strengthen the user perspective in the industry. From AM to PM, the Hilton-Hotel Chicago buzzes with conversations like a beehive. The evening events also contribute to getting to know each other – some evenings have specific themes or, as this year, take place in the specially rented museum for Science and History.

During the day, you can pick out fascinating presentations on the latest technologies, trends, and applications from numerous tracks, or learn something about AMUG’s sponsors.

For our network, Stefanie Brickwede, together with Ole von Seelen from Trinckle, was able to present applications in the railroad sector and associated production aids. This attracted great interest, especially since the railroad sector in the United States is still relatively niche.

What are other trends that we observed abroad?

• Cybersecurity, certainly also driven by the many participants from the American Army,
• New metal technologies aimed towards large volume printing (MELD), for example for the chassis of tanks,
• metal technologies aimed towards more cost-effective manufacturing methods (headmade materials),
• concrete printing is everywhere (presentations and a fantastic workshop with hands-on approach)

A very good general overview was, again, given this year by Stefan Ritt about current trends and tendencies. Directly Observable: India is just increasingly entering the world stage for additive manufacturing!

And the previously announced on social media printed basketball from eos and Wilson made an appearance: If you wondered how the relatively high weight of a basketball was achieved, you could have a look at it on site. The Solution: it was printed with double walls and bounced amazingly well.

We will try to get the most exciting presentations to our Annual Meeting.

Next year we will be there again. We wouldn’t want to miss this exchange!

 

Imagine being given a use case and you and your team have two days to come up with a unique product design, business case and marketing strategy for that specific use case utilizing the benefits of AM – and of course you must pitch your product in front of industry experts at the end of your deadline.

This is what the nine student teams from all over Germany at the MGA – VDI Students Competition, an international and interdisciplinary competition on 3D printing for students on all aspects of additive manufacturing and digitization, were confronted with on Friday morning, April 21, and we have to say they all rose to the challenge.

Volocopter GmbH provided the use case – a landing pod for a cargo logistic drone that is, among other boundary conditions, capable of carrying a load of 2 tons and able to adjust to different terrains. And of course, your team has a very limited budget.

Congratulations to Alexander Meyer, Timo Brandes & Kim Jürgensen from the Hochschule Hannover team who won the first place with their product FIREFLY: a landing pod system used in areas prone to wildfires designed to support firefighters. Their solution was amazingly well developed – not just given the unfavourable circumstances – and their corresponding documentation was well organized and structured.

Second winners were the AERODDICTIVE team from the HAW Hamburg (Kristina Brand, Dennis Beck, Moharam Abdelrahman, Sofien Setti, Florian Fuchs, Finn Hörstel, Cedric Foth, Beyza Nur Algan) and third came the MTPY Engineering team from the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Lörrach (Paul Spöri, Tobias Seiler, Yannick Reinholz, Matteo Mutz, Maximilian Kromen)

Thanks to all other participating teams, who did amazing work and who we all hope to see again next year:

• VDI Young Engineers II from multiple universities (Pascal Arras, Christian Hartmann, Arpad Horvath, Tessa-Katharina Hoyer, Alexander Eckervogt)
• SÜDSLICERS from the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Lörrach (Leon Essenburg, Nils Schnurr, Quentin Günter, Jan Weber, Hannes Krietemeyer)
• Öcher Printen from FH Aachen (Jens Kesper, Luise Kleinerüschkamp, Maximilan Tinio Leon Schulz, Moritz Köhler)
• The Accidental Engineers from the SRH Berlin (Chintan Joshi, Saikumar Balineni, Aditya Kolhe, Valentina Mugno, Sarvesh Naik)
• Visionary Concepts from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Nadim Miakhil, Nicole Eichner, Leon Crecelius, Philipp Metz, Matthias Stamm)
• VDI Young Engineers I from multiple universities (Sebastian Bongartz, Berke Farhat, Magnus Lühr, Jan Nicklas Becker, Florian Wabnitz)

Given the limited time the students had, we were all impressed with the results that the teams presented on Sunday at the end of the competition. Thanks to our jury members Marc Fette, Jan Evers, Jens Holtmannspötter, Pranav Nagarajan, Linus Tillmann and Jan Grasmannsdorf for not just ranking but also mentoring and supporting the teams.

Thanks to our sponsors and supporters Airbus, Altair, Autodesk, Copteruni GmbH, Composite Technology Center / CTC GmbH (An Airbus Company), Volocopter GmbH, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, AM Forum Berlin and Deutsche Bahn without which the competition would not be possible.

If you would like to support the competition or participate in it, please contact us – we are looking forward to an even bigger event next year!