This EArly-cConcept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award is to investigate the creation of a web-based, 3D physical manufacturing service, analogous to the print, photo, and a wide range of other digital media services that are available on teh Internet. This will be based upon a combination of low-cost additive manufacturing (AM) prototyping techniques (e.g. fused deposition modeling) and the ability for users to scale up to small volume productions using either AM methods (which are expanding in scope almost monthly) or traditional manufacturing processes. The deliverables will be an initial service framework and file-format for a web-based national parts-on-demand prototyping and manufacturing service that will be built on a web-based platform that enables both novices and professionals to collaborate on the design of 3D models - this involves sharing, reviewing, and revising designs for mechanical and electronic manufacturability. The investigators will leverage modern web development frameworks e.g., Ruby on Rails or Django, to prototype this web platform for "communal" design and manufacturing. These deliverables will be developed with the specific objectives of providing universal accessibility and ease of use.
The societal goal of this web-based manufacturing service is to unleash the creativity of students, hobbyists, and inventors with the consequent launch of new start-ups in a wide variety of consumer sectors. The economic goal is to create virtual marketplace for both experienced designers and a new generation and community of 3D-artists and inventors thus making a contribution to the new national Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) initiative. The resultant development of this web-based manufacturing service would provide a collaborative engineering environment suited to both educational and professional usage and requirements. A universally accessible design environment could be implemented as a digital classroom, providing a collaborative web-based educational tool to educators in engineering, robotics, medical, energy, and a wide range of consumer products and services.
Recent years have seen a strong resurgence of interest in DIY (do-it-yourself) design and manufacturing. Accessible solid modeling software and the falling cost of of 3D printing equipment such as fused deposition modeling machines have enabled many more users to create and fabricate prototype products. However, transitioning from 3D-printed prototypes to volume manufacturing introduces a set of requirements and constraints that are unfamiliar and potentially daunting to amateur users. This grant supported the development of Fabbit, a web-based platform that enables novices and experts to collaboratively discuss 3D models online to overcome this hurdle. The collaboration platform enables a community of users to share, review, and revise designs. The Fabbit project builds upon concepts developed in software engineering to share and discuss source code in geographically distributed project teams. Specifically, Fabbit uses revision control of design files to track designs as they evolve, and enables users to have discussions on particular file revisions. Discussion contributions can be anchored to specific views and specific locations on a 3D model. Our work shows that modern Web standards can be used for interactive visualization and annotation of complex 3D models inside a Web browser. To understand the benefits of our approach, we deployed Fabbit in a course where students learned solid modeling. Expert teaching staff reviewed models and provided feedback through our platform. The grant has provided research opportunities to three undergraduate students, a PhD student and a postdoctoral scholar. It has also provided the impetus to develop a new interdisciplinary engineering course on Interactive Device Design. Students learn, through concrete projects, to go through a complete design process to develop a product idea into a functional, physical prototype that combines solid modeling of enclosures, custom electronics, and software. The curriculum for this course is freely available online. The Fabbit source code is available under an open source license.
