AUBURN – Central Maine Community College hosted a faculty team meeting recently to prepare for the first semester of collaboration on the Virtual Ideation Platform (VIP), a project funded by an Advanced Technological Education Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation.

The goal of the project is to create an environment in which both design and machine tool students work in concurrent or virtual product design and development, enabling those who make machine parts to communicate directly with students at other colleges who design machine parts.

Students in two classes at Keene State College will design specialty use iPod carrying cases. Students at Springfield Technical Community College will create tooling and operations documents for the machining processes and students at CMCC will build the molds for the new designs.

The project will require communication and collaboration between faculty and students at the involved institutions. Students will be graded on their collaborative work as team members as well as for their technical skills in design or machining.

In addition to discussing how to best work together, the group discussed using an online class platform to communicate and share CAD files and other documents that will be developed as part of the project, and Web conferences so students can communicate over the Internet. A Web site will be developed for students at CMCC to record machining processes that will be available to students from partner institutions to view as they work on the project design.

Students will also be using rapid prototyping technology to build models of their designs before going to manufacture. They will use laser scanners to reverse engineer and improve existing products. Once the design is complete, graduate students at University of Massachusetts Lowell will conduct finite element analysis to test for stress problems with the mold.