Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab

2013

• Implemented digital sign-in system - visitor throughput so far is at least 2x greater in 8 months (January)
• Added machines - stereo lithography 3D printer, Shapeoko (March - Matt Alonso, Andrew Knight)
• Jeff Ginger presents at ALA 2013, “Monster or Bust: Enabling Youth through 3D Modeling and Printing.” A presentation in Creating Game-Based Makerspaces, American Library Association Annual Conference, Chicago (June)
• Robert McGrath presentations and papers - McGrath, Robert E., “A Community Fab Lab: Introductions to Making”, Presented at Digital Humanities 2013, Lincoln, Nebraska, July 2013 and “Introductions to Making at a Community Fab Lab”, Presented at HASTAC 2013, Toronto (April)
• Dean Rose and Steve Holt presentation at the STAR Expo (April)
• Urbana Free Library mini lab thrives, with an average of 30 teen visitors from diverse backgrounds visiting on a daily basis; Jeff Ginger commits to case study on it for dissertation, continues collaboration with GSLIS (May through December – with support from Joel Spencer, Amber Castens and Karen Barton)
• Andrew Knight and Robert McGrath created composite tripod mount for graduation Alma Mater photos as well as a simulation of the statue with an app  (May - video)
• Jeff and Isabella Howard begin the Fab Lab Makers, a club for the teens-only Saturday morning kids, includes programming and credentialing schema (May)
• Continued consulting with Alaskan Federation of Natives and Chicago Public Library (June - Alan Craig and Robert McGrath as lead)
• Summer workshop series with 7 groups, including Tap In Leadership Academy, Next Generation School, Bloomington-Normal Children’s Discovery Museum, Urbana Neighborhood Connections Center (UNCC), CS App Dev camp for girls, Project Next Generation (Douglass Branch Library), Upward Bound -- over 110 junior high and high school participants, mostly from underserved backgrounds, help from a dozen volunteers and 32+ hours of actual workshop activity time (June through August – Jeff Ginger)
• The Product Manufactory (http://www.theproductmanufactory.com), a startup that began at the Fab Lab that is run by Mercedes Mane and Bryan Wilcox, was featured in the News Gazette (July)
• We hosted the MIT Mobile Fab Lab and ran several events, including quad day open house and workshop for local military students and a ShopBot test-drive (August – Dean Rose, Sally Jackson, Lisa Bievenue, Jeff Ginger)
• Host a visit from Jonathan Landais and Marie Lombard from Fab Lab Lyon to run two workshops, “The Bush of Life” in partnership with the Fab Lab Makers and UNCC (September – Virginia McCreary, Robert McGrath, Jeff Ginger)
• Fab Lab featured as a WICD news spot (link TBA) (September)
• Participation in the Urbana Independent Media Center Makerspace Makerfaire 2013 (http://ucmakerfaire.com/) (September – Virginia McCreary)
• Gary and MK Watson continue to help out with nearly every event J
• Begin collaboration with Bruce Litchfield of Engineering (and presumably FAA – July through November – Jeff Ginger, Gary Watson and Bryan Wilcox)

