Making in the Maker Movement: An Investigation into the Impact of Additive Manufacturing on Student Creativity

增材制造（与3D打印同义）是一种在计算机控制下沉积连续材料层以创建三维工件的过程。据估计，到2020年，该领域的全球收入将超过210亿美元。虽然增材制造（AM）预计将成为美国未来全球制造业竞争力的重要组成部分，但目前行业对熟练的AM劳动力的需求尚未得到满足。这导致大学增加了他们的增材制造课程，工程教育工作者使用增材制造技术来增加设计过程中的原型和制造学习。不幸的是，对于在课堂上用AM正式教育学生或评估有效的教学实践的最佳方法，没有严格的科学理解。因此，教师的努力可能无法让学生正确地利用增材制造来改进他们的设计，这是一个不断发展的研究领域，称为增材制造设计（DfAM）。为了解决这一教育差距，本项目的目标是了解正规的本科AM教育方法如何影响工程专业学生的设计学习和创造力。这将通过评估学生设计的新颖性和可行性来确定，因为他们参加了各种DfAM教育单位和设计活动。要调查的研究问题涉及(i) AM教学类型对学生创造力的影响；（ii）设计任务的复杂程度和（iii）学生的教育水平。参与者将完成增材制造前的知识测试，参加增材制造培训课程，为设计挑战提出想法和模型，并完成增材制造后的知识测试。创造性评估的标准指标，如Shah、Vargas-Hernandez和Smith的新颖性、质量和可行性指标将被采用。通过本研究确定的最佳实践将为在工程设计课程中创建正式的DfAM教育干预提供信息，该课程考虑了内容重点、设计任务复杂性和结构、活动持续时间和学生教育水平等方面的发现。这将帮助工程教育工作者为新生的增材制造劳动力提供必要的知识、技能和经验，并可以扩展到了解创客空间、K-12教育和行业环境中的类似影响。

Additive Manufacturing (synonymous with 3D printing) is a process in which successive layers of material are deposited under computer control to create a three-dimensional artifact. The field is estimated to grow to a worldwide revenue of more than $21 billion by the year 2020. While additive manufacturing (AM) is projected to form an important part of the United States' future global manufacturing competitiveness, current industry demands for a skilled AM workforce are not being met. This has lead to universities ramping up their AM course offerings and engineering educators using AM technologies to augment prototyping and manufacturing learning during the design process. Unfortunately, there is no rigorous scientific understanding of the best approach to formally educate students with AM in the classroom or evaluate effective instructional practices. As a result, instructor efforts may not be properly preparing students to utilize AM to improve their designs, a growing area of research termed Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM). To address this educational gap, the objective in this project is to understand how formal undergraduate AM educational approaches impact design learning and creativity in engineering students. This will be determined through evaluation of student design novelty and feasibility as they participate in a variety of DfAM educational units and design activities. The research questions to be investigated address the impact on student creativity of (i) type of AM instruction; (ii) complexity of design task and (iii) educational level of student. Participants will complete a pre-AM knowledge test, participate in AM training sessions, produce ideas and models for a design challenge and complete a post-AM knowledge test. Standard metrics for creativity assessment such as the Shah, Vargas-Hernandez and Smith metric for novelty, quality and feasibility will be employed.The best practices identified through this research will inform the creation of a formal DfAM educational intervention in engineering design courses that accounts for the findings in the areas of content focus, design task complexity and structure, activity duration, and student educational level. This will help engineering educators prepare their students with the necessary knowledge, skills, and experiences for the nascent AM workforce, and can be expanded to understand similar effects in Maker Spaces, K-12 education, and industry settings.