MakerLab Workshop Series Bought to you by Autodesk Fusion 360

The MakerLab workshop series has been a huge success and we have Autodesk Fusion 360 to thank for this. Thanks to their support we have managed to spread the Maker spirit across campus to students and faculty members and even the Champaign Urbana Community. Currently, the workshop series includes  3D Printing, Basic 3D Design(TinkerCad), Advanced 3D Design(Inventor), 3D Scanning and the MakerGirls series. With the support from Autodesk, we are developing another workshop in Advanced 3D Design using Fusion 360. Autodesk has also launched an initiative to enhance student skills in 3D Modeling, by incentivizing them to create Cool 3D Models. The response for these workshops has been phenomenal. All workshops were filled up within just a few hours! We will be offering more workshops very soon. So far we have had 210 sign ups for the 17 workshops organized for March and April.  In addition,  we have 48 sign ups for the MakerGirls workshop series!

Workshop series

Help the MakerLab in its mission to help students and spread knowledge. Stay tuned for updates by subscribing to our blog feed, or just get our posts via email. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on twitter to stay updated. Have an interesting story about making at the lab? Just drop us a note at UIMakerLab@illinois.edu.

Welcome Back!

After a long and cold winter break, the spring semester is just around the corner! Students, faculty, and staff are gearing up for the start of classes. Our Lab is no exception. The MakerLab will reopen on Thursday, January 22 at 1:00 pm. The detailed schedule is available as well.

Need some inspiration? Look at the Things we made and read our "Meet the Maker" stories. Need to get somethings designed? Have a look at our "Design Stories" and let our expert designers help you. First timer? Walk-in to our Free Print Wednesday hours, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. One hour prints are free. Did I say that right? YES, its free!!!

We are also launching a series of workshops covering, basic 3D printing, basic and advanced 3D Modeling, and 3DScanning. Finish all four and you get a certificate. Subscribe to our blog RSS feed, Like our Facebook or follow us on twitter to be the first to hear about events, new tutorials, and other exciting news from the MakerLab.

Have a look at all the services we offer and the low cost printing and scanning services we have available. We look forward to another great semester of serving as the hub of our campus's Maker Movement!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the new year. 2014 was a busy year for our Lab--we experienced a 30% increase in our number of users, added more 3D printers (we now have 14 in total) and a new 3D scanner, and obtained a large grant to establish satellite labs in Chicago & Anna, IL. 2015 promises to be another great year! This coming semester, we will be offering not one, but two courses on 3D Printing: Making Things taught by Aric Rindfleisch and Digital Making taught by Vishal Sachdev. In addition, we plan on hosting a 3D Conference here in Champaign sometime this spring (stay tuned), and also hope to try out  some new 3D printable materials such as metal and plastics that conduct electricity!

Our Lab reopens for the Spring Semester on Thursday, January 22. We look forward to seeing all the great things that you will make in 2015!

Happy New Year!

Meet Rex

Meet Rex, our new MakerLab mascot. Rex is a large scale version of a T-Rex Skull (designed by MakerBot) that we downloaded from Thingiverse (Thing 308355). This skull was printed in 14 different pieces which we glued together. The total printing process took over 70 hours! It is printed in glow-in-the-dark filament and it works as a great Halloween mask! In addition to printing the skull itself, its mounting bracket is a custom design (created by Guru Robbie) and was printed in our lab. Rex is proudly displayed on our lab's west wall right above our large greyboard and stands guard over our makers. Stop by and say hi!

Our new Toolchest!

Due to our expanding operations, our lab has been running a bit short on storage space. This new Craftsman Toolchest is just the answer. As shown here by Guru Winnie, this new toolchest is huge and will enable us to store more materials to help turn your ideas into objects!

MakerLab gets New Signage!

Earlier this week, our friends from the sign shop at Facilities and Services (F&S) stopped by the Lab to install our new sign. This sign reads, "What will you make?" and is posted on our main east wall. The message is simple: People visit our lab to make things that didn't exist before, are not made by firms, and cannot be bought in a store. What will you make? If you don't know the answer to this question, please stop by for some inspiration and helpful advice from our Gurus!