AUBURN – The New England Rapid Prototyping Center at Central Maine Community College recently hosted a regional workshop on rapid prototyping additive manufacturing. Rapid prototyping refers to technologies that take virtual designs from computer aided design to fabricate physical objects that correspond exactly to the virtual model. Participants in the workshop learned about the versatility of 3-D printing and preprocessing, digital manufacturing and new uses for prototyping technology. The workshop was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities.