Design for(e!) Additive Manufacturing: in search of an authentic and robust design task to support problem-based DfAM education

Modern engineering design education relies heavily on problem-based learning (PBL). Driven by the constructivist theory of education, PBL enables students to build knowledge organically, rather than through rote memorisation. Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) education also tends to emphasise PBL to encourage student learning. Unfortunately, dedicated DfAM education is nascent, resulting in a wide range of educators leveraging an equally wide and often unproven range of design challenges. Consequently, the selected design challenge may neither represent Additive Manufacturing (AM) as a true end-use manufacturing process nor encourage exploration of a design space that fully considers opportunistic and restrictive DfAM. This work creates and implements a comprehensive design challenge suitable across the range of AM education. Specifically, the authors propose a golf putter DfAM design challenge. This concept draws from lessons learned over ten years of DfAM instruction at undergraduate and graduate levels and is based on three key aspects for a successful DfAM challenge in education: Clarity, Applicability, and Demonstrability. The effectiveness of the putter challenge is evaluated through a university-level design challenge, where expert evaluations showed an improvement in the design outcomes. The generated designs also demonstrate the task’s ability to naturally encourage the integration of DfAM concepts.