An Examination Of Rapid Prototyping In Design Education

To evaluate the effectiveness of a rapid prototyped model, a course was examined which requires students to conceive a design and create a model or prototype demonstrating their design. Students were randomly selected from the course to be given access to the rapid prototype or to create the models (prototypes) as the class has done for more than twenty years. The models were graded by three experts in the field using a rubric which focused on three key aspects of the model project. Those aspects included craftsmanship, design quality, and scale (proportion). The measures of craftsmanship and scale produced a large effect ( d = .82; d = .86) with significant probability values (p < .047; p < .043), while the measure of design produced a small effect size ( d = .22) with a non-significant probability value ( p < .536) when comparing the rapid prototyped models to the traditionally built models.