The Games Done Quick gaming marathon is organized two times every year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a platform to bring together gamers who come and play video games at incredible speeds. This event is streamlined live to raise funds for charity.
This year the marathon will run from 3rd July to 10th July, the funds raised would be going to Doctors without Borders. The games that will be played will include Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Fallout 3, Bioshock, Castlevania, and Tetris.
3D designer Mike Copley has been donating money and purchasing t-shirts and following this event for 4 years. But this year he decided to donate a 3D sculpted model of a Super Mario Bros titled ‘Weird Maker’, of his favorite t-shirt print from the last winter event. He designed this model in an Autodesk Inventor. Copley broke the design into smaller parts called blocks and 3D printed them all at the same time. This was a time saver and the all the 300 blocks were printed on his Printrbot Metal Plus in a standard PLA filament.
The complete process of designing, printing and assembling the model took about two months, with the CAD work alone taking a month. The printing took 2 weeks with every block group taking 7-10 hours to print. He then mounted and assembled the whole model. Copley created a second piece in a silicone mold, and then he painted his replica.
This was done to save the time taken in 3D printing. The original piece was sent to the t-shirt art designer. Prizes at this event are awarded after each event segment is completed. The Super Mario Artwork was awarded in the Super Mario Maker segment on July 8th this year.
Source: 3dprint.com