METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING REVERSE ENGINEERING IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING STUDIES

Biomedical engineering is a relatively young field of study, which was introduced in Poland as an independent didactic course only in the academic year 2006/2007. Since then, about 30 technical universities in Poland have introduced it in their curriculum. Biomedical engineering is a typical interdisciplinary field of study. The studies are aimed at educating an engineer with practical knowledge on the borderline of technical, medical and biological sciences. Graduates of this field should be able to apply technical issues in the field of computer science, material engineering, electronics, mechanics and robotics, image diagnostics, 3D design, etc. Examples of applications of this knowledge is the improvement of production and handling of medical equipment, diagnostic devices, laboratory equipment, medicines and therapeutic products as well as preparation and process of manufacturing operations. Among these issues, three-dimensional modelling is certainly an extremely important skill. In the field of biomedical engineering conducted at the Lublin University of Technology, students learn 3D design in the course "3D Graphics in Medicine". As part of this course, in addition to traditional 3D design, they also gain practical knowledge of reverse engineering issues through the use of 3D scanners and incremental technologies (rapid prototyping). According to the authors, teaching the reverse engineering process to people affiliated institutionally with the broadly understood field of medicine is a very important issue, because it allows solving many problems related to the patient's treatment process, e.g. fitting dental prostheses, bone defects, performing precise surgical operations, artificial limb modelling, simulation of the expected effects of plastic surgery, etc. The paper presents the methodology of the teaching process of reverse engineering problems written out for particular stages of lectures and laboratory classes. Detailed steps and content, their mutual location as well as examples of student activities based on the didactic aids are addressed. A methodologically consistent educational process is presented on the example of 3D scanning of medical and biomedical elements using the Artec SPIDER and EVA 3D scanners. The design process is shown on the basis of point cloud processing obtained in the 3D scanning process, as well as the use of incremental technologies for 3D printing of previously developed 3D models. For this purpose, the MakerBot Replicator was used.