Emily Batt can sketch a design for a new product in the morning, create a computer model by midday and have a working prototype generated by a 3-D printer in the evening. Since she started working at Fikst Product Development in Woburn, Mass., she has been involved in the design, development and testing of dozens of products.

But Emily isn’t a veteran employee of the company. She’s a co-op student who started her job just over three months ago.  More