What is DesignHub?

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About Us

DesignHub is a student-led team of engineers and designers that helps clients within the Duke community fulfill their design and prototyping needs. DesignHub provides everything from computer modeling and prototyping to final product small-scale manufacturing.

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Our Services

CAD

We produce computer modeled 3D files ready for manufacturing using 3D printing or conventional subtractive manufacturing.

Prototyping

We use rapid prototyping technologies including 3D printing, laser cutting, and more to generate prototypes and iterate on designs.

Manufacturing

We help determine the optimal path to small scale manufacturing by helping with material selection, sourcing, and manufacturing method selection.

How it Works

DesignHub is a subsidized service provided to the Duke community by the Innovation Co-Lab.  We will absorb the cost of labor up to a maximum of 20 hours. Beyond this consultation time, the service is cost recovery and you will be billed for time beyond the initial 20 hours as well as at-cost material charges for any materials necessary to fabricate the prototypes (if fabrication is part of the project). We try to scope our projects to stay well within the twenty hours of design and build time. Most projects will leverage 3D printing or other digital fabrication tools, and pricing for these tools can be viewed on the Bluesmith page.

Getting Started

If you have a problem and an idea for how to solve it, you're halfway there! Working through the list below will help get your project moving.

Identify a Problem

The world is abound with problems. Even small optimizations can lead to drastic improvements in performance. Pick a problem that is personal to you and we can help you solve it.

Work together to Solve the Problem

Our staff will help you turn your vision into a tangible outcome. Try to think of a few potential solutions. Often the prototyping process will be iterative and adjustments will need to be made but we will look to you as the subject matter expert that guides our work. Frame your problem and solution in terms of working backwards from the desired outcome you would like to achieve.

Schedule a Consultation and Get Started

Reach out to our team by emailing designhub@duke.edu or heading to our Booking Calendar to get started. You will be introduced to your student designers who will work with you through the course of your project. They will assess your idea in relation to the realities of design and building. You will serve as the subject matter expert for the project and work in tandem with our design engineers. At this point your work will begin and with any luck, together we will have solved a problem!