Seastead Design Contest

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The Seasteading Institute (TSI) is looking for creative and talented designers to construct a seastead using 3-D modeling software. A seastead is a floating platform that allows people to permanently settle the ocean as they do land. Professional naval engineers have already designed a bare platform. What you build on the platform is up to you. It may be a hospital, a casino, a residential community, a cricket stadium, or something entirely different. Be creative!

Winning designs will be rewarded with cash prizes up to $1000, be featured on the TSI website, in our press materials (we’ve already been featured in Wired and on Slashdot), and on our merchandise.”

Full description with details on prizes and official rules:

Press release:

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    • Anon

      Come one BlenderHeads, make us proud!

    • Anon

      *ON

      *sigh*

      Someone tell Bart to add “editable comments” at least for a minute after its submission.

    • wolfmanyoda

      This looks like a lot of fun!

    • Month3d

      Looks like a fun contest, might give it a shot if I can find the time.
      Also it’s good to see that all entries will be released under creative commons.
      Anyway good luck to all blender users that are gonna give this a shot.

    • Mike L

      I started to go with a negative post about exploitation… and to a degree I still feel that way. However, one person could start a career from this… which would more than pay the dividends. Good luck to anyone who is involved.

    • bobert

      how do i get a file of the base structure thats compatible with blender??

    • DavidC

      bobert,

      Use the 3ds imp[ort script. I did and it works great.

    • bautz

      Thanks,
      interesting contest

    • http://www.seanjmacisaac.com SeanJM

      Very interesting concept for a contest but the $1000 wont attract me. Seeing as how this is most likely more than a weeks work, $1000 is not a lot of money. Now a $10,000 prize. That would get the ball rolling to some serious quality entries.

      :-(

    • roofoo

      Sounded cool until I read this:

      “All entries must be submitted under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Among other things, this means that TSI (or others) may use or modify your model, including for commercial purposes, but they must give you credit for your work.”

      So basically even if you don’t win, they still can use your design for commercial use, without paying you a dime! All they have to do is credit you. Sounds like a bunch of cheapskates to me.

    • banor

      Hmmmm… are they going to use the design for conceptual ideas for an actual build-site, or is this just for commercial hype? Anyhow, it could be a fine learning experience in 3D architecture, but it may not be worth it. However, thinking about it… I really could use 1k. :)

    • yeah

      @roofoo: that’s the idea of all libre content. Maybe you can ask them if you can also upload it in creative commons by-attribution share-alike.

    • bluelife

      the rss of blendernation is “dead” since 22/01, at least for me, programs used iceweasel 3.0.5 and akregator, debian linux

    • http://wickes.webs.com Papasmurf

      i don’t get it. What possible economic justification could there be to build an above-surface floating platform, when terra firma is still plentiful, available, cheap, and accessible? To design something, you have to know it’s purpose, its intent. The only reason I can think of that you would want to build a floating island is a prison, an oil-drilling platform, or tidal/current energy platform. None of those reasons require a mall, movie theatre, etc.

    • roofoo

      Papasmurf: Good point. Plus what happens when hurricane season starts? Seems like it would not be very safe.

    • alienkid10

      Is there a .blend of the base model(delated my scripts on accident and don’t know how to replace them)?

    • http://seasteading.org Lasse Birk Olesen

      Hello,

      SeanJM: “Very interesting concept for a contest but the $1000 wont attract me. Seeing as how this is most likely more than a weeks work, $1000 is not a lot of money.”

      We know that a $1,000 prize is not a lot compared to the amount of work involved. But we are a non-profit organisation which simply doesn’t have the resources for prizes of the size you mention. We hope that talented artists will want to participate anyway for the challenge and the chance to design something quite unusual.

      roofoo: “So basically even if you don’t win, they still can use your design for commercial use, without paying you a dime! All they have to do is credit you. Sounds like a bunch of cheapskates to me.”

      Please note that The Seasteading Institute is a non-profit organisation so it is not like we are going to make money of submitted designs.

      Also, I haven’t seen any contest involving a submitted product where the rights to the content aren’t either given exclusively to the contest holder or is under a public domain license. We chose the latter.

      banor: “are they going to use the design for conceptual ideas for an actual build-site, or is this just for commercial hype?”

      Winning designs will only be used in marketing and promotion. It is not the purpose of The Seasteading Institute to actually build floating structures of this magnitude. Our aim is to make it easier for someone with the entrepreneurship and capital to do so by providing engineered designs for it.

      Papasmurf: “i don’t get it. What possible economic justification could there be to build an above-surface floating platform[...]”

      Most people interested in seasteading are so because of political issues. Others just like to pioneer. Please see “Why would you want to do that?” on our intro page: http://seasteading.org/learn-more/intro

      roofoo: “what happens when hurricane season starts? Seems like it would not be very safe.”

