Area high school science and technology teachers can learn to use a piece of specialized equipment that's enhancing the realism and excitement of our engineering classrooms.

A workshop sponsored by the Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Technology and the National Science Foundation will introduce participants to the rapid prototyping machine that is changing the way engineers create 3-D models.

“Rapid prototyping allows us to teach our students to create accurate 3-D models from their own software designs,” says Ismail Fidan, associate professor of Manufacturing and Industrial Technology who, along with Chairperson Ahmed ElSawy, wrote the proposal that enabled the university to buy the equipment.

“More than 50 of our students have practiced this technology, and our goal is to share that experience with area teachers interested in getting hands-on experience,” says Fidan.

The rapid prototyping machine is in simplest terms a 3-D photocopier. It produces a solid, physical model from data sent from a computer. A student can use software to create a design and then see it appear as a 3-D object.

The machine reads the design data as thin layers to build the model. Much like a paper photocopier passes back and forth to produce a copy, the RP machine passes back and forth, each time adding a thin layer and building the model up. The layers are made of powder, plaster and starch and can be colored using a cartridge similar to those in a color printer.

The machine Fidan chose, worth more than $90,000, is ideal for teaching. Most models can be produced in an average of an hour and a half as compared to the hours or days it would take to create the same modeling using traditional tooling methods.

“Our students are able to take more chances and be more creative because less time and effort is invested in each product,” says Fidan. “These prototypes put students and designers on equal footing and allow everyone to see, touch and handle the design that one day may be a product to be manufactured.”

Fidan stresses his desire to make sure students at many levels are able to take advantage of the new RP laboratory. As the first NSF-funded educational RP lab in Tennessee, the facility will be open to area high school and technology teachers during the upcoming workshop, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow.