Held in Badger nation, our second city series took place at The Bodgery in Madison, Wisconsin. Midwest Prototyping, one of the largest independent additive manufacturing companies, called the challenge “Outdoor Play”, with teams from around the area. With the support of Harley Davidson, Aprilaire, Alliant Energy Foundation, Hoffman Manufacturing, and many Wisconsin businesses - future and current entrepreneurs were able to win a chance to compete at our Nationals, filmed for PBS this coming spring.
To compete at Make48, eight (8) local Madison teams had 48 hours to come up with an original idea, based on the criteria of the Outdoor Challenge. With a roomful of mentors, tools techs, and volunteers, the teams created a prototype, sales sheet and video, then pitched their ideas to our panel of judges from Midwest Prototyping.
This challenge proved to be a lot of fun for the teams and tool techs alike! Unlike previous competitions, this one included 4 young volunteers (Flynn, Abbey, Charlotte and Brooks) who were the perfect target audience for the teams.
One winning team was chosen and won $2k, but two teams will be heading to Nationals (in March, 2022). Like our previous event, we invited several well-known makers and influencers including - Caleb Harris, Joanie Sprague, Jef & Jess Behnke, Anika Gandhi, Brandy Aubé and Katie Freeman. They were joined by a mix of Make48 Tool Techs and the Bodgery’s workshop masters. We even had extra hands from UW-Madison, Harley Davidson and Aprilaire who had brought in a few members to be techs as well!
Thank you to John and Mary from The Bodgery and Jason from Midwest Prototyping who were our hard-working cheerleaders throughout the weekend. We are proud to bring you the Madison Highlight Reel from Stellar Image Studios.