Enhancement of Lab Experiments Using CAD and Prototyping

Finding specific instrumentation and/or specialized equipment for laboratory experimentation can often be challenging or event cost prohibitive. Rapid Prototyping can be used to customize laboratory parts to effectively build and implement an experiment. Laboratories with active participation of the students, acquiring hands-on experience, are of great importance in engineering schools as practical knowledge gained in the area of expertise can significantly impact the quality of student education. By designing equipment in collaboration with students, instructors have more input throughout the design process and subsequently students get involved early on the design of experiment aspects of laboratory practices. The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Rapid Prototyping are excellent tools to customize laboratory and research instrumentation. Over the past year, more than one hundred projects have been implemented materializing prototyped parts using a 3D printer or a Laser cutting machine. Among other things, this has kept costs down while at the same time producing very unique experimental equipment.

This contribution present a show case of examples than can be easily implemented in courses dealing with fluid mechanics, heat and mass transport. In addition, this work also includes examples of students led learning objective writing as well as examples of students’ outcomes improvement.