Design & Prototype Studio
Design & Prototype Studio is where ideas learn to hold their shape. Students work the full arc of product development - sketching, measuring, modeling, printing, and presenting - using the same parametric CAD tools practicing engineers use. The studio format means nearly every class period ends with something new on the screen or on the bench.
Precision is a recurring theme. Students learn to measure with calipers, reason about tolerances and fits, and use statistics to understand why no two manufactured parts are ever quite identical. They tear down real consumer products to discover how someone else solved a problem, keep their design files under version control like a professional team, and document everything in a disciplined engineering notebook.
The second half of the year turns outward: who is this product for, what does their body and behavior demand of it, how will it be manufactured, and what happens to it at end of life? The course closes with a kinetic product challenge - a device with moving mechanisms - defended before a review panel.
View the full lesson plan — all 180 periods →
Course structure — 6 units, 6 weeks each
In every unit, weeks 1–5 build the skills and week 6 applies them in a project, with a deliverable due at the end of each day.