PrintBase

Demo

About

The problem it solves **Problem:** Traditional manufacturing services can be expensive, in-efficient, and lack transparency. 3d print manufacturing can help fill the gap to provide on-demand, cost efficient, and local production. Yet 3D print businesses often rely on manual quoting, struggling with inconsistent pricing and fragmented communication with customers. **PrintBase** connects customers directly with independent 3D print providers using on-chain tools for quoting, payment, and verification. It empowers distributed, community-driven manufacturing while removing friction, risk, and centralized control. **Why does this matter?** Just as blockchain has revolutionized finance through decentralizing ownership, there is a growing need to decentralize manufacturing. In today’s world—marked by fragile global supply chains, over reliance on offshore production, and rising geopolitical uncertainty—we need a better model: - A future where local makers can produce meaningful goods for their communities. Things like medical supplies & repair parts can be produced on-demand and locally. - A future that reduces our dependency on centralized logistics and corporate gatekeepers for our physical needs. - A future that creates resilient, flexible, decentralized economies worldwide.

How it's made

Challenges we ran into 1. Getting familiar with blockchain - As an artist & maker, I didn't come into this with a ton of knowledge about Base or blockchain in general. The Houston event hosted by Zach was a huge help in answering questions! 2. Prototyping with Ohara.ai - Initially I found building with Ohara a bit frustrating, I kept running into error & outputting junk; additionally, there wasn't a good way to undo previous changes or make code changes directly, which made me nervous to add features to somewhat working code. Ultimately I learned how to use Ohara to debug by experimenting with prompts & adding features bit by bit. 3. Short on time - I had to be strategic in what I could accomplish in a short time frame. After the contest, I'd like to continue working on this concept to finish integrating everything I'd like to, such as the a.) wallet integration, b.) sending a print request across a network of 3d printers, and c) hardware integration to auto-start a job on a machine if requirements are met (smart contract). I look forward to continuing to prototype on this concept and deploy an app on Base Sepolia for testing.