3D Printing Conference a Big Success

Earlier this month, the Illinois MakerLab successfully hosted its first 3D Printing Conference, with over forty faculty and students in attendance from across our campus. The conference began with Dean Brown delivering a set of opening remarks and was followed by interesting presentations by John Hornick [Finnegan & Associates], Jeff Smith [Autodesk], Ed Hmurovic [Ultimaker], and Mark Cotteleer [Deloitte]. These presentations were followed by an invigorating discussion panel headed by three Illinois faculty [Jeff Ginger, James Leake, and David Weightman]. This conference discussed several new advances in the 3D Printing domain, including the news that Hewlett-Packard plans to release a 3D Printer in the next two years, the development of liquid metal as a new 3D Printing material and that the University of Louisville has announced that they plan to print a human heart by 2023!

We hope to host a similar conference in the Fall 2016. Stay tuned for details!

Dean Conference

John Conference

Jeff Conference

Mark Conference

Barnes and Noble Hosting "Mini Maker Faire"

Illinois MakerLab is excited to be sending one of our gurus, Scott Zelman, as a representative for the Mini Maker Faire! The Mini Maker Faire will be hosted at the Barnes and Noble store located in Champaign this weekend, November 6-8. Melissa Lunderby, the Community Business Development Manager at the Barnes and Noble in Champaign and the coordinator of this event, is making a large push for the makers in the community to present what they do in their labs. "In line with the spirit of the Maker Movement, we want to promote local makers in the community, and give [them] a chance to share [their] passion with the community at large!" Lunderby stated. We are incredibly excited for the opportunity to demonstrate what the Illinois MakerLab does not only for the campus, but for the community.

The Mini Maker Faire is calling all enthusiasts, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, engineers, students, crafters, or makers of any kind! The movement has spread its influence to all levels of careers and interests. The makers at this event will be spreading knowledge about the uses of 3D printing, along with completing some demonstrations and explaining their visions.

If you will not be in the Champaign area this weekend, that's okay! Barnes and Noble is hosting this event nationwide at all of their stores, so be sure to stop by your nearest Barnes and Noble store and witness this event!

Scott will be at the Champaign store on Sunday, November 8 from 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM. Be sure to stop by our booth and learn about our mission at the Illinois MakerLab, and see 3D printing in action and some of our amazing prints!

Sign up for our mailing list at the booth.  All visitors at the booth who enter their email, will get special discount offers for organizing Birthday parties at the lab, and one lucky winner will get a $50 gift certificate to use towards a birthday party at the lab.

Fostering entrepreneurship and interdisciplinary team work

Nora Benson - undergraduate student who used the MakerLab.

The MakerLab is featured as the cover story of this semester's Postmarks publication. Postmarks is an official publication of the University of Illinois News Bureau and is mailed to 65,000 parents of current and prospective undergraduate students. This story features our two for-credit courses (Digital Making, taught by Vishal Sachdev & Making Things, taught by Aric Rindfleisch) and alums from these courses, Cameron Alberg and Nora Benson (featured in the photo above).

Both classes will be offered in Spring 2016. If you are an Illinois undergraduate student and interested in taking either class, please send your resume to the instructors (Aric AT Illinois DOT edu or Vishal AT illinois DOT edu) , with a short note explaining your interest in the course and any skills/passions in making that you bring to the courses.

If the classes don't fit your schedule, or you are not able to get in, we do offer workshops every semester, so check out our schedule and sign up to Learn, Make and Share!

MakerLab would love to host YOUR next birthday!

Birthdays at the MakerLab!

This past summer, the Illinois MakerLab hosted its first ever birthday party! What better way to celebrate your big day than making yourself a gift?

This party consisted of a mixture of children and their parents. We had one of our expert gurus lead the workshop for Basic 3D printing. All of the materials are prepared and ready for immediate instruction and printing. The time allotted for the party is two hours, which gives additional time for food and cake!

This event had 6 children with their parents. At the end of the basic 3D printing workshop, we performed a demonstration of a head scan! A participant receives a scan of their head down to the beginning of their torso, giving a flatter base for modeling. After the print is completed, the birthday child will have a 3-dimensional print of himself/herself!

