From 2-D Drawing to 3-D Toy
By Teresa Anicola
Courier-Post Staff
While out shopping for Christmas presents, chances are you saw a product that was deigned by Joseph Pizzo Sr. and his team of model makers.
Owner of Rapid Models & Prototypes Inc. of Runnamede, Pizzo creates prototypes of products, everything from brooms and mops for Quickie Manufacturing Corp. of Cinnaminson to Super Soakers and foam dart shooters, footballs and basketballs for the former Larami International Ltd. toy company of Mount Laurel.
“His work was above average and he was very reliable,” said Mel Mednick, former vice president of research and development for Larami until the company was taken over by Hasbro Toys this year.
According to Mednick, model makers are essential to the toy business.
“They’re very beneficial to toy makers. We give them a picture or drawing and then we go back and forth until we have a finished model,” said Mednick. “Based on what they do, we do all our engineering drawings off the models they create and build the molds to make the toys.”
Read MoreCAD/CAM/CAE Software gets easier
Since the dawn of computer-aided design, CAD software vendors have been making claims about ease of use. Fewer menu clicks, more Windows-like interfaces, shorter learning curves. Consumers have pretty much heard it all.
There is a good reason for all the promises: In several surveys, ease of use ranks very high in engineers’ hierarchy of expressed software needs.
Here’s a new twist: A group of 12 companies headed by Alibre Inc. in Richardson, TX has put together a CD package that is a virtual “welcome wagon” for CAD users, not unlike that bundle of coupons you receive in the mail when moving into a new neighborhood. The companies, which include Alibre and several of its software and hardware partners, are offering discounts or free trials of their products. The CD is geared toward anyone who uses CAD.
The “Alibre Demo CD” is included with this issue of Design News and is also available on the Alibre Web site (www.alibre.com).
Read MoreFDM Case Study – Rapid Models & Prototypes, Inc.
“Toy making is a unique craft; not every CAD draftsperson is able to sit down and design a toy well.”
Joe Pizzo, president
Rapid Models & Prototypes, Inc.
Model Maker Toys With FDM
Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, and Mattel are just a few of the clients that have regularly used the services of Rapid Models and Prototypes, Inc. (RM&P). The company is a fullservice product-development house, model shop and rapid prototyping service located in Runnemeade, New Jersey. For 41 years, the company has supplied model-making services to Fortune 500 and other high-profile companies.
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