MAE 5340

Innovative Product Design via Digital Manufacturing

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This hands-on/project-based course instructs students on methods to identify product concepts for machine designs with commercial potential. It combines lectures and field/lab activities on the new product development cycle: iterative design based on ethnographic fieldwork, team brainstorming, prototyping, testing/consumer feedback, and limitations set by mass manufacturing. Students -coming from diverse backgrounds and industry experience, and some currently working in different companies -will be teamed together to develop the new products. They will be given a common design challenge, and after observing and engaging with real users, they will identify specific needs; then based on those needs each team will end up with a different problem definition and a different product. Industry advisers from real world companies will provide constant feedback throughout the semester.Graduate students will be required to expand and/or focus on some aspects of the process/products.

Enrollment Priority REF-FA25 Enrollment limited to: M.E. seniors and other MEng./graduate students.

Last 4 terms offered (None)

Outcomes REF-FA25

• Students will be able to experience the major impact of a human-centered design approach.
• Students will be able to understand the logic of the product development cycle in the context of both a startup company and an established firm.
• Students will be able to appreciate the limitations of early-stage prototypes and the importance of staged development into more realistic prototypes.
• Students will be able to identify product platforms for mechanical design with commercial potential.
• Students will be able to appreciate Intellectual Property in terms of design and utility.
• The student will be able to acquire familiarity with basic tools of design and manufacturing, such as CAD and digital manufacturing tools.

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