The Schools of Fine and Performing Arts and Science and Engineering have come together to create a minor for people of all disciplines: digital design and fabrication (DDF).
According to the SUNY New Paltz webpage, DDF “prepares students to conceptualize and design for 21st century manufacturing.” With the two schools collaborating, the minor introduces students to a combination of expertises including design theory, aesthetics and 3D modeling skills. In addition, the minor offers students the opportunity to learn more about material properties and constraints while applying analytical approaches to problem solving.
Aaron Nelson, an assistant professor of DDF as well as one of the faculty members who spearheaded the new minor, said that it allows students of any major to access emerging tools in the design and fabrication fields, teaching them how to make objects in the 21st century.
“The DDF minor is a way of democratizing these tools to the student body of SUNY New Paltz,” he said. “In a lot of ways, it’s a really special thing. We’re one of the first colleges in the country to have a design minor like this.”
In terms of this technology, Nelson said SUNY New Paltz is now up in the ranks with universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Berkeley, two of the first large schools to offer advanced manufacturing minors to their students.
“In a really cool way, we’re at this small liberal arts university here in the Hudson Valley and we’re at the cutting edge of this technology,” he said. Read More…
