"Interesting" is the word we often hear when telling others about our innovative ideas. Unfortunately, this is mostly the last thing we hear about it before it soon dissolves in the busyness of both working and personal lives. Unless formed, shaped, and colored, ideas by themselves are defenseless and mostly worthless. How can an idea be more than just "interesting"?

One way to get past the "interesting" point and get more attention is to make your audience 'feel' the idea. This is guaranteed to give you more of their attention for a longer time. Prototyping is the best way to have your audience feel your idea.
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In a broad sense, a prototype is whatever can give your idea a visible/tangible form and/or feeling. This can be with simple drawings, 3D printed or virtual models, videos, interface mock-up, etc. Depending on your situation, a prototype does not have to be functional or attractive. However, building a prototype does require more investment and effort than to just speak of the idea.

Here are some reasons that can partially illustrate the power of prototypes:

1. It is much more likely for people to remember a prototype than an idea.
2. Prototypes are a stronger means of communicating your ideas compared to just speaking about them.
3. Having a prototype indicates your seriousness to your audience. It shows that you have invested resources to produce that prototype.
4. Going through making a prototype forces you to refine your idea to a clearer and more precise form to deliver to your audience.
5. A prototype helps your audience imagine the impact your idea can bring.

Whether you pitch an idea to your management, investors, or teammates, having a prototype will increase your chances of taking your ideas to the next level. 

​Prototyping is becoming an essential and central practice working in design innovation. The shapes and forms of the prototypes can be very different depending on the field and purpose of the prototype. The commonality is that everything is prototype-able. For example, a user interface can be prototyped with a series of hand sketches on paper, an interactive dashboard can be prototyped with linked PowerPoints slides, a video advertisement can be prototyped with a cellphone camera, a physical product can be prototyped with 3D printing, etc. With that, it would be worth it to have rapid prototyping as a key part of your innovation processes. 

In an earlier blog post, we discussed 3D Printing and product design and how prototyping can play an important role in the field. You can also check out the 3D Printing Opportunities and Applications course that dives even deeper into 3D printing for prototyping and other fields.
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Do you use prototyping to support your ideas? What types of prototypes do you often build, and for what reasons? Share your thoughts in the comments section. 

The rest have mostly remained confined to industrial use. The following figure highlights the different 3D printing technologies currently available. Pictures and red rectangles are for technologies that are more available at the consumer level.  ​

AM enables you to produce unique, custom products on a small scale. For plastic-based applications, Injection Molding is the traditional counterpart for Additive Manufacturing. Both methods can produce plastic products, but the cost models are very different. The figure below highlights the difference in cost between Additive Manufacturing and Injection Molding. Additive manufacturing has a fixed cost per unit, while injection molding has a variant one that decreases the more you produce a product. This makes additive manufacturing great to create custom products on a smaller scale.  ​

AM enables you to produce products that are not possible traditional methods. This can be especially the case with metal products where the traditional counterpart is Subtractive Manufacturing. Due to its nature, AM technologies can enable the creation of internal structures that are otherwise impossible to make with traditional methods. The figure highlights a part structure that is only possible with Additive Manufacturing.  ​