Teaching Engineering Design with Digital Fabrication: Imagining, Creating, and Refining Ideas

Digital fabrication uses next-generation computer-controlled manufacturing systems to translate electronic designs into 2D and 3D physical objects. Advances in technology are making educational applications and classroom use of digital fabrication increasingly feasible. The combination of digital fabrication with engineering design integrates mathematics, science, and engineering concepts into a highly motivating context. Students can use digital fabricators to quickly prototype ideas and create sophisticated designs that satisfy mathematics- and science-based criteria and constraints, encouraging students to imagine, invent, collaborate, and construct solutions to complex and authentic problems.

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