Rapid product development - the collaboration between the focus projects of the ETH Zurich and Rapid Manufacturing AG Rümlang Zurich as an example. ethec is an electric motorcycle with an amazing distance range and RoBoa is a robot snake for search and rescue in buried areas.
Each year, ETH Zurich, our international top ranked technical university, runs focus projects. These projects offer to ETH students an amazing opportunity to develop a product from scratch. The students shall collect experiences in design and engineering, shall produce a saleable prototype and even shall develop a marketing strategy for their chosen product. Quite often, these focus projects lead into most creative start-ups and their products offer sustainable contributions to the society.
Rapid Manufacturing AG has been supporting those focus projects for some time now - as rapid prototyping is a core service of Rapid Manufacturing AG. Part of this service is promptness, accuracy, good quality, but also economical pricing. Rapid Manufacturing offers a special express service overnight for very fast developers!
ethec and Roboa had to rely on exact this kind of service. The geographical proximity of the service bureau Rapid Manufacturing in Rümlang to the campus in Zurich played an important role for the students to choose the right partner. Like this, the freshly educated engineers could have a personal talk with the service bureau and could get inspired and consulted by the experienced employees of Rapid Manufacturing for the design of the elements.
Both focus projects created very impressive products - ethec City, an electric motorcycle with an amazing distance range, with a new way of recuperation while braking, combined with an even smaller battery - a real sexy product!
The robot of the Roboa team on the other side gives crucial aid to the society. It is capable to crawl into buried objects where is searches and rescues victims. Key part of the Roboa robot is a very innovative locomotion.
