A Framework for Teaching the Fundamentals of Additive Manufacturing and Enabling Rapid Innovation

The importance of additive manufacturing (AM) to the future of product design and manufacturing systems demands educational programs tailored to embrace its fundamental principles and its innovative potential. Moreover, the breadth and depth of AM spans several traditional disciplines, presenting a challenge to instructors yet giving the opportunity to integrate knowledge via creative and challenging projects. This paper presents our approach to teaching AM at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level, in the form of a 15-week course developed and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lectures begin with in-depth technical analysis of the major AM processes. In lab sessions, students operate and characterize desktop AM machines, and work in teams to design and fabricate a bridge having maximum strength per unit weight while conforming to geometric constraints. To conclude the semester, teams created prototype machines for printing molten glass, soft serve ice cream, biodegradable material, and carbon fiber composites, as well as for large area parallel extrusion and for in situ optical scanning during printing. We conclude that AM education, while arguably rooted in mechanical engineering, is truly multidisciplinary, and that education programs must embrace this context.