3D Printing at Art Center

As it says on the Art Center College of Design (artcenter.edu) website:

“Our faculty of more than 400 instructors is made up of prominent artists and designers—filmmakers, photographers, painters, illustrators and designers of every discipline—who are directly engaged with the demands of today’s creative environment and bring their knowledge, professional connections and fresh approaches into our studios and classrooms.”

What’s interesting to note about that description of the Pasadena-based school that is one of the leading industrial design institutions on the planet is that the instructors are people who, in effect, have day jobs, jobs that necessitate their creating and shipping products—real things.

So the students who attend the school do more than draw and write papers. They, too, make real things, especially those who are in the Transportation Design, Product Design, Entertainment Design, and Environmental Design curricula.

And undoubtedly more than once during their 14-week semesters they make their way to the Rapid Prototyping and Model Shops on campus to create 3D models for their classes.

David Cawley, director of the shops, explains that they’re a heavy user of 3D printers from Z Corp. (zcorp.com)—they have three Z Corp. machines (one model 650 and two model 310 plus)—for a simple reason: “Mainly price point. The students pay for the models—a nominal cost to cover the materials.” And he suggests that it is such a nominal fee that it doesn’t really cover the costs, yet it is a sufficient price so as to stop what he suspects would be excessive demand: “If it was free, models would be flowing out the door every two minutes,” he says, perhaps exaggerating only slightly.

In addition to which, they have an Objet Alaris 30 (objet.com), 3D Systems V-Flash (3Dsystems.com), a Stratasys U-Print, and a Stratasys 1200 SST (stratasys.com).

Cawley explains that while the students tend to be rather frugal (after all, they are college students), the staff in the shops guide the students to the particular types of machines for the capabilities they provide. For example, he says that Transportation Design students generally need 1/5th scale models of things like automotive wheels, so that’s a good use of a Z Corp. machine because otherwise it would be “pricy.” Those same students also produce a remote-controlled car, which requires that they design and build it from the ground up. That is often where the Stratasys equipment comes into play. For high-resolution projects like cell phones, it is the Objet machine. And when they’re looking to achieve speed with very good resolution, they may bring the V-Flash to bear.

Having spent the 10 years prior to the four he’s been at Art Center at service provider Solid Concepts (solidconcepts.com), Cawley, who started in a pattern shop in England in 1969, has more than a passing familiarity with appropriate technology for the tasks at hand. He explains that the variety of RP equipment has another function as regards the students: “Having the different technologies available to see and use is a big part of understanding how different additive machines work.”

And he points out that it is not all additive manufacturing that they perform there, either,
as they have two Roland MDX-40 CNC mills (rolanddga.com), one Haas SR 100 CNC router (haascnc.com), and a Motion Master five-axis mill. In addition to which, they’re equipped with laser scanners to facilitate model making of either additive or subtractive approaches: a Roland Pixa LPX 600, NextEngine 3D scanner (nextengine.com), and a Creaform Handyscan (creaform3d.com).

The process works as follows. A student designs a part—say in SolidWorks (solidworks.com). They output an STL file and put it in a directory. They go to the 3D shop and consult with a technician. They fill out a job ticket, pay for the material, and then the job is run. “It is a bit like a bureau, but we involve the students more,” Cawley says. For example, they’ll look at the part design and determine whether the as-designed wall thicknesses are feasible, or whether the selected 3D printing technology is appropriate for the task (the students are involved in finishing the parts, so they almost invariably try to opt for an approach that requires the least amount).

Cawley says that the quality of the products produced at the 3D shop is as good as that which can be obtained from service bureaus. But sometimes, the students use service bureaus for their models. “When you have 14-week terms and three terms a year, time is the most valuable commodity,” Cawley points out, then explains that for about the first half of a semester, the turnaround time for a model is on the order of “two to three days at most.” But during the second half of the term “we hit maximum overload.” They won’t be able to get their part returned by week 14. So then the students go to service bureaus. Cawley says that he monitors what the bureaus are charging the students so as to make sure that they’re getting “a fair shake.”

But some students use outside sources as a matter of course. “We have a fairly big Asian population at the school, and a lot of the students will go for turnkey solutions in Korea and China. They have things printed or machined and shipped back.”

Clearly, that’s an indication of just how “real” the experience at Art Center can be.

A Transportation Design student project is to design and build a remote-controlled car. This one was built with fused deposition modeling.