Work in Progress: Design Education for Additive Manufacturing using RC Race Car Models

Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing (3DP) has become a widespread new technology in recent years and is now used in many areas of industry. At the same time, there is an increasing need for training courses that impart the knowledge required for product development in 3D printing. In this article, a workshop on "Rapid Prototyping" is presented, which is intended to provide students with the technical and creative knowledge for product development in the field of AM. Today, additive manufacturing is an important part of teaching for the training of future engineers. In a detailed literature review, the advantages and disadvantages of previous approaches to training students are examined and analyzed. On this basis, a new approach is developed in which the students analyze and optimize a given product in terms of additive manufacturing. The students use two different 3D printers to complete this task. In this way, the students acquire the skills to work independently with different processes and materials. With this new approach, the students learn to adapt the design to different manufacturing processes and to observe the restrictions of different materials. The results of these courses are evaluated through feedback in a presentation and a questionnaire.