In traditional sense, prototyping was an undesirable method as a cost element. This led to unprecedented high costs due to irreversible errors in the later stages of the design and manufacturing process. These design mistakes can even come up to the size of the product recall. Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies offer significant opportunities for designing and manufacturing stages to detect and eliminate such errors. When integrated into the RP design and manufacturing processes, the probability of design change after product manufacturing is reduced. It is possible to see the prototype of the product before final production and to identify possible defects. It is a fact that with the development of RP technology, product controls during the design phase have become more efficient and this has led to lower product costs. This means productivity in production. In this project, we aim to develop and transfer the developments in the RP field to engineering education in the near future with a strong consortium. Technological innovations in the sector can not be tracked well enough level in the universities, and even in the engineering education, rapid prototyping is never given a separate course or included as part of another course. In engineering faculties that have discrete RP courses in their education programs, a common curriculum is not available to use for lecturers in the courses. However, both national and international scale RP training should be carried out in the context of a standard curriculum. This project is to develop a common educational curriculum among the engineering faculties that have been trained in intentional rapid prototyping. With this project, common training programs will be developed among the institutions that provide rapid prototyping (3D printing) training and to create a standardized training process among the countries. Thus, it is aimed to increase the learning motivation of the engineer candidates in the countries using the rapid prototyping applications in the engineering processes through the intercultural learning approach. Promoting engineering faculties that do not place RP training into their curriculum with the dissemination of the curriculum developed will lead to significant output of the project. Under this proposal, summer/winter schools, workshops, training seminars will be organized to achieve project targets. The duration of project is 36 months and Turkish partners are Gazi University (Leader-www.gazi.edu.tr), Bor Software(www.boryazilim.com) and Association of Academicians Union(www.akademisyenler.org) Eurepean Partners are Danmar Computers Sp Z o.o.(Poland), Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti(Romania), Macdac Engineering Consultancy Bureau Ltd(Malta), GoDESK S.R.L.(Italy) Evropska rozvojova agentura, s.r.o. (Czech Republic), and SC Ludor Engineering SRL(Romania).
In traditional sense, prototyping was an undesirable method as a cost element. This led to unprecedented high costs due to irreversible errors in the later stages of the design and manufacturing process. These design mistakes can even come up to the size of the product recall. Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies offer significant opportunities for designing and manufacturing stages to detect and eliminate such errors. When integrated into the RP design and manufacturing processes, the probability of design change after product manufacturing is reduced. It is possible to see the prototype of the product before final production and to identify possible defects. It is a fact that with the development of RP technology, product controls during the design phase have become more efficient and this has led to lower product costs. This means productivity in production. In this project, the following objectives, which were planned at the application stage, were achieved; -An RP curriculum has been developed to be used (even now) in engineering education. -A strong consortium has been formed that closely follows the developments in the field of engineering and technology. -Despite Covid, the mobility of students and lecturers has been increased. In addition to the above objectives, the project accelerated the delivery of technological innovations to the sectors. Projects have been developed in the fields of AR and VR, which are closely related to RP. These projects, in which most of the consortium partners are involved, include inclusive practices covering different sectors with the theme of innovation. In engineering faculties that have discrete RP courses in their education programs, a common curriculum is not available to use for lecturers in the courses. However, both national and international scale RP training should be carried out in the context of a standard curriculum. The international learning environment created by the project gave the opportunity to compare the applications in the field of RP in engineering faculties. In particular, the 4 LTTAs involved in the project contributed significantly to the maturation of this process. With this project, common training program were developed among the institutions that provide rapid prototyping (3D printing) training and to create a standardized training process among the countries. Thus, the learning motivation of the engineer candidates were increased in the countries using the rapid prototyping applications in the engineering processes through the intercultural learning approach. Under this proposal, virtual summer/winter schools, virtual conference, training seminars (virtual and physical) were organized to achieve project targets. The duration of project was 36 months and Turkish partners were Gazi University (Leader-www.gazi.edu.tr), Parantez Teknoloji (https://parantezteknoloji.com.tr) and Association of Academicians Union(www.akademisyenler.org). European partners were Danmar Computers Sp Z o.o.(Poland), Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti(Romania), Macdac Engineering Consultancy Bureau Ltd(Malta), GoDESK S.R.L.(Italy) Evropska rozvojova agentura, s.r.o. (Czech Republic), and SC Ludor Engineering SRL(Romania).