This is where prototypes come to life 28. Mar. 2025

The sign-up sheets for the courses on 3D Printing, 3D Technologies in Practice, 3D Reconstruction and Scanning, and 3D Modelling were filled up quite quickly following their advertisement this semester. Yet the Innovation Ecosystem Center of the University of Debrecen offers not only credit courses but also the opportunity for students to explore real-life problems and work on solving them in the ImpactLab-Makerspace through the use of technological tools and professional mentoring.

During the month of March, students from Járműmérnöki Tanszék [Department of Automotive Engineering] at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Debrecen took part in a series of workshops, where they not only learned about 3D technologies from printing to scanning and modelling, but also had a chance to try working with tools they had never seen before. Apart from an introduction to basic 3D skills, the workshops also provided the students with an approach that may help them to develop new solutions and to design and implement further prototypes.

“It was the stereoscopic 3D technology that I liked most. It works by projecting a 3D image from a laptop screen in front of your eyes, while using a variety of cameras to follow the movement of your eyeballs, which makes it possible to draw in space,” said Zsombor Inzsöl, a third-year automotive engineering student at the University of Debrecen.

“For students of automotive engineering, it is important to be familiar with these technologies, because the devices they want to design in the future will be created in 3D design programs first, and these will be the printed prototypes that they can build into vehicles,” said teaching assistant Timotei Erdei, an employee of the Department of Automotive Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, about why he thought it was important to take his students to the facility located on Vezér street week after week.

In April, it will be the electrical engineering students from the Faculty of Science and Technology, while in May, it will be the staff members from the Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology who will participate in a similar series of workshops. Meanwhile, the Innovation Ecosystem Center's vision-building programs continue to be available to the university community, allowing students and faculty to experience the potentials of 3D technologies and prototyping.