Computing Guidelines

Product Design Computer Guidelines: 

Product Design Sophomore, Junior, Senior Technology and Studio Requirements

June 18, 2020

MICA Computer Guidelines

LAPTOP & DIGITAL TABLET

The need for a specific type of laptop is completely driven by the type of software Product Design Majors and students taking our courses will be using. We use the usual software from Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier, Acrobat), Microsoft (MS Word, Excel, PPT), but we also use more industry specific software that requires specific memory, driver, and graphics card requirements. They are greater than the requirements of the other software and thus, if students have laptops that will run Autodesk Fusion 360 and Luxion KeyShot, their laptop will also be able to run the Adobe and Microsoft products.

Thus, the following are two recommendations for a laptop:

Apple: 16” MacBook Pro (the 13” will NOT work!!!!!) ~COST: $4,299 

• OS 10.13 High Sierra or later

• 2.4GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz

• 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory

• AMD Radeon Pro 5600M with 8GB of HBM2 memory

• 2TB SSD storage

• 16-inch Retina display with True Tone

• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports 

• Touch Bar and Touch ID

• Backlit Magic Keyboard - US English

• Processor: 2.4GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz

• Memory: 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory

• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon Pro 5600M with 8GB of HBM2 memory

• Storage: 2TB SSD storage

• A separate digital tablet/display will need to be purchased for doing digital sketching:

  • Wacom Cintiq 16” COST $650 

  • 

  • iPad Pro 12.9” COST $1100

  • 

PC Laptop: 

There are many to choose from. Dell, Surface, Alienware, Razor, Lenovo, etc. I have shown ONE option below, there are many others. This is the joy of PC”s, and they are less $ than Apple computers. Additionally, both of these example laptops incorporate a touch screen for digital sketching. 

Here are TWO examples. 

Example 1: Dell  XPS 15 Touch Laptop ~COST $2,750 

• Must run Microsoft® Windows® 8.1 (64 bit) (until January 2023) or Microsoft Windows Windows 10 (64-bit) Semi-Annual Release Channel (Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, English)

• 10th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-10750H (12MB Cache, up to 5.0 GHz, 6 cores)

• NVIDIA GForce GTX 1650 Ti 4GB GDDR6

• 64GB DDR4-2933MHz, 2x32G

• 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

Example 2: Surface Book 3 15” (the 13” won’t work!!!) ~COST $2,999 

• 15” 

• Intel Core i7 

• 32GB

• 1TB

• NVIDIA GForce

ACCESSORIES FOR LAPTOP and TABLET:

• 3 button mouse (minimum)

• Some sort of digital stylus (they are different for each of the configurations above)

• EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE: LaCie Ruggedized Hard Drive COST $98 or Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD COST $200

OTHER Equipment/Tools:

• Digital Camera

• Large format scanner/printer

• 3D printer (filament)

Software Requirements: 

Autodesk Fusion 360 computer requirements:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/System-requirements-for-Autodesk-Fusion-360.html

Luxion KeyShot computer requirements:

https://www.keyshot.com/system-requirements/

NOTE: These are both MINIMUM requirements. As such, getting more than what is listed here will result in the student being able to keep the same computer for the remainder of their time at MICA. Getting only the minimum will require an upgrade before graduation. The software updates and requires new graphics cards and memory every six months or so.

Hardware: 3D printers

Provided to PRD majors in Sophomore, Junior and Senior levels in AY21

Ender 3 3D Printer

• Regular price$ 199.00 USD

•  

• Students must build, troubleshoot, work with vendor if parts are wrong, repair, and maintain.
• Students are responsible for purchasing filament.