The Role Of Design And Prototyping In Industry/Education Partnerships

The purpose of this continuing study was to determine if industry and educational partnerships are effective ways to improve student learning and provide services that industry could otherwise not afford. It was thought that Solid Modeling and Rapid Prototyping would be valuable in increasing the translation between abstract 2-D drawings and actual 3-D parts. In order to accomplish this, the following research questions were proposed: ∑ Will drawing an object in 3-D and producing that part with a Rapid Prototyping system as part of an Industry initiated project improve student visualization skills? ∑ Does industry and education see benefits in this type of partnership? To do this several courses and industrial projects were used and evaluated for visualization skill improvement and perceived benefits to provide a more complete picture.