Autodesk Design and make a 3D printed product or prototype that improves the day-to-day life of someone with a disability or an older person. Follow the Make:able toolkit to develop your solution, then share your design journey through a short video submission for the chance to win an annual Make:able Award.
Register for FreeThe free Make:able toolkit guides you through the process of designing and making an assistive device, from understanding your end user and generating ideas to prototyping, testing and sharing your solution. Explore practical design methods, tutorials, examples and resources, with an optional workbook to help document your progress.
The Make:able Challenge is open to anyone with an interest in 3D design and 3D printing. There are three age categories: under 14, 14–18 and over 18. If students in the same school year group fall across two age categories, they may enter together in the younger category. For example, a class of 13–14-year-olds can enter the Under 14 category. Teachers, hobbyists and professionals are also welcome to participate in the over 18 category.
Make:able and all associated resources are completely free. We may however recommend supplementary content that may support you, such as PrintLab’s 3D printing curriculum.
You can either design a product for a real end user (e.g. someone in your local community), or design a product for a Make:able Champion. Make:able Champions are people with disabilities who have shared their stories and day-to-day challenges through videos in the Make:able toolkit.
The 15 May 2027 awards deadline will mark the end of the Make:able Champions programme. After this date, all new projects must focus on real end users, which could be someone as familiar as a family member or friend. Read our Make:able 2027 launch blog to learn more about this change and how we’re making it easy for everyone to get involved.
The full brief and guidelines are available in the Make:able toolkit and Teacher’s Guide (for schools), but the key rules are as follows:
• You may work individually or in teams of up to five people within the same age category.
• The design process must include the use of either Tinkercad or Autodesk Fusion, and the digital 3D model produced must be 3D printable.
• A physical 3D printed prototype must be created. If you don’t have access to a 3D printer, we recommend contacting local organisations or makerspaces that may be able to help.
You must create a 2–4 minute video documenting your design journey. This should introduce your end user, demonstrate how you developed empathy and defined your design challenge, showcase your idea generation and design development process, and show your final solution in action. In addition to your video, you must submit a high-resolution image or render of your final solution.
Projects can be submitted at any time using the online submission form in the Share Your Story section of the toolkit. Submissions received by 15 May 2027 will be considered for the 2027 Make:able Awards, while later submissions will automatically enter the following year’s awards.
Full guidance on creating and submitting your video is provided in the toolkit.
Upon registering, you’ll receive access to the Teacher’s Pack, which includes a comprehensive Teacher’s Guide and a set of standards-aligned lesson plans to help you plan and deliver the Make:able Challenge.
The lesson plans and challenge toolkit are designed to be flexible. You can use as much or as little of the content as you like, adapting activities and creating your own learning pathway to suit your students. As long as the challenge brief and guidelines are followed, you’re free to take your own approach.
The Make:able Challenge is designed to be flexible, allowing you to work at your own pace and dedicate as much time as you like to your project. As a starting point, we recommend allocating at least 8 sessions of approximately one hour each, although you can adapt this to suit your schedule.
Video submissions received by 15 May 2027 will be reviewed by a global panel of industry experts, with the 2027 Make:able Award winners announced in July 2027. There are six award categories for each age group, recognising outstanding achievements in design, creativity and innovation. Winning teams will receive prizes, which may include 3D printers and other technology products. Full prize details will be announced closer to the awards deadline.
Please see the brief within the challenge toolkit for a breakdown of the award categories.
*Prizes awarded to winners in the under-14 and 14–18 categories will be provided to their school or organisation.
Experience in 3D design and 3D printing is helpful but not required. A free trial to PrintLab’s 3D CAD and 3D printing learning platform is included within the toolkit, which can be used to build new technical skills.
Autodesk 
Tinkercad 
Fusion 360 
Makers Making Change 
Matterhackers 
Leonard Cheshire 
Craftbot 
PrintCity 
Earle Baum Center 
Filamentive 
DiveDesign 
Product Design Online 
Shining3D 
Handprints e-NABLE Scotland 
Design and Technology Association 
Prusa Research 
Studio Exception 
Makelab 
CREATE Education 
3DWithUs 
Batch.Works 
See3D 
TechOwl 
3D Universe 
PrintLab Register for free to access the Make:able Challenge Toolkit