2012

• Fab Academy - Lab supported an expert guru working virtually with global student body (January-May)
• Valentine's Day Gift Class, Computer and Laser Areas (February)
• Urbana Free Library's Teen Tech Week Workshop and Demonstration (March)
• Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Faire (March)
• Fab Lab & iFoundry Workshop featuring Federico Joselevich (March)
• Hack a T-Shirt Community Event at Fab Lab (April)
• Public Engagement Symposium, Champaign, IL (April)
• Partnerships for a Thriving Champaign-Urbana Conference, NCSA (April)
• Channel 3 News Interviews with CUC Fab Lab and Highlights (May)
• CUC Fab Lab Presentation Display, City of Champaign STAR Expo (May)
• Workshop: Pen-on-Paper Flexible Electronics, Silver-based conductive inks (June)
• Publication: McGrath, R. E., Rischau, J., & Craig, A. B. 2012. Transforming Creativity: Personalized Manufacturing Meets Embodied Computing. Knowledge Management and E-Learning, 4(2), 157-173.
• Begin mini-lab outreach workshops with community partner organizations, including librarians for Urbana Free Library, teachers from Stratton Elementary, and a six-week summer series with Tap In Leadership Academy (June-August)
• Fab Lab Display and open workshop in conjunction with Makerspace Urbana at the “Outta the Mouths of Babes Local Radio Celebration” at the Independent Media Center (August)
• Fab8 NZ, CUC Fab Lab Presentations - an academic paper and an operations workshop (August)  http://cucfablab.org/blog/cu-fab-lab-presents-fab8nz
• Ginger, J., McGrath, R. Barrett, B. & McCreary, V. Mini Labs: Building Capacity For Innovation through a Local Community Fab Lab Network. (August)
• Presentation: Cutcher-Gershenfeld, J., Barrett, B., Jackson, S., Jackson Jacobs, C., Mane, M., McCreary, V., Rose, D., Street, W., Watson, M., & Wilcox, B. Stakeholder Alignment Among U.S. Fab Labs.. NSF case study (August)
• Bridging the Digital Divide grant announcement event put on by the City of Champaign (October)
• Saturday Open Lab for 10-16-Year-Olds (Fall)
• Hassan, R. "Craft-Man-Do and So Can You!", Buzz Weekly, October 21, 2012.
• http://readbuzz.com/arts/2012/craft-man-do-and-so-can-you
• Presentation: McGrath, R. E.  A Community Fab Lab: Introductions to Making, submitted to Digital Humanities 2013, Lincoln, Nebraska, July 2013.
• Presentation:  Ginger, J. Chicago Coalition that includes the Chicago Public Library (Brian Bannon), YouMedia (Yolande Wilburn), Nettelhorst Schools (Ted Ganchiffe), and DePaul University (Scott Walter) on community Fab Lab network building (November)

2011

• Presentation: United States Fab Lab Network Conference., Kansas City, KS (January)
• Publication: Watson, G. 2011. The Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab. ACM interactions magazine, 18(5), 86-87
• Inkscape Intro I Class (January)
• Fab Academy: Four volunteers completed this certificate program (January-May)
• Student Project/Art Installation: The Neuromaker Project:  The transformational connections between personal fabrication, embodied computing, and the performing arts, UIUC. (February)
• UIUC Public Engagement Symposium, Champaign, IL (March)
• Urbana-Champaign Mini Maker Faire (April)
• Great Fab Lab Sandwich Fabrication Event  (May)
• Squishy Circuits, Lead instructor Lauren Semararo (June)
• Hey! That’s MY water bottle, Lead instructor Steve Holt (June)
• "Rock my Ride" summer class (June)
• CUC FABLAB Electronics Summer Workshop, Lead instructor Mercedes Mane (July)
• NSF “Stakeholder Alignment Across U.S. Fab Labs” data collection and analysis (March-August)
• FAB7 Lima: Fab Lab Annual International Conference Presentations (August): Stakeholder Alignment Academic Track Presentation and Operations Workshop
• Blue Platter Saturday (October)
• Interactions Magazine Article on CUC FabLab (October)
• FAB OFF Invitational Event (October)
• Workshop: McGrath, R. E., Rischau, J. & Craig, A. B. 2011. Personalized Manufacturing Meets Embodied Computing. In Workshop on Semi-Automated Creativity at ACM Creativity and Computation, Atlanta

2010

• United States Fab Lab Network Conference, Presentation, Fox Valley, WI (January)
• UIUC Public Engagement Symposium, Champaign, IL (April)
• Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, Champaign, IL, once a week for six weeks (July)
• Fab6 Conference Amsterdam, Netherlands, Presentation (August)
• Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, Demonstration of Fab Lab, Fairbanks, AL (October)
• Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Fab labs offer possible boon to rural villages (October)
• Video conference with Congress, Capitol Mall in Washington, DC (October)
• Tundra Times Article: CUCFL In The News: AFN convention to introduce 'fab lab' (October)
• Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab, Formal Opening, featured speaker Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms and founder of the Global Fab Lab Network (November)
• Fermi Lab Demonstration of Fab Lab (November)
• Daily Illini: Local Fab Lab gives tools to innovation to Champaign-Urbana (November)

2009

• United States Fab Lab Network Conference,  Presentation, Fox Valley, WI (January)