Computer Aided Drafting in Prototyping

Rapid prototyping is the drawing of physical machines with stereolithography machines and special laser sintering machines. This is quite a new technology and has been used for machine drawings and even in animation. It can capture the tiniest of movements.

With prototyping, a working model of a machine can be constructed very rapidly and tested to see if it works as expected. This saves time and money. Rapid prototyping has been called the next industrial revolution. In order to begin prototyping, the idea has to be first thought out and a computerized drawing made. It is then taken to the prototyping machine and a prototype is made and studied to see what is working properly and what needs to be changed.

A number of different systems have been built by various manufacturers. The U.S. is interested in creating prototyping systems that fit into many different facets of engineering. The entire engineering field is having to re-do their classwork so that the graduating engineer will be well versed in all the different types of systems.

We need robotics, automation, manufacturing as well as intelligent systems that can work on their own. The faster this is developed the better the chance of the U.S. being a leader in manufacturing. Engineering encompasses such a large area that many of our engineers only know about the small section they are working in. With the prototyping they will have to take more courses and be able to visualize many opportunities to use prototyping.