Making Things 2015 Begins!

The 2015 edition of our Making Things Class began last Wednesday with 21 students (7 each from Art & Design, Business & Engineering). During our first session, these students formed interdisciplinary teams, came up with a team name, and designed and printer their team logo. They also participated in an conference call with two members of our MakerLab Advisory Board: Jarrod Phipps (Deloitte) and Zach Kaplan (Inventables). Jarrod and Zach discussed how 3D printers and other new digital manufacturing tools are democratizing our economy and changing the way in which products are made and distributed. They also gave our students some helpful ideas about what types of things they should be making in this course. During the next 15 weeks, our students will be posting weekly updates of their progress along with their reflections of the making process. Stay tuned!

For an overview of what the class did last year, have a look at Making Things 2014.

MakerLab Featured in Emerging Tech. Report

The new Illinois Emerging Technology Report (created by Jamie Nelson) prominently features the MakerLab as an exemplar of the emerging Maker Movement on the University of Illinois campus. According to this report, "The University of Illinois and surrounding community have embraced, and is at the forefront of, the Maker Movement."This report includes a set of videos in which Executive Director, Aric Rindfleisch describes our Lab's history and purpose, our educational offerings, and our outreach mission. In addition to highlighting our Lab, this report also references two of our makerspace partners, the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab and the Makerspace Urbana. As noted in this report, our Lab "contains the highest number of 3D printers available in one place on campus and is open to the university and community alike." Indeed, our Lab is open not just for Illinois students, staff, and faculty, but also to all members of our community. So, if you would like to find out more about the Maker Movement, please feel free to stop by.

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!

MakerGirls project a resounding success

MakerGirl, a University of Illinois student venture, launched a pilot session of its program on Tuesday, December 2 in the Business Instructional Facility’s MakerLab. The project was co-founded by Lizzy Engele, Julia Haried, Sophie Li, and Emily Woodward this fall in Professor Noah Isserman’s Social Entrepreneurship class. MakerGirl aims to use the MakerLab’s innovative space to open their minds to the world of technology, with the goal of inspiring young women to pursue STEM  (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields, . Winnie Yang, a Guru at the Lab, who studies Material Science Engineering at the University, led the MakerGirl session of seven girls aged 7-10 through the process of creating bracelets with the MakerLab’s 3D printers. The session included educational segments about trans-formative 3D printer technology, the significance of STEM fields, and notable female role models. Parents also attended the event in order to encourage and support their children in the pursuit of these fields. The goal of this program is that by 2025, all STEM majors have a girl to boy ratio of 50/50.

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!