Case Study: University of Notre Dame builds and scales student startups with Stratasys 3D printers

University of Notre Dame leverages professional 3D printers to help students launch new businesses

The University of Notre Dame’s IDEA Center Innovation Lab supports student entrepreneurs but faced heavy demand and frequent downtime from consumer‑grade 3D printers. Director Matthew Leevy elected to partner with Stratasys, deploying professional F123 Series machines (including the F370) to replace unreliable, low‑cost equipment that consumed staff time with maintenance and troubleshooting.

Stratasys’ F123 Series and the large‑format F770 provided consistent FDM performance, reducing troubleshooting, eliminating the need to section large parts, and enabling large weekend production runs (for example, 150 skateboard parts produced in one run). Leevy estimates the reliability saves roughly 100 staff hours—or about $5,000—per machine annually, and the upgraded capability helped the IDEA Center scale student ventures, contributing to 30 startups launched in 2020.

University of Notre Dame

Matthew Leevy

Innovation Lab Director