Taking part in the global transformation of engineering education that extends beyond theory and into applications, the Department established the Innovative Design and Fabrication (IDF) Center in October 2014 under the support from the University and its alumni. Covering a total area of 600 square meters, the IDF Center is located in the Yonglin Biomedical Engineering Hall and can host up to 150 students. The Center serves as an educational laboratory for students to integrate digital design with modern digital manufacturing while they measure and test for prototype improvement. By completing this process, students gain familiarity with the design-test-build cycle. This space is provided for the sake of promoting active learning and teamwork spirit for individuals and groups through making. More importantly, the IDF Center is student-focused, meaning that students are in charge of taking initiatives in its maintenance and function; such engagement shall stimulate students’ motivation to go beyond the curriculum and help students to gain confidence towards their profession.

Currently, the Center is the home base of the compulsory capstone course, Practice of Mechanical Engineering, in which junior students team up to build a table-top vehicle or robot for contests. After taking a training class, students have full access to the Center’s facilities that include 6 work benches with a wide range of hand tools, 12 medium-level 3D printers, 2 industrial-level 3D printers, 4 XY tables, 3 laser cutters, 3 desktop CNC milling machines, 1 6R robot arm, and many other desktop machines. In addition to machining facilities, the Center also provides simple measurement tools and 3 sets of electronic laboratory instruments.

Efforts have also been made to make the IDF Center smarter by linking the machines and the space with sensors and actuators so that remote control and intelligent management with cloud data can be demonstrated to the students and accessible in higher education. At the moment, we have implemented an unmanned access control system with camera surveillance and indoor object tracking together with environment monitoring via temperature, humidity and vibration sensors.