DCC TO HOST RAPID PROTOTYPING
WORKSHOP FOR EDUCATORS
DANVILLE, VA., May 5, 2005 --
Danville Community College will host a rapid prototyping demonstration
and workshop on May 10-11 for educators, including high school teachers
and community college and university professors from across the
Commonwealth. The workshop will be held in the Wyatt Building, second
floor, on DCC’s main campus and in the Advanced Digital
Manufacturing Lab housed in the Dan River Business Development Center.
Robert Huffman,
Assistant Professor of Drafting and Design, Jerry Franklin,
Manager of the Advanced Digital Manufacturing Lab (ADM), and Roy Owen,
a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) Technician at the ADM lab, will
facilitate the work. The sessions begin on Tuesday, May 10, from 9:30 a.m. to
6:30 p.m., and on Wednesday, May 11, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Workshop participants
will have the opportunity to operate both machines, as well as see other
brands of prototypers at work during a vendor fair. Participants will
also prepare and produce 3D models using the software, Solidworks.
Huffman said DCC has
access to two different rapid prototypers: a 3DSystems Invision
prototyper and a 3DSystems SLS (selective laser sintering) prototyper.
Both are state of the art equipment used by drafting and design students
at the college.
“We’ve been looking for
a way to share this equipment and its capabilities with other educators
in the state,” Huffman said. “We feel that this workshop provides an
open door for teachers to learn more from this program and equipment and
enables them to take the information back to their students.”
A rapid prototyping
machine provides a means to fabricate 3D models that are drawn on a
computer. Each part is built layer by layer from the bottom up. The
Invision machine hardens the photopolymer plastic by blinking an
ultraviolet light while the SLS machine melts each layer with a laser.
The complexity of the part is not an issue and assembled moving parts
can be made with the machines.
For more
information about the workshop, contact Robert Huffman, at 434.797.8548,
toll free at 800.560.4291, ext. 8548 or by
clicking here.
