We received over 450 entries in this challenge, which was by far the most entires we’ve ever had in any challenge. We’d like to thank everyone for their participation; there were so many great entries, but we could only choose a few winners. So here they are…the winners of the “Countertop Challenge” are:

micro-BLOCK – 3rd Place

Kurt Hamel (Providence, RI) @khamel627

Kurt works as a mechanical engineer in the shipbuilding industry. He attended Villanova University and earned his BS and MS in mechanical engineering.

“My design was inspired by an under-cabinet wooden knife block that designed and build about 5 years ago. The countertop challenge gave me an excuse to revisit the problem of keeping knives and spatulas out of the utensil drawer while adding even more functionality and futuristic flair.”

NesCycler – 2nd Place

Roger Comas (Barcelona, Spain) @DevianLynx

Roger works as a researcher in the medical/robotic field. He studied at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia where he got his Bachelor’s degree in Informatics Engineering.

“Filling a need, was the main source of my design inspirtation, but I also wanted to make something ecofriendly”.

Counterbot UVC Countertop Sanitizer – 1st Place

Jeffrey Kerr (Bellingham, WA)

Jeffery works as a mechanical design consultant. He went to UC Berkeley and then to graduate school at Stanford and received degrees in mechanical engineering from both.

“I took your “Countertop Challenge” quite literally, and wanted to make something that actually interacted with the countertop itself. I’m a longtime builder of robots, and even worked on some cleaning robots back in the early 1990’s. And then, of course, there are all the stories about how germ-ridden an otherwise spotless countertop can be.”

So there you have it, those are the winning designs in the “Countertop Challenge”. What do you think?

Also, we just launched a new challenge today. It’s the “Make Us a Drink” challenge and all you need to do is submit your favorite drink recipe and you could win $500.