Art & Science of Materials
AFRL RESEARCH PROJECT 2017-18
“How can we create strong, lightweight and durable composite materials for practical and aesthetic applications?”
Selecting or creating appropriate composites suitable to the form and function of products is an essential part of the engineering design process.
Project 1) Dimensional Tiles / Prototype to Product
Courses: Art & Science of Materials (ASM) course and Advanced Engineering (IED)
The goal of this project is to design and fabricate cement tiles for installation on campus. ASM students in the art studio created tile forms (positives) from clay during the ceramic unit. Students chose two favored designs will for replication. IED students created CAD files of the two prototypes and 3D printed tiles in resin. Students created latex rubber flexible molds using the resin tiles as positives and then cast the tiles in cement.
Students created proposals for tile design and installation sites around the school.
FormLab 2 Printer
Project 2) Concrete Furniture
Course: Art & Science of Materials
The goal of this project is to design and build furnishings for outdoor bench seating on campus. Given specific constraints, students in the ASM science course will design a composite material that will be the lightweight, chemically resistant, and have high flexural strength. In the ASM art studio, students will design aesthetically pleasing benches for outdoor furniture to be used on the DRSS campus.
Material Tester
The Dayton Regional STEM School would like to acknowledge AFRL/RQ for funding and technical support of this effort administered through Universal Technology Corporation under contract FA8650-17-2-2209.