Art Center College of Design

“Producing ZPrinter models throughout the design cycle results in better products and more experience with rapid prototyping technologies, which better prepares students for their careers.”
– David Cawley, Manager, RP 3D Labs Art Center College of Design

Students Use ZPrinters to Produce Hundreds of Models per Month

Graduates of Art Center College of Design thrive when they hit the workforce. They emerge from the 1,400-student school based in Pasadena, Calif., USA., having designed and prototyped dozens of projects in advertising, environmental design, film, fine art, graphic design, illustration, industrial design, media design, photography and imaging, product design and transportation design programs.

Assignments and deadlines at Art Center intentionally simulate the rigors of the real world and sometimes entail a late night, early morning or both. As alumna Akino Tsuchiya puts it, “Hard work, lack of sleep and tight competition is the reality of the school. But all of this was worth it because of the skill, knowledge and confidence I gained.” Tsuchiya is the designer of the Chrysler Akino concept vehicle, which would redefine the minivan.

Ranked number one among U.S. industrial design schools, Art Center challenges students to meet tight deadlines and budgets just as they will in the professional workplace. As they address these challenges, student designers have a wide range of tools to use in the fabrication of their projects and realization of their design visions, including bandsaws, sanders, mammoth blocks of clay, 3D printers, fused-deposition modelers, lasers and CNC machines.

Challenge

Affordable High-Quality Prototypes

Because students pay for their own prototypes, Art Center College of Design needs to provide affordable options for quick yet sophisticated fabrication. With this mandate in mind, three years ago the school noticed the evolution of a new approach to prototype creation called 3D printing, which produces a physical object from a 3D data file much as a traditional printer produces a 2D document from electronic text. Art Center evaluated 3D printing options and purchased the Spectrum Z^® 510 full-color system because of its speed, affordability, resolution, large build size and unique ability to print in multiple colors.

Over the past three years, Art Center has invested in two additional 3D printers – both ZPrinter^® 310 Plus models. All of these ZPrinters are five to 10 times faster and operate for less than half the cost of other prototyping methods. A part costs $3 per cubic inch using ZPrinters, versus $11 for fused deposition modeling and into the hundreds of dollars for stereolithography.

Strategy

‘ZPrinting’

“Since students pay for fabrication, they gravitate to the affordability of the ZPrinters, producing about 350 3D physical models per month,” says David Cawley, manager for the college’s RP 3D Labs. “It’s the most popular option by far. The more models made using ZPrinters, the more interest there is in the models, and the more models we are asked to print. The number is increasing steadily as we add printers, just as adding lanes to a highway increases traffic.”

Art Center is particularly renowned for its transportation design program, with its graduates in influential positions in virtually every major transportation design studio in the world. While in school, students typically build prototypes that are one-fifth the size of the actual vehicle and consist of parts fabricated from virtually every possible method. “It’s my job to help students decide on the right technology for each job,” said Cawley. “I encourage multiple disciplines – hand-sculpting, ZPrinter models, wood or stereolithography – maybe even outsourcing a part to an overseas manufacturer.”

Results

‘Wow Factor’ Driving Diverse Applications

The proliferation of 3D data files drives use of the ZPrinters. Students typically design parts in any of a number of 3D computer-aided design packages, including Autodesk^® Maya^®, Autodesk^® AliasStudio^™, Rhino^™, SolidWorks^® and numerous graphics programs.

Even when a student hand sculpts a part – say, an original grille or fender design – the next step is often converting it to a 3D CAD file. Students create the file by scanning the sculpted object with a  handheld 3D scanner, which produces a 3D data file ready for ZPrinter modeling.

While in heavy use among students in the product and transportation design departments, Cawley says, 3D printing’s “wow factor” has attracted attention across all disciplines. Photography students use ZPrinters to construct props. Fine Art students use ZPrinters to sculpture models. Students even make masks that fit perfectly by first scanning a face and using the face model as a “negative” for the mask design.

The Spectrum Z510’s unique color capabilities present 3D printing possibilities no other system can match. Students can create dynamic multicolor models, label parts with text, and apply lifelike textures, such as stone patterns, to the plaster models.

According to Cawley, students like ZPrinting because it’s powerful, versatile, fast and affordable with a build area large enough for virtually every application. It’s big enough for a computer keyboard, for instance, or a dozen cell phones.

“Producing ZPrinter models throughout the design cycle results in better products and more experience with rapid prototyping technologies, which better prepares students for their careers,” says Cawley. “Their experience with ZPrinting, and all the rapid prototyping technologies, allows them to demonstrate their expertise in technologies and techniques that employers are often just beginning to explore themselves.”

Image Gallery:

Click to view larger image or download image file.