Location: The Center For Design Innovation (CDI)
301 North Main St.
Winston-Salem, NC, 27101 USA
Site visit Coordinators: Tina Sarawgi (professor UNC-Greensboro)
and Carol Strohecker (Director of CDI)
The Center for Design Innovation is a research center involved in collaborative efforts with surrounding North Carolina Universities and communities. The relationships they have promote, research, education, design development, and community. The center works with surrounding Universities and Colleges to provide professional design experiences for students. These experiences involve internships, seminars, presentations, and design discussions.
The academic collaborations CDI engages in encourages students to not only work with the center on its design research, but also for students to explore the possibilities of their design work. Recently UNCG graduate student Stephanie Brooker interned for the center, along with several other students. The job experience of redesigning and product envisioning for CDI afforded her the opportunity to work in a professional environment and utilize current day design technologies. These technologies included Z Corporation and Dimensions prototype printers. The Z corp printer uses a standard Lexmark ink to produce colored prototypes. material used to create object is plaster-like. The objects produced are much more delicate. The Dimensions printer layers thins strings of ABS plastic and surrounds it with a support material that is later dissolved with sodium hydroxide. The accessibility of these design tools allowed Stephanie to further explore and envision a product she was proposing for their interior environment.
In addition, CDI works with educators to develop interactive educational training tools. The image below is animated character Kenny Twist. Its arms and legs can be twisted, turned, and interlocked with another Kenny Twist. This activity and visual tool enables children to understand DNA and other molecular constructs.
Overall, the site visit was very informative on not only the technology, but also on the growth of the research deign community that CDI has successfully contribute too.
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