Stepping outside of the classroom and utilizing the resources and staff at ADDFab was the best way to invest in my career development as a mechanical engineering undergrad at UMass. I volunteered a few hours from my busy schedule each week to design parts in CAD for 3D printing. This service enabled me to fabricate physical parts from my designs which led me down a path of developing a rare skill that is highly desired in the global manufacturing industry - that being Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM). I realized the value of this skill in my first job as a Tool Design Engineer at a major Aerospace & Defense contractor, where the senior tool designers had been designing traditionally for 20+ years and were not able to leverage the technology the same way as myself. My experience at ADDFab continues to pay dividends into my current job as an Application Engineer at an industrial 3D printing OEM Markforged. In this role, I have been exposed to the massive wave of adoption that is coming with industrialized 3D printing, and I see the concept of ADDFab as a critical element to nurturing the next generation of engineers that will inevitably mature 3D printing into the global manufacturing industry.”
—Ross Adams, '18, Field Application Engineer - Markforged
The ADDFab and Device Characterization labs together provide the ability to design, control, and evaluate the 3D printing process specific to our requirements for developing the next generation of prosthetic components as well as embed smart sensing structures into the parts. Together the 2-axis Instron testing machine along with the Stress Photonics photoelastic strain measurement system enables the evaluation of new soft sensors we are creating to measure the physical contact between robots and people in collaborative work situations.”
—Frank C. Sup, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
The ADDFab Core has been a major help manufacturing and refining our hardware prototypes. The tools available there have dramatically decreased our turnaround for new designs, making it much easier to focus on our primary research without delays.”
—Addison Mayberry, Sensors Lab, College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS)