Our new Making Things class has begun! This innovative new course teams up 21 undergraduate students across business, engineering, and art & design. Each of these 7 teams will be conceptualizing, designing, prototyping, manufacturing, and marketing a new product. This is the first course of its type in an American business school. Class sessions are held in the Illinois MakerLab each Wednesday night and are hands-on in nature; during each session, students practice our MakerLab principles of Learn, Make, and Share. Our first class kicked off with a video conference with Zach Kaplan, CEO of Inventables and Erwin Cruz, Head of Innovation and IP at Grainger offering insights and advice to our students. Both Zach and Erwin are members of the MakerLab Advisory Board and are deeply involved in the emerging Maker Movement. Following this conference call, students formed their teams and then designed and printed custom nameplates using Tinkercad 3D modeling software and MakerBot Replicator 3D printers. During the course of the semester, student teams will take turns updating course happenings on our website. So, please stay tuned to see what amazing things our students will be making!

You can also join us in the journey, by following the class hashtag #makingthings, and perhaps even sharing some relevant resources for our class by using the same hashtag.