8/5/2015 Emily Scott
Six years ago, an engineering teacher and an Industrial Design professor created a course to give students hands-on experience with advanced CAD programs and 3-D printing.
Written by Emily Scott
Six years ago, ISE Director of Engineering Graphics and Senior Lecturer James Leake teamed up with Professor of Industrial Design David Weightman to create a course aimed to give industrial design and engineering students hands-on experience with advanced CAD programs, laser scanning, and 3D printing.
Evolving with changes in technology, the course, GE 402 “Computer-Aided Product Realization,” has become a creative team-building experience where students complete a final design project that allows them to work closely with each other and with a 3D printer.
During the first half of the course, which is offered one semester a year, students learn how to use several CAD programs such as Fusion 360 and Geomagic. The second half of the course is focused entirely on the final design project, where teams of students experienced in a variety of disciplines are given a prompt to create a product that could be used in the real world.
In the fall 2014 class, the prompt was to create something that you could wear on your head.
Students were given examples and then began brainstorming ideas.
The results were impressive:
GROUP 1
The Interchangeable mask for air filtration allows users to change the filters while wearing the mask and could be used for activities such as biking or working in a factory.
Team members: Aileen Bai, Bryan Clark, Jenny Lin, Edwin Lira
Group 1 used the technologies available to them to develop their products into their best form. Jennifer Lin, senior in Mechanical Engineering, explained how the first few models of her team’s product - a face mask with interchangeable air filters - benefitted from using the 3D scanner to make sure it fit to a real face.
“We used the 3D printer to make a few prototypes and I'm really proud of the final product we created,” Lin said. “Without all the diverse backgrounds, we wouldn't have been able to make such an awesome product.” The mask they created could be used for activities such as biking to working in a factory. Users can change the filters in the mask while wearing it.
GROUP 2
SnorkLear is a Snorkeling mask for people in need of prescription goggles if they cannot wear contact lenses or choose not to wear them.
Team members: DJ Mascarenas, Austin Chen, Marcos Frechilla, Lizzie Bertness
Group 2 used real-life experiences from their own members to envision their product, the Snorklear, which Lizzie Bertness described as a pair of adjustable optic diving goggles meant for individual sale and rental sale. “The target user is me, actually: an incidental snorkeler/diver that cannot or chooses not to wear contact lenses,” she said. She explained how their team’s brainstorming process was both unique and a learning experience in itself.
“Both the synergy and dissonance that happens during brainstorming with different people is incredibly valuable, and we ended up with a design that none of us could have conceptualized individually,” Bertness, a mechanical engineer, said. “Working with industrial designers allows you to reconnect with your imagination again.”
See the SnorKlear animation online.
GROUP 3
Hear Clear combines safety glasses and earmuffs into one product, solving the problem of machine operators not wearing ear protection due to their need to communicate with colleagues while working.
Team members: Avery Bellis, Arsalan Aslam, Zonghe Chua, Marta Ponte
For Group 3, their method of coming up with an idea was anything but ordinary. Zonghe Chua, senior in Mechanical Engineering, said that initially, his group was set on creating a form of hearing protection. Another team member then started playing around with an earmuff and realized that “when he flipped the headband over his eye it looked really cool.”
“Our project turned around 360 degrees within a two hour brainstorming session between different majors,” said fellow team member Arsalan Aslam, senior in Mechanical Engineering. The product eventually transformed into what they named the HearClear, combining both safety glasses and earmuffs into one product, with an added feature of a sound hole that allowed the user to hear outside noise without having to remove it.
“We hope that this would provide and affordable solution to the problem of machine operators not even bothering to don ear protection [due] to their need to communicate with their colleagues while working,” Chua explained.
See the HearClear animation online.
GROUP 4
CycleSmart are “smart” glasses meant for cyclists that have a camera and a digital screen, and a Bluetooth-enabled earphone to communicate with other cyclists wearing the glasses, listen to music, or talk on the phone.
Team members: Peiyuan Zhang, Julio Minaya, Andrew Boen, Sarah Hillebrand
Julio Minaya, an international exchange student from Spain, described Group 4’s creation of smart cycling glasses as a result of a two-week brainstorming period.
“It was my first teamwork at this University,” Minaya said of the final design project. “I had never worked before with three other students at this University, and this course gave me this opportunity.”
