While the annual CSAW competition is still several months away, a new competition called the Hack 3D Summer Challenge, served as a calling card for the main event. The summer session, which focused on growing security concerns in the field of additive manufacturing, invited student to “test the security limits in additive manufacturing and to decode the security features in computed aided designs.” Qualifying rounds were held July 26-30, and the summer finals on August 2 and 3. The top three teams were guaranteed direct entry to the November finals.

The summer challenge was opened to any student anywhere in the world who is currently enrolled in an accredited undergraduate or graduate degree program. Players had the option to compete individually, or on a team of up to 4 members who do not have to attend the same university/college. Six teams, drawn from 8 universities in India, Abu Dhabi, and the U.S., presented their solutions in the finals round. The multi-part challenge asked them to crack a five-digit PIN pass code, identify the order in which seven keys were entered, and reconstruct a broken QR code and determine the link address with which it is associated.

The six team finalists of the Summer Challenge were selected from 26 entries submitted in the preliminary rounds. A total of 775 individual entries and 438 teams entries were initially received. The winning entries were as follows:

1st Place–The PC Squad
Varun Gadre, IIT Kanpur, India
Sukhpaul Sehmbi, NYC College of Technology, U.S.
Harsh Srivastava, NIT Waragal, India
Nghia Nim, NYU Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

2nd Place--3DAD
NYU Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Yusuf Jimoh
Cornelius Otchere
Juan Esteban Villegas

3rd Place
NYU Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Abdul Gomda
Dev Kalavadiya
Soumen Mohanty

You can watch the final presentations here. Qualifying rounds for the Fall edition of the competition will be held November 3-5.