In the meantime, I want to reply to some of you who already contributed suggestions.
Many of you suggested using the money towards electronics (i.e arudino). I’m happy to say that a couple years ago we began an electronics lab with a course dedicated to thoroughly learning circuitry, Arduino, and even some Raspberry Pi. Many of us who have completed this course have continued to use electronics in our prototype models as we’ve progressed through the program.
We spend a lot of time in the shop and are all well versed in constructing prototypes and model making.
I agree it does get expensive, but unfortunately, we cannot buy consumables with this money. And as I mentioned earlier, we already have FDM and SLA Printers.
The photo booth idea is cool and many of you +1’d it. Some of us have soft light boxes that we share and that seems to be working very well. Not everyone knows how to use a camera, so this one might be further considered.
I personally like the suggestion of an injection molding machine. I think manufacturability knowledge is an area where we can improve, but as many of you mentioned the die and upkeep can pose a problem.
Once again, thank you all for your suggestions. I hope we can figure this out soon 