If you are toggling with ideas for your next birthday or your child's next birthday party, the Illinois MakerLab would love to be involved! Keep in mind, attendees must be at least 7 years old to participate. Pricing can be discussed upon scheduling. Any additional supplies (food, cake, etc...) will not be provided by the lab, but we encourage you to bring those items!

3D printing has become more accessible and recognized worldwide. Learning the basic skills of 3D printing while celebrating a birthday couldn't be more ideal!

Book with us today! Check out information on our Birthday Party Packages on our Birthday Parties page

MakerLab Shows Off New Ultimaker 2

Quad Day featuring the Ultimaker 2!

MakerLab and MakersUIUC welcomed students to campus on Quad Day 2015. Last Sunday, August 23, MakerLab was very excited to display its new Ultimaker 2 3D printer! The Ultimaker 2 was generously provided to the lab by Ultimaker to help educate students on 3D printing technology and encourage creative design and prototyping. MakersUIUC hosted the table and also shared some of their creations. Students who stopped by the booth were encouraged to write down their ideas for fun projects to build in attempt to inspire creative solutions to common problems.

MakersUIUC is a great group on campus that provides students the opportunity to create physical prototypes of their ideas. The group works closely with Makerlab, as they employ 3D printing technology in building their creations. Some of the completed projects that were displayed at the booth were a 3D scanning stand (shown below) and a long board. They also displayed 3D printed statues of some of their members who were scanned using the scanning stand they built. More information about MakersUIUC can be found here: http://makersuiuc.com/

Autodesk's NEWEST Software - A first-hand account

 Autodesk 360 Fusion Boot Camp

My name is Scott Zelman, and I’m a Guru at Illinois Makerlab. This August I had the opportunity to travel to the Autodesk location in San Francisco, CA, to participate in a Student Experts Bootcamp and learn Fusion 360, Autodesk’s newest 3D modeling software. I spent four days in San Francisco with forty other Student Experts from both engineering and industrial design to both learn advanced modeling techniques in Fusion 360 and to learn how to teach the program to other students back at school. The group spent time in several locations around the city, vising the Autodesk space at 1 Marketplace, the Autodesk Pier 9 maker space, and San Francisco State ATC. I was very excited to meet with Carl Bass, the Autodesk CEO, and other industry professionals, and also had the opportunity to compete in a design competition for a new take on the traditional food transportation device. I was able to learn a lot from the Bootcamp, and here at the Makerlab we are happy to have such strong educational support from Autodesk.

During the trip I was able to visit Autodesk’s Pier 9 maker space, where employees and residential artists work to build prototypes and to stock the Instructables,com database, where tinkerers and makers can go to find cool DIY projects and step-by-step instructions on how to build them. At Pier 9, students were able to see Fusion 360’s computer aided manufacturing (CAM) capabilities in action on Autodesk’s impressive assortment of machinery. The next three images were taken at Pier 9 and exemplify some of the machinery there.

On the first day of the Bootcamp we were split into groups of three students. These were our groups for the design competition. The competition was to create a new, innovative food transportation system, model it, and pitch the idea on the last day of the Bootcamp. My group and I got to work. We decided to put a new take on the traditional lunch box and that we would target teenagers and young adults as our market. After several ideation sessions and product iterations, we finalized our product design. What we came to was a collapsible box that included a speaker, USB ports to charge a phone on the go, and a digital readout of inner temperature and battery left. We created an inner skeleton that allowed the box to collapse easily, and included a slot in the bottom for ice pack insertion. The product was named CUBE, and was marketed as an “on-the-go entertainment system that carries food” rather than a lunchbox with several different amenities.

I want to thank Autodesk for giving me the opportunity to attend the Fusion 360 Bootcamp. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about the program and how to teach it to others. I was also very pleased to meet many of the Autodesk education employees, who all seem like they love the company and what they do. Back at Illinois Makerlab, we will make great use of these newfound Fusion 360 skills as we set up a new workshop on modeling in software.