      The executive summary of our first engineered design has details on how it will handle the harsh conditions of the ocean: http://seasteading.org/files/MIandT040_08_R1_Seastead_Exec_Sum.pdf
      A good discussion on what to consider regarding wind is availible in the online book on seasteading: http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/commented/paper/ocean.html#Wind

      alienkid10: “Is there a .blend of the base model”

      I just created one and uploaded it: http://liberator.dk/content/wp-content/uploads/Seastead_Base_Model_2009_01_27.blend.zip
      I expect it to be availible from the main contest page soon as well.

      If you have further questions feel free to contact me at [email protected]

      - Lasse

    • Tomas Peltan

      I think that possible economic justification is in places, where “firm land” is very expensive – close to major cities etc. Other possible use can be in areas with very bad soils (swamps etc), where classic foundations of buildings are very expensive.

      Venice can be seen as simmilar economic nonsens as well – and see, how successful it is.

    • http://www.seasteading.org James Hogan

      Hello,

      I work with The Seasteading Institute as the Director of Operations. I work with Lasse, who is running the contest for us.

      I wanted to affirm his comments, and just emphasize that we are a non-profit organization. We’re working on a thin budget, trying to make the world a better place. Our intention with offering $1000 is certainly not to exploit; it’s to provide an incentive (which we can afford) for people to contribute their time and talent to a good cause. If we could afford offer $10,000, we absolutely would!

      There are lots of good questions in this thread about seasteading — why, how, potential pitfalls. Lasse has done a good job of answering these, and I’d encourage all of you to check out the information on our website, such as our faq: http://www.seasteading.org/learn-more/faq All of these questions are addressed there.

    • banor

      @James Hogan: Thank you for the information and explaining this! Sorry if my comment was unkind or if I mispoke. Thank you for your work and if I had experience in architectural design then I might be more inclined to participating. I still may take a whack at it and see how it goes. :)

    • Witchfinder General

      If Lasse’s statements “it is not like we are going to make money of submitted designs” and “Winning designs will only be used in marketing and promotion” are true then what possible reason can they have for not allowing entrants to keep the copyright of their designs.

      All serious architecture and design contests that hope to receive professional quality entries do not expect the entrants to give up their design rights. The contest holders would be stupendously naive to request it and the designers naively stupid to do so.

      I would have entered, despite the small prize, if it were not for this apparently unnecessary rule which is disrespectful to designers.

    • http://www.anthonyperlas.com MrPerlishells

      Found a bug on Blender. I moved my “My Documents” folder to a another partition. The folder’s name has an apostrophe on it and I got a syntax error. Seems to point at the s of “Anthony’s Documents” right after apostrophe. Downloading that zipped blender file now.

    • http://www.seasteading.org James Hogan

      @Witchfinder: The idea behind asking people to give the rights to their designs is because it gives others the opportunity to work with them later. We’re hoping the seasteading community will remix the best parts of each others’ designs to come up with new ideas. It would be great if some of those ideas helped inspire individuals or businesses to try settling the ocean. No disrespect towards designers is intended; again, we’re a non-profit, and we’re just looking for people who are willing to help a good cause.

      @banor: You’re welcome! I didn’t take your comment as unkind, we just didn’t give much context!

    • Witchfinder General

      @ James Hogan…

      But if, as you say, the hope is simply that designs entered to the contest will inspire new ideas and encourage the practice of ocean settling then there is still no reason for entrants to give up their design rights. And if someone wishes to ‘remix’ the best parts of other designs they can still credit the original designers. It would be unethical for them not to anyway.

      You keep saying “we’re a non-profit” and that you are “a good cause” but that is not relevant to the issue of design rights. If any seasteads get built it will surely be done by organisations or individuals who can afford to pay the original architects and designers for their work.

    • http://www.seasteading.org James Hogan

      @Witchfinder:

      Sorry if my previous post was unclear, but we’re not asking participants to give -all- rights. As the contest rules (http://seasteading.org/interact/design-contest) mention, entries are to be submitted under the CC Attribution license, which -does- require anybody doing remxing to credit the original author.

      The remixing is the key goal here. It will probably be several years before there are a variety of seastead designs in actual production. One of the most important things for the movement now is inspiration and awareness; we feel community collaboration on seastead designs (including remixing each others’ models) is one of the best ways to help achieve that.

    • Jacob

      Update!

      Hi Blenders! The deadline for The Seasteading Institute 3-D design Contest is 1st of May. A blender version of base platform is available at the website.

      Submit your inspiring model of a Seastead and help create a cool imagination about living on the sea! Remember that winning designs will be rewarded with cash prizes up to $1000, be featured on the TSI website, in our press materials (we’ve already been featured in Wired and on Slashdot), and on our merchandise.”

      Furthermore the FAQ section has been updated on the website: http://www.seasteading.org/interact/design-contest

      Good luck!