New PrintLab Design Challenges: 3D Printed Games and Outdoor Adventures

7th January 2026 • News

What’s Changed?

PrintLab Challenges are no longer framed around designing a product for a specific person or organisation defined by PrintLab. Instead, each challenge is built around a real-world context or theme, giving learners greater flexibility in how they interpret and respond to the brief.

Learners decide what type of product to design, who it is for, and what success looks like for their idea. This may involve designing for themselves, a particular user group, or a broader audience, depending on the direction they choose to take. By focusing on context rather than a predefined user, challenges better support research-led thinking, individual interests, and a wider range of outcomes.

Alongside each challenge, learners have access to an example solution designed by PrintLab and a dedicated Tips and Resources section. These draw on relevant methods and guidance from PrintLab’s Tools Library to support development where useful, without prescribing a fixed workflow, and can be used selectively to suit different ideas, timeframes, and levels of experience.

New Challenge: 3D Printed Desktop Games

The 3D Printed Desktop Games Challenge invites learners to design and make an original, playable desktop game for a target audience of their choice. The brief is intentionally open, allowing learners to explore different types of games and gameplay experiences while developing a clear design direction of their own.

Games may take the form of board games, puzzles, dexterity challenges, or entirely new concepts. Rather than copying existing games, learners are encouraged to focus on originality, clear interaction, and how players engage with the game. As with all PrintLab Challenges, learners are free to follow any design process that suits their idea, supported by optional tools, examples, and resources across the platform.

Watch the short introduction video below for an overview of the challenge.

New Challenge: Outdoor Adventures

The Outdoor Adventures Challenge invites learners to design a 3D printed product that enhances an outdoor activity such as hiking, camping, travelling, or exploring. The brief is open-ended, allowing learners to choose both the type of product and the outdoor context they want to design for.

Learners consider real-world factors such as durability, safety, portability, and usability in outdoor environments while developing an original design that responds to genuine needs. Projects may range from compact accessories to more complex problem-solving products, depending on the direction taken.

Watch the short introduction video below for an overview of the challenge.

Revamped Challenge: Homeware

The Homeware Challenge has been refreshed to follow the same open-ended structure as our new challenges. Rather than designing for a specific retail setting, learners can now choose any type of homeware product to develop, from décor and storage to kitchen or desk accessories, based on a target audience of their choice.

The updated brief places greater emphasis on designing for 3D printing. Learners are encouraged to make meaningful use of the technology’s advantages, such as customisation, modularity, geometric freedom, lightweight structures, or on-demand production. Alongside this, the challenge encourages practical product thinking, including how a design could realistically be manufactured, priced, and shared or sold, helping learners consider the wider context their product might exist in.

Watch the short introduction video below for an overview of the challenge.

Why Open-Ended Challenges Matter

Together, these updates reflect a broader shift towards design challenges that value interpretation, exploration, and decision-making as core learning outcomes. Open-ended briefs encourage learners to take ownership of problems, test ideas through iteration, and make informed design choices within a given context. Whether used in classrooms, makerspaces, or independent projects, PrintLab Challenges are designed to develop skills that are central to real-world design practice, without prescribing a single correct outcome and leaving space for creativity to shine.

We look forward to launching more challenges throughout the year. If you’d like to explore the full challenge platforms, you can start a free trial of PrintLab using the link below.