This just in! The Lab is coming together, and the Makerbots are all set up, ready to go. Six Replicator 2's were set up last week in the lab. We are interviewing Lab assistants this week and expect to be operational pretty soon. Stay tuned for more updates. Here are some pictures from the unboxing and setup. For more pictures, check out the Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/IllinoisMakerLab
UPDATE: Jan 29th We have closed this search, and will get started soon with the lab. We are looking for an enterprising student to help manage the new MakerLab (MakerLab.illinois.edu ) being set up in the College of Business in Spring 2013. The lab will provide a unique and valuable resource for Illinois business students and faculty to gain hands-on experiential learning with 3D printing and help them become "Makers". The lab will be open to all student organizations for projects and to faculty for class projects /research use.
The ideal candidate for this position will
If you are interested and/or have any questions, please send your resume, and a short note on how you meet these requirements by email to UIMakerLab@illinois.edu. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in the first week of classes (Jan 14-19th) in Spring 2013 .
Come join the AIS students as they prepare to convert Atoms to Bits and back, using Kinect scanners and 3D printers in the BIF Atrium , Wednesday, Dec 5th, 11:00 to 4:00 pm. Willing volunteers will be scanned (only the head this time) using Kinect's(Atoms to Bits). These scans will then be printed out in front of you(Bits to atoms) using a 3D printer. Learn more about why 3D printing is such a buzzword these days and get involved with the third industrial revolution.
It is quite timely to read of this new book from Chris Anderson, The Editor-in-Chief at Wired Magazine, titled "Makers: The New Industrial revolution". Chris Anderson has been a champion of the Maker community, launching his own startup to tinker around in this space (Read about his collaboration on a arduino based, OpenSprinkler). In this book, he puts forward a case for DIY-manufacturing, made possible due to a convergence of several technologies leveraging a movement towards open innovation. He suggests that with the advent of technologies such as desktop 3D printing/robotic manufacturing and the movement towards open innovation, the speed of innovation in the digital realm, will now flow through to the physical realm. This will allow small to medium scale custom manufacturing to return to the developed economies, which have lost out due to higher labor costs.This trend was also covered by the Economist, when they dubbed it the "Third Industrial Revolution".
He envisions a world with "low barriers to entry, rapid innovation, intense entrepreneurship", which was once the domain of digital businesses, to transform the manufacturing industry, allowing (nimble) developed economies to reduce the labor cost disadvantages.
We hope this 3D printing lab, will be a step in the right direction to equip our students to compete and innovate in such an economy. Since this lab is trying to inform students of a new paradigm of the consumer as a creator, it is good to see such initiatives being promoted in high-schools as well, by none other than ..... DARPA (which was a cause for some concern).
There seems to be a lot of buzz around 3D printing these days. The recent cover of the Design issue of the Wired Magazine, claims that the new MakerBot Replicator2 will change the world . In the same issue there are reports of an electronics manufacturer asking customers to print some plastic parts of a popular synthesizer, OP1, by putting 3D models of some of the parts on shapeways, a site that provides a platform for creating, sharing and printing 3D models. While the industrial use of 3D printing is over two decades old, the big players in the industrial market are also making plays in the consumer market(even the young consumer market). 3D Systems, a behemoth in industrial 3D printing, claims to have a design-to-print solution that a 7 year old can use, branded Cubify. With these launches 3D printers have moved from DIY kits to fully automated print solutions. Now you can even buy these printers at fairs.
If you look at the 'buzz' around this phenomenon on Google trends, we see search traffic taking starting on a different trajectory in 2012. Students are also excited to see themselves as 'creators' and we hope to leverage their enthusiasm with this new lab at the college of business.
Learn. Make. Share.
