Makers Making Change, an initiative of Canadian nonprofit Neil Squire, has partnered with Bambu Lab and six accessibility organizations working with 3D printing to launch Make for Good, a global design challenge focused on assistive technology.
Hosted on Bambu Lab’s MakerWorld platform, the challenge will invite designers and 3D printer users to develop devices addressing real-world needs identified by people with disabilities.
Participants will be able to choose from 24 design briefs contributed by Makers Making Change and its partner organizations. These include a knitting-needle support for people who have experienced a stroke, a guitar pick designed for users with limited grip, and a marker-cap aid that can be operated independently by a teacher with reduced grip strength.
Other briefs address activities ranging from brushing teeth and putting on socks to recreational activities such as pickleball. Participants are expected to produce devices that can be 3D printed and replicated by other makers.
Winning files will be added to open libraries and distributed through volunteer networks already supplying assistive devices in more than 70 countries.
Designing assistive devices around real user needs
Makers Making Change, launched by Neil Squire in 2016, leverages community-based makers, occupational therapists, and volunteers to develop and deliver affordable open-source assistive technologies.
For Make for Good, the organization is working alongside PrintLab, Ayúdame3D, the Emerging Tech Lab at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, e-NABLE France, MakeGood, and Rightfooted Foundation International. Each organization will contribute different experience to the design, evaluation, and distribution process.
Spain-based Ayúdame3D will promote the challenge domestically and help distribute winning devices internationally, including to communities in Africa. According to the organization, it has supplied more than 1,000 free “trésdesis” upper-limb devices across 70 countries since 2017.
The Emerging Tech Lab at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center will contribute expertise intended to ensure designs reflect users’ lived experiences, interests, goals, and everyday environments. e-NABLE France will engage French-speaking makers, drawing on a network of more than 450 volunteers that has fitted more than 200 3D printed hands.
U.S.-based MakeGood will contribute briefs developed through user research. Since 2021, the organization has produced free customized assistive devices, including its Toddler Mobility Trainer, a fully 3D printed wheelchair for children.
PrintLab will contribute its human-centered design toolkit, which it has used in its assistive technology challenge since 2020. Rightfooted Foundation International will bring briefs from the limb-difference community, including work involving pilot and disability advocate Jessica Cox, and will help distribute completed devices to users.
Makers Making Change will also provide participants with its OpenAT Resources and OpenAT Templates. These materials are intended to support the design and documentation of open-source assistive technologies so that other makers can reproduce completed devices.
From design competition to distributed production
Participants will have two months to develop and submit their designs through MakerWorld. Makers Making Change and its partner organizations will then spend one month printing shortlisted models and testing them. Feedback from this process will inform the final results.
The grand prize winner in each design category will receive a Bambu Lab A1 3D printer.
Bambu Lab is hosting the challenge on MakerWorld, its community platform and free library of 3D models. The company describes MakerWorld as the largest community of 3D makers and says this is the first time the platform has mobilized its designers to work with people with disabilities on specific everyday needs.
The challenge emphasizes not only downloadable 3D models, but devices that address an identified user need while remaining printable, documented, and reproducible by people outside the original development team.
For assistive technology, that reproducibility can determine whether a design remains an isolated prototype or becomes something volunteer maker networks can manufacture and distribute more widely.
Winning files will be added to open libraries and distributed through volunteer networks operating in more than 70 countries. Makers Making Change will also consider winning designs for inclusion in its open-source assistive technology library, where volunteers can access designs and produce devices for people with disabilities.
Distributed production expands access to assistive technology
The Make for Good model builds on earlier efforts to make assistive devices reproducible outside conventional manufacturing channels. In December 2025, MakeGood introduced its open-source Toddler Mobility Trainer, designed to be produced on a consumer-grade 3D printer for around $150. Developed with LINK PBC and TOM Global, with support from Bambu Lab and Cookiecad, the device was made available through MakerWorld for production by families, hospitals, schools, and community organizations.
3D printing is expanding access to prosthetics by enabling custom devices to be produced locally where conventional manufacturing capacity is limited. Prosthetics centers in northwest Syria are using digital scanning, stored design files, and locally maintainable low-cost printers to produce custom limbs, with two centers serving between 100 and 150 patients per month. Digital files can be adjusted and reprinted without restarting the workflow, although shortages of equipment, raw materials, and trained specialists continue to restrict wider adoption. Make for Good addresses a different part of this distributed-production model by seeking documented and tested designs that can be reproduced across an existing international maker network.
Register now for AMA: Software 2026. Join 3D Printing Industry on 22 October for expert presentations, panel discussions and live audience Q&A exploring the software shaping additive manufacturing. [Register here.]
To stay up to date with the latest 3D printing news, don’t forget to subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.
Explore the full Future of 3D Printing and Executive Survey series from 3D Printing Industry, featuring perspectives from CEOs, engineers, and industry leaders on the industrialization of additive manufacturing, 3D printing industry trends 2026, qualification, supply chains, and additive manufacturing industry analysis.
Feature Image shows Bambu Lab P1S printers. Photo via Neil Squire.
