Proto Labs awarded FarmBot its Cool Idea! Award on June 21st, allowing the company to move beyond the crowdfunding phase. Their product, an open-source, computer numerical control (CNC) small-scale farming machine allows the consumer to grow food easily within their own backyard.
Proto Labs created The Cool Idea! Award to help entrepreneurs get past the concept stage. The award grant is worth up to $250,000 in manufacturing services from Proto Labs. Award winners gain access to Proto Labs’ 3D printing, injection molding and CNC machining technologies that includes prototyping and testing.
Proto Labs founder, Larry Lukis, stated the rationale behind the award in a press release, explaining, “The Cool Idea! Award enables innovative ideas to come to life regardless of where a product is in its development lifecycle. By helping FarmBot make the jump to faster and larger production runs, they can now scale and bring this technology to more customers.”
With the demand for FarmBot growing since launch in June 2016, the grant helps the team look beyond CNC machining and 3D printing for construction of parts. FarmBot’s founder, Rory Aronson, stated, “We’re confident we can meet the growing demand thanks to the award.”
