As part of this manufacturing story, we worked with our partners at Proto Labs to tell the story of creating this year's trophy. Working with the engineers at Proto Labs, each trophy is CNC-milled from a solid block of alumnium—we had boxes of trophies in our office within a week of submiting the final CAD files!

Here's the Proto Labs mill that made our trophies!We especially liked the matte finish on the trophies which made them easier to photograph. And what's more fun that casting your own trophy in silicone, wax, chocolate or jello? We tested them out by creating some crayon ingots for our staff before boxing everything up and shipping to our awards winners.

A nice shot from one of our winners!

A special thanks to the engineers and project partners at Proto Labs—working with them has made it clear that they value design intent, quality execution and time. Additionally, we love that they share the manufacturing process with their clients through their online factory tours and reward innovation through their prototyping awards program Cool Idea Award (we profiled two of their winners, the Whirlwind Wheelchair RoughRider and Professor James McLurkin's R-One Robot kit)!

You, too, can take advantage of the rapid prototyping technologies and prototyping awards program at ProtoLabs.com.