Using 3D Technologies in Materials Teaching Engaging students in early R &D activities

Teaching industry oriented courses to students with poor background and lack of the appropriate skills and knowledge in those areas is a strenuous task. The course concepts assimilation can sometimes be very difficult and designing and adapting courses can be a challenging task. When the industry paradigm starts to change and moves towards new fabrication processes like additive manufacturing (AM) the current curricula are sometimes lacking and the information transmission can be compromised. In that sense adapting lecture class and explaining AM superficially is relatively easy, but adapting laboratorial courses to fit all AM technologies also poses a challenge, not only by acquiring different AM technologies but also to arrange a time schedule for that. The result is that a group of students only experiences one technology a time and even then, they do not directly operate the machines. This also impacts on the assimilation process and perhaps more active learning strategies should be implemented. For that three bachelor students that had poor background on AM, material science, computer assisted design (CAD), were inserted in an R &D project and challenged to design customized porcelain tableware products to be produced by robocasting (R3D) technology. Surprisingly with a few hints and orientations on the early stages they were successful in producing a porcelain prototype by R3D. Moreover, the contact with R &D environment and real objectives motivated them and in the end, was extremely rewarding for them as the results were presented in national and international events. Even more the project participation was extremely useful in the development and enrichment of competencies related to materials, AM and CAD modeling, which enabled them to be later engaged in related projects involving R3D technologies and CAD modelling. This result not only shows the benefits of exposing early on students to R &D environment, it also hints that in a near future adapting a course for AM techniques might be helpful in the enrichment and development of competencies related with product development, CAD modeling and AM strategies.