2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper focuses on development and teaching of rapid tool making and tooling content in the form of a 2-day workforce development workshop for a consortium sponsored by the Defense Manufacturing Communities Support Program (DMCSP) and its adaption to college curriculum. This 2-day intensive course introduced participants to rapid tool making methods based on 3D printing. Indirect and direct rapid tooling were covered with hands-on activities including use of software tools. Tooling for multiple processes such as plastic injection molding, sand casting, room temperature vulcanization (RTV) as well as jig and fixture design were included in the curriculum with demonstrations or laboratory exercises. Main target audience was technical personnel from small and medium size manufacturing companies, even though it was open to similar personnel from all size of companies including start-ups. This paper presents the structure and delivery of the workshop, expected critical take-aways, involvement of multiple 3D printing and additive manufacturing processes like Binder-Jetting, Stereolithography (SLA), and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), and the newest efforts of the author to integrate this workshop content to his rapid prototyping and reverse engineering course. The paper is concluded with possible future effort ideas, in both workforce development and engineering education fronts, also relating the latter to ABET requirements.