Collaborative research: creating an upper division additive manufacturing course and laboratory for enhancing undergraduate research and innovation

The objectives of this project are to develop, assess, revise, and disseminate an upper division course and laboratory, "MSE 496AM/L Additive Manufacturing and Laboratory", and to advance undergraduate research, innovation, and creative inquiry activities as well as faculty expertise at three participating institutions with unique diversity: California State University, Northridge (CSUN), Kansas State University (KSU), and Texas Tech University (TTU). CSUN is a HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution), AANAPISI (Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution), and non-PhD-granting institution. TTU is a university with high research activity (RU/H), while KSU is both an EPSCoR and RU/H institution. The specific tasks involved are to: (1) build hands-on and virtual lab projects and draft the lab manual, (2) draft the textbook, (3) publish the textbook and lab manual through a self-publishing company, (4) create a classroom website for interactive teaching and learning, (5) develop assessment questions, (6) teach the course and conduct formative and summative assessments, (7) sponsor students' participation in undergraduate research forums and design competitions, (8) revise the textbook and lab manual to submit to a regular publisher, (9) develop simplified 3D printing projects for K-12 students, and (10) disseminate outcomes through journal articles, conference papers, and presentations. This IUSE project is designed to be on the Exploration and Design Tier and on the Engaged Student Learning Track. It is aimed at better preparing the country's professional workforce in the renaissance of U.S. manufacturing by creating new personnel proficient in the use and application of additive manufacturing (AM). AM is becoming mainstream; it has the potential to bring jobs back to the U.S. and add to the nation's global competitiveness, but challenges (including developing and refining the skills of those who will utilize this technology) must also be addressed. Additive manufacturing is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data in a layer upon layer fashion. The proposed course will cover extrusion-based, liquid-based, and powder-based AM processes. For each technology, fundamentals, applications, and advances will be discussed. Students will learn solutions to AM of polymers, metals, and ceramics. Two lab projects will be built to provide hands-on experiences on a variety of state-of-the-art 3D printers. To stimulate research innovation, students will design, fabricate, and measure test parts, and will perform experiments to explore process limits and tackle real world problems. They will also engage K-12 students through video demonstrations, thus also developing presentation skills.