Home › About Us › In the Community

Other Open Workshops in Champaign-Urbana

Thu, 04/21/2011 - 15:54 — Luke Scharf

Other community workshops in Champaign-Urbana:

  • Makerspace Urbana
    http://makerspaceurbana.org/
    "Makerspace Urbana is dedicated to enabling the blend of arts, humanities, science and technology. Our mission is to provide an open community lab where people of diverse backgrounds can learn, teach, tinker, collaborate, share, innovate, socialize, and create."
  • The Bike Project
    http://thebikeproject.org/
    "The Bike Project co-op offers a space, tools, and community to repair bikes, share knowledge, hold classes, and advocate for bikes in Urbana-Champaign."
  • Champaign-Urbana Pottery Club
    http://www.cupotters.org/
    "The Potters' Club is a co-op for the ceramic arts that provides a quality pottery studio to amateurs at reasonable cost. The studio has recently moved to 900 S. Race St., Urbana at the intersection of Race St. and Washington St. Our studio faces Race."
Businesses in Champaign-Urbana that provide well-equipped workshops and/or classrooms:
  • C-U Woodshop Dream Shop
    http://www.cuwoodshop.com/
    "Now you can see the latest power tools in action before you buy! The DreamShop, located adjacent to our store, is outfitted with over $100,000 worth of professional-grade power tools, plus there are experienced woodworkers available to demo the tools and answer your questions."
    Becoming a member of the Dream Shop is very expensive, but the workshop is accessible to the public via reasonably woodworking classes:
    http://www.cuwoodshop.com/classesdemos.html
  • Glass FX
    http://glassfx.com
    Stained glass supplies, services, and classes.  Classes are held in an attached studio.
Local businesses that cater to Makers, Crafters, Artists, and Designers:
  • The I.D.E.A. Store
    http://the-idea-store.org/
    "At The I.D.E.A. Store, we’re passionate about finding fun, functional and creative re-use for the materials we often take for granted. You’ll find an ever-changing inventory of donated materials and re-sourced resources for projects of all shapes and sizes. We’re a store, a community, a donation center – we’re a marketplace of items and ideas!"
  • C-U Needlworks
    http://www.cu-needleworks.com/
    "Needleworks is the premier needle arts shop in Champaign-Urbana. We carry a full line of knitting products, needlepoint products, and cross-stitch products. We strive to be the friendliest shop with the most knowledgeable staff, and we appreciate all the customers who have told us we have the best shop in the state of Illinois."
  • Klose Knit
    http://www.klosekniturbana.com/
    "Fine Fibers and Friendly Service is our motto and that is exactly what you’ll find in our store. We have a great selection of yarns including Rowan yