The Forrest Wade Rapid Prototyping Laboratory

The F.W. Rapid Prototyping Laboratory was first established with an NSF Instrumentation and Equipment Grant in 1988, matched by Cooper Union, and then continually enhanced with three more NSF grants and a series of equipment grants originated from Cooper Union, the Kresge Foundation, the Howard Hughes Foundation, and the Forrest Wade Foundation.

Since its inception, the F.W. Rapid Prototyping Laboratory has evolved into a state-of-the-art instructional facility capable of supporting courses in the areas of product development and general computer-aided engineering disciplines. The Laboratory now houses a PUMA 762 Robot, a Brideport Interact 412 Milling Machine, a tabletop LightMachine turning center, a Max/NC Milling Machine, a Morgan plastic injection molding machine, a 3-D Systems’ Actua 2100 rapid prototyping station, a Cyberware 3-D scanner, a Microscribe 3-D digitizer, and a network of engineering graphics workstations supporting a suite of engineering design, analysis, and manufacturing software tools: CATIA, ADAMS, Cosmos, MasterCAM, ProCAST, and SolidWorks. A FreeForm interactive sculpting system, by SensAble Technologies, was installed in January 2002 to initiate cross-disciplinary, project-based learning offered to students from both the engineering and the art schools.