Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab

I was very excited to see that the new Up 3D printer was set up and running when my daughter and I came to the lab today. A month or so ago my son asked to make the Mendocino Motor that was featured in Volume 31 of Make Magazine. It requires making several parts using a 3D printer. We tried making the rotor using the cupcake printer, but it broke loose from the platform when it was about 75% complete. We decided to wait until the new printer was in before trying again, and now it is here.

Betty, Andrew and I visited Blackline Supply this past week, a locally owned art and architecture materials shop on campus. They have all kinds of construction materials, but what was most notable to me, was their affordable and high quality wood. I believe a 3x24 inch sheet was around 3$, which means a full sheet to fill our laser bed would be about 12$. They're pretty close by, located in the basement of the McKinley Foundation on campus - go pay them a visit!

I had the pleasure of presenting twice this past week at the Fab8nz conference via video conference. Among many things we discussed research in Fab Labs related to literacy, learning and empowerment as well as the Powers of 10 concept and how we've gone about doing mini FabLab deployments. If you're interested the paper and one of the presentations is available for download below!

Possibly of intrest, the Illinois Green Business Association is having its first 'Green Business Summit', Sept 7, 2012 in Champaign.

For more info and registration, please see:

http://illinoisgba.com/Summit2012.aspx

General info about IGBA at:  http://illinoisgba.com

http://blog.wolfjeschonnek.de/

The Epilog Mini at the CUCFL can be used to engrave text and pictures on glass (e.g., mirrors or picture frames), and on glassware, including bottles, drinking glasses, and cookware. 

An Example Project

An example project is to etch a personal design on a glass pie pan, purchased at a large store for $5 or less. Please see the report attached here [PDF].

Example piece.

Possibly of interest -- stop animation studio heavily uses 3D printing.  Pretty cool.

http://www.laika.com/

Come on in with your projects during any open hours to use the laser.  Please consider donating if you've been waiting to use the laser!  We had to order a $900 part to get it back up so any donations would be greatly appreciated!

An interesting series of suggestions:

http://blog.makezine.com/2012/06/27/tips-for-building-with-kids/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+makezineonline+%28MAKE%29

Please note: The laser won't be fixed by Sunday's open hours.  You should still come to the lab and check out our vinyl cutter, silhouette, 3D printer, electronics lab, and 3D routers!

As soon as the laser is running, we will post to let you know!

Possibly of interest if you might be in Madison Wisconson on July 21.

3D Printing Camp Wisconsin

http://www.3dprintingcampwi.com/

A web site with books and resources to learn to make pop-up books.  These projects would be interesting to make on our Silhouette and Epilog cutters.  The books explain quite a bit of practical knowledge underlying the creation of this kind of object.

See the web pages at:

http://www.popularkinetics.com/making_page.html

The Neuromaker project from February 2011 (See this blog entry) is discussed in detail in the current issue of Knowledge Management & E-Learning (see full citation and link below).

The article describes the background and details of the NeuroMaker, as well as the transformational connections between personal fabrication, embodied computing, and the performing arts.

The Neuromaker project from February 2011 (See here) is discussed in detail in the current issue of Knowledge Management & E-Learning (see full citation and link below).

The article describes the background and details of the NeuroMaker, as well as the transformational connections between personal fabrication, embodied computing, and the performing arts.

The Fab Lab operations committee has voted to condense the listservsdown to three.

The following listservs will continue to be maintained and used:

• Public announcements about the Fab Lab, and Fab Lab events:
  fablab-announce@listserv.illinois.edu
• Fab Lab regulars and volunteers:
  fablab-volunteers@listserv.illinois.edu
• Fab Lab committee and operational discussions:
  fablab-business@listserv.illinois.edu

The following listservs will be folded in to fablab-business@listserv.illinois.edu, since they are not being used:

• fablab-clc@listserv.illinois.edu
• fablab-curriculum@listserv.illinois.edu
• fablab-friends@listserv.illinois.edu
• fablab-it@listserv.illinois.edu
• fablab-steering@listserv.illinois.edu