Course Info

Overview

The Studio of Suspended Disbelief was created to help broaden and enrich the learning experience of RIT students by enabling innovation enabled by new manufacturing technologies. It was made possible in part through support from RIT's Provost Learning Innovation Grant, expert industry advisors, and world-class manufacturing & materials suppliers.

Course Philosophy

This course aims to reimagine how established, or emerging manufacturing technologies can be leveraged in novel ways by adapting and applying these new technologies to industries hungry for disruption. Students will envision the future and then provide compelling prototypes that persuade us to suspend our disbelief and join them on the journey into the future.

To accomplish this goal, students will take a Rapid Iterative Design (RID) approach to build technical competence that enables application exploration. At its core, RID leverages physical prototyping as a platform for promoting creativity and innovation through making and experimentation

To accompany the prototypes, students will also research historically relevant innovation, emerging technologies, and state-of-the-art techniques to create a studio culture focused on generating provocative ideas. Students will use this experience to shape their design philosophy guiding their project development.

2022 Content

In this iteration of the course, students will be exploring how Fused Filament Fabrication 3d printing (FFF) can be used to challenge and adapt traditional approaches to soft goods and textile manufacturing. Students will learn methods and techniques for integrating FFF structures with traditional textile and soft-good materials (knits, woven, non-woven and films) to discover new product opportunities.