The future of rocket design will be crowdsourced thanks to Sunglass & DIYRockets

Crowdsourcing isn’t rocket science — except when it is.

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3D modeling platform Sunglass is teaming up with space company DIYRockets to design the first wave of crowd-designed rockets. Via their new design competition, the companies are offering $10,000 to teams who can collaborate to create the best, cheapest rocket parts.

DIYRockets founder Darlene Damm says that the project will do for the world of rockets what Wikipedia did to the world of information. “Once you create a community around this stuff, you start changing how the rest of the industry works,” she said.

Essentially, by opening up design tools to the greater population, DIYRockets is democratizing an industry that, for most of its history, has been open to only a select few. And that’s the power of the Internet.

The project is also big news for Sunglass as it shows just how far the company’s collaborative design platform can go. “We already have thousands of private projects running on our platform right now, but this represents the opportunity to take things to a much higher level,”Sunglass co-founder Nitin Rao said.

Also joining the fray is 3D printing company Shapeways, which will offer $500 in free 3D printing for the two leading design teams.