Now that Nerdtoberfest 2025 is behind us, we want to go back and share two uses of cool technology at this year’s annual open house. We used our scanning tools and 3D printers to make 3D Printed Bavarian “Oktoberfest” hat that was the prize for our sweepstakes and also how we really leaned in to AI image generation for the signage and marketing graphics we used.
From Real Tyrolean Hat to 3D Printed Prize
Every year at Nerdtoberfest, we have a sweepstakes for every guest who completes a passport showing they visited all the stations. Keeping with the nerdy Oktoberfest theme, we decided to make a beer mug and then a “German” hat. The first thing we learned was that the proper name is Tyrolean hat. Bavarian hat and Alpine hat seem to also work just as well.
We looked, and there were no good, shared CAD files available, so we put our technology to work. PADT’s Pam Waterman used our optical scanner to convert a hat she found into a computer model. She then had the 3D model printed on our Stratasys SAF printer. This powder-based process was perfect for quickly making such a large model. Once we had the gray hat, we then dropped it into an Oryx SCA 1200 system to dye it. The final step was to print a feather on the Stratasys J55.
We use this technology all the time, but on real products that are usually proprietary in nature, so we can’t share them with the world. This little hat is a great example that we can share. We think its pretty sharp.
AI Art for The Win in Nerdtoberfest 2025
As we mentioned in our earlier post about Rupert, our 3D Printed robot dog mascot, we are leaning heavily into AI to help us with graphics. Since all of us are trying to get our heads around when and how to use AI, we thought reviewing our use for Nerdtoberfest 2025 would be useful to others.
The Theme for Nerdtoberfest 2025
We go into this in detail in a separate article: Taking Rupert from 2D to 3D – An Example of Using AI to Convert a Cartoon Into a 3D Printed Part. To sum it up, well to have CoPilot sum it up:
PADT’s blog post details how they transformed a 2D cartoon of a robot dog named Rupert into a 3D printed mascot for Nerdtoberfest 2025. Using AI tools like Adobe Firefly, Google Imagen, and Tripo, they generated and refined images, then sculpted the 3D mesh in Nomadsculpt. The final model was printed using Stratasys Origin One. The project showcases how AI and additive manufacturing can convert 2D art into tangible 3D objects efficiently and creatively. [padtinc.com]
That is how we ended up with these two:
then we used multiple steps to create this guy:
Making The Lederhosen Wearing Robot Wave
During our marketing campaign, we wanted to get more notice on LinkedIn, so we used Adobe Firefly to animate the robot. What was cool is it recognized that old-timey look and feel of the original art, and made a old-timey film video. The prompt was basically, make the robot wave. This used a lot of AI credits on my Adobe account, and it was short. But I don’t have the time to learn a full tool. I’m sure this will get better with time.
More Images and Signs
Once we had the basic artwork, it was really just a matter of figuring out the right prompts to modify our two robototic friends into new activies to meet our marketing needs. Here are some of the images we created by PADT’s Andrew Smith:
We All Know, This is Just the Begining
These examples were fun and funny, but also great examples of the ease of use and power of the tools that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. As we work our way forward in our generative AI journey, we are learning where and when to use it, and seeing some significant time savings.
Please subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you get an invite to Nerdtoberfest in 2026 and you also have a chance to see how we use these tools in the future.
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