MIT Portugal

Manufacturing: From Fundamentals to the Future – Course Structure

Course Structure (Summary)

Pre‑Work (Remote, ~10–20 hours total)
Fundamentals of manufacturing processes, with virtual office hours.

Week One – Manufacturing at Scale: The Yo‑Yo Project

In the first week, students will design, produce, and inspect a small production run of yo-yos. Some of the components will be “off-the-shelf,” whereas others will be designed by student teams and produced from end-to-end. Specific activities include:

  • Process demonstrations: Injection molding, CNC, 3D scanning, CT inspection, and standard shop processes
  • Tooling design, process execution for student-designed thermoformed component
  • X‑ray CT and high‑resolution metrology of components for inspection

Week Two – Additive and Emerging Manufacturing

In the second week, students will compete in a performance-based competition using computational design software to produce a structurally optimized load-bearing device. Specific activities include:

  • Fundamental lectures on additive manufacturing processes, computational & topology‑optimized design, and advanced 3D printing workflows
  • Use of various 3D printing technologies & computational workflows to design, prototype, and test a structurally-optimized component
  • A final performance‑based competition

In addition to the competitive activity, the second week includes advanced topics in production systems and site visits. Specific activities include:

  • Production planning and factory dynamics using  optimization and simulation tools
  • Emerging capabilities in digital twins and AI for manufacturing design or execution
  • Industry guest lectures, campus and facility tours

Learning Objectives

By the end of the program, students will be able to:

  • Explain major manufacturing process categories and their fundamental principles
  • Identify manufacturing processes used to produce everyday objects
  • Evaluate tradeoffs in cost, rate, quality, and flexibility across manufacturing strategies
  • Navigate the full workflow from concept to finished part
  • Apply introductory computational design methods for additive manufacturing
  • Understand emerging AI and computation‑driven manufacturing tools
  • Engage with manufacturing professionals and real production environments