Skip to Content

RPS Wiki Homepage

Version 6.7 by Alex Troyer on 2025/05/28 15:41

Welcome to the Rapid Prototyping Studio Wiki!

This wiki is a work in progress, please bear with us while we add articles!

rps_1.jpg

About Us

Located on Texas A&M's main campus in College Station, Texas, the J. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering's Rapid Prototyping Studio provides Mechanical Engineering students, faculty, and staff with education, supervised self-use and part creation services on rapid prototyping equipment. Materials for use in these machines are also sold in the studio. A variety of equipment and processes are available, including several varieties of 3D printing, CO2 laser cutters, desktop CNC milling machines, waterjet cutting, vacuum forming, sandblasting, and CAD/CAM workstations.

Facilities and Locations

  • JCAIN 421, 422, & 424 - The Rapid Prototyping Studio is centered around its main facility in JCAIN 421 & 422. This location houses our main CAD stations, 3D printers, CO2 laser cutters, and most of our other standard rapid prototyping equipment. The additional room in JCAIN 424 houses some our louder equipment, such as the WAZER water jet cutters and desktop CNC machines. It also houses our environmental testing chamber and hardness testing equipment.
  • JCAIN 320 - This space houses much of our testing equipment, such as the fume hood, Cress double furnace, and salt spray chamber.
  • JCAIN 102 - The MEEN/Physics joint machine shop is shared with the Physics department, and available working hours are split according to departmental needs. The space contains full sized manual milling machines, lathes, a band saw, and drill press, among other useful hand working tools for metals and more.
  • Shared Equipment Offerings - Some of the faculty in our department generously make their research equipment available for use by individuals outside of their respective labs. The locations for these pieces of equipment vary by lab location. Please contact us if you have a specific piece of equipment you are looking for, and we will do our best to see if someone in the department has it and is willing to share it.

Contact Information and Hours

  • E-mail - The best way to contact us for any reason is via email. We can be reached at meen3dprinting@tamu.edu. (If you have a question, please check the RPS Wiki for an answer before emailing us, you may find the answer to your question much faster on the wiki!)
  • Hours - We are open from 9am-5pm during Fall and Spring semesters. Summer hours are usually reduced and may vary.)