Last month, I mentioned GE’s 3-D printing contests. The company says it has already received hundreds of submissions for one of these contests, the Jet Engine Bracket Challenge, and has posted some of them as a slideshow. Presumably, there is some sort of structural logic (at least in the opinions of the submitters) behind the weird appearance of some of these designs.
The top 10 submissions will be fabricated and load-tested. The objective is to create a bracket that is at least 30% lighter than the one currently in use.
More broadly, GE seems to be attempting to establish a network of useful contributors among the “maker” community of hobbyists and small-scale enterprises.