After deciding on this particular idea due to the lack of similar products in existence, they designed the rear-view glasses that have a camera and a digital screen, and a Bluetooth-enabled earphone to communicate with other cyclists wearing the glasses, listen to music, or talk on the phone.
“I personally enjoyed this course since it offered to the students the possibility to work with a 3D printer and a 3D scanner, and I had never worked with something like that before,” Minaya added. “We were taught at the beginning of the course how to use a relatively new 3D CAM/CAD program called Fusion 360 that I personally loved.”
See the CycleSmart animation online.
Though different technologies have changed through the duration of the course, the 3D printing aspect has always been there. Leake described it as one of the biggest benefits of the course, and the students agreed. “We want to make sure this is in the hands of the students,” Leake said. “A lot of times the technology is hidden away or it’s hard to access, so they had ready access to the 3D printer.”
“The priority availability of the 3D printer was a big plus,” Chua said, and he added how he has used 3D printing skills he learned for his own research projects.
GE 402 used a Stratasys Dimension 3D printer, which utilizes fused-deposition modeling, a technology that creates products layer-by-layer.
Leake said that the 3D printer market really expanded about two years ago. “This coincided with the maker movement -- getting this kind of technology into the hands of do-it-yourselfers,” he said. “The whole market just kind of exploded.”
But it still has room for improvement. “Now, most of the 3D prints that are made end up being discarded; only a small percent are used and kept,” Leake said. “The next push is to get more serious about making actual products, things that are actually used, and not just being wowed by the technology.”
Being able to actually see a project as it was being developed was a benefit for the students. “When you are able to have your own design on your own hands you are able to detect a whole bunch of things you are unable to detect on a computer screen,” Minaya said.
Some groups also utilized laser scanning, which Leake described as a complement to 3D printing. Laser scanning allowed students to scan any 3D object, process it through software, and make it into a digital model. Students could then either process the model even further or make their final 3D print of it.
“It was my first time using a handheld 3D scanner that had such high resolution,” Lin said. “I'm a little surprised (and jealous) Mechanical Engineers don't get to use it!”
The Snorklear group used the scanner on their fellow team members to make sure their product would really fit onto someone’s head. “3D scanning people is a lot of fun, if you can get them to sit still enough,” said Bertness. “[Teammate] Austin [Chen] had a 3D print of his head done, so I'm sure he'll be explaining that desk toy for the rest of his career.”
Similar to the increasing popularity of 3D printers, Leake sees laser scanning as becoming a kind of technology that will increasingly be filtered down into the hands of the public.
Overall, Leake said the general response to the course is pretty positive, and that students appreciate the more creative aspects and the chance to learn from each other.
The course has been an opportunity for Weightman to introduce the concept of design thinking into the curriculum. “Design thinking is focused around human-centered design and involves considering all aspects of the relationships between people and the objects they use,” he said. This course has allowed engineering students to be introduced to this thought process that is focused around people, technology, and business models.
Leake said the collaboration between industrial design and engineering is of paramount importance. “Things have gotten so complex that individuals working on their own is becoming less and less common,” he said. “The notion of working in teams with people from other disciplines is hugely important.”
“For all the people involved in the course, they will in their professional careers be working in teams with people from other disciplines,” Weightman said. “Nothing ever gets done with one person on their own, it’s always a group of people from different backgrounds.”
For Leake and Weightman, the course has become an opportunity for them to conduct research on the idea of collaboration itself. The two have discussed expanding on their research possibly with an expanded year-long version of GE 402 to also allow students to have more time on the final design project.
Other opportunities have arisen from the course in the form of career opportunities. Bryan Clark, who took the course in the fall of 2014 and was a part of the team that made a filtered air mask, acquired a position at Autodesk, a company that makes 3D design software that is utilized in this course. Two representatives from the company were present for evaluations at the final presentations and announced the job opening. Clark is now working at Autodesk’s corporate headquarters in San Francisco.
Leake said the skills attained during this course could be used in virtually any career that works in accordance with product design; anything from sports equipment and medical applications to electronics and other commercial products.
“The best part [of the course] was being able to work in an interdisciplinary group on a project and see your idea go from paper to prototype,” Aslam said. “That type of experience is unmatchable to anything else when trying to start a career in product development.”