Category: Magnet Limit
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66.5 Non-Fiction Auto – Winners Announced
1st Place – tend2it tend2it secured 1st place for the Automobile contest with his recreation of the Ariel Atom 3.5R. Utilizing a mix of Zen Magnets and colorful Neoballs, he was able to construct a solid build and achieve nice contrast between separate parts of the vehicle. For a layer by layer construction, check tend2it’s…
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66: Non-fiction Auto
A dream without ambition is like a car without gas… you’re not going anywhere. – Sean Hampton The April 2019 contest is an impressionism contest to create a non-fictional passenger vehicle out of 5mm magnet spheres. You do not have to use Zen Magnets, so throw some color into your impressionist build if you like.…
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64.5: Famous Landmarks Unlimited – Winners Announced
1st place: Ben Cannon – Tower of Pisa The voters have spoken and Ben takes 1st place with his interpretation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Here’s what he had to say on his process: “I had to get a bit creative with making pillars for such a small model, so I ended up settling…
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64: Famous Landmarks Unlimited
“When smashing monuments, save the pedestals – they always come in handy.” –Stanislaw Jerzy Lec The February 2019 Contest is to recreate a famous landmark with any number of 5mm or 2.5mm magnet spheres. The landmark is up to you, as long as it’s on this list of top 150 landmarks. Using any brand…
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63.5 9-Triangle Subunit II – Winners Announced
1st place – KLAW With about 30 entries, KLAW managed to take 1st place with this photo of a Zen pyramid. Nice warm, dramatic lighting from the golden hour helped achieve “an Egyptian atmosphere.” Plus a low angle and short depth of field gives this build the illusion of being enormous. Congratulations, KLAW, first place…
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63: 9-Triangle Subunit II
There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. – Pythagoras The January 2019 contest is to create a sculpture using only 9-Triangle subunits. A maximum of 192 of these subunits can be used, in other words 1728 Zen Magnets maximum. Photos due at the…
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62.5: Gallery Revue – Results, sorta
This last contest was Shihan’s idea, and it was a terrible idea. Blame him. We had only 12 participants. Though, even if we did have more nominations, that would have just made the voting even more impossible. Plus the requirements were too unavoidably subjective, the incentives were badly aligned, and the results were riddled with…
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62: Gallery Revue 1000
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. -Albert Einstien Spotlight on the Origins. The December 2019 contest is to nominate 3 photos out of the first 1000 Zen Gallery photos, that best represent Zen Magnets. This is our annual no-magnets-required contest. $300 total prize pool,…
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61.5 Chain Reaction – Winners Announced
1st Place: Mathnetism Mathnetism’s magnetic ghost dominoes pulled ahead for the big win. The columns topple each other without ever touching, and the constructions themselves are quite precarious to build. Mathnetism receives $250 in Zen Credits for 1st place. 2nd Place: Aidan Aidan’s clever use of completing a chain to initiate a reaction…
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61: Chain Reaction
“Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed.” ― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story $250 First Place The November 2018 Zen Magnets contest is to capture footage of a magnetic mechanical exothermic reaction. #1st place gets $250. At least 5 winners. Create a situation one small movement releases the potential energy of many magnets through a cascading…
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60.5 Shadow Projection Threequel – Winners Announced
1st Place: Vivien “Zödel, Escher, Nach.” was inspired by the cover of a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter which portrays the letters G E B. Vivien undertook the challenge of recreating this photo, changing the shadow letters to Z E N, and figuring out how to light it. On top of that, a shape constructed…
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60: Shadow Projection Threequel
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. -Michelangelo It has been 6 years since we first posted our original Shadow Projection Contest, and 5 years since the last one was held. So, we’re making Shadow Projection Contest an October tradition. The photography for this contests is always incredibly creative,…
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59: Popsicle Stick Balancing Act
It is your work to clear away the mass of encumbering material of thoughts, so that you may bring into plain view the precious thing at the center of the mass. – Robert Collier The October 2018 contest is to create a sculpture that balances on two Zen Magnets, on a fixed popsicle stick. Not…
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58.5: Unlimited Zen Dinosaurs – Winners Announced
1st place: Tend2it Tend2it overcame the obstacles of this challenge and came out on top with a stylistic, well crafted dinosaur. “The challenging aspects with this build include: how to generate a 3D look building outward, how to create the legs strong enough to support the body, how to get the rounded body profile layer by layer,…
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58: Unlimited Zen Dinosaurs
Life, uh, finds a way. – Dr. Ian Malcom The August 2018 contest is to create a 3D dinosaur of your choice using Zen Magnets. From our own experience dinosaurs are not the easiest to replicate in magnet form, especially bipedal ones, which is why there is no limit to the number of magnets. We are looking…
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57.5: Creepy Crawly – Winners Announced
1st Place: Tend2it Tend2it thought a Wasp would be a fun challenge and beautifully captured the proportions of the head, thorax, abdomen, legs, and wings in a striped Yellow Jacket color scheme using NeoBalls. “The most challenging aspects were the wings (used a double-layer coupled structure to get them to deploy out straight) and the single-strand…
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57: Creepy Crawly Challenge
“Together even the smallest can achieve the greatest goal.” – A Bug’s Life Now that we’ve got everyone’s attention and contests are up and running again, our July contest should allow for a little more creative freedom. We challenge each of you to create a 3D Sculpture of an arachnid or insect using between…
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56.5: Cubic Figure-eight Knot Created
Not only was the explicitly defined goal accomplished, just a day after the challenge was announced, but we had 3 successful entries entered within a 24 hour period. First was Mathnetism himself, who’s cubic trefoil knot inspired this contest in the first place. Submitted on June 28, 5:11PM (MST), with 3490 Zen Magnets used,…
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56: Wanted – Cubic Figure-eight Knot
[6/29/18 Edit: The challenge has been accomplished. Announcement soon.] Wanted: A rotationally symmetrical Figure-eight knot with Face Centered Cubic lattice construction. Bounty: $200 + $50 * Months after July 2018 The goal of the July 2018 contest is to make a Figure Eight Knot in the same cubic structure used in Mathnetism’s Trefoil Knot. Historically, most…
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![55: Contests Reawaken [Correct Guess Found]](//zencontest.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/55thumb.jpg)
55: Contests Reawaken [Correct Guess Found]
[Edit: The correct guess of 4740 was found on 7/2/2018 via Facebook.com/Neoballs] Geometry Guesswork Holy guacamole, this place has gotten dusty. Untouched since April 2015. We’ll work on sprucing up the whole contest ship while we’re in the air. For now, the Zen Contest revival launches with two simultaneous challenges: One low-ish effort, and one high effort. This…
![55: Contests Reawaken [Correct Guess Found]](http://zencontest.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/55thumb.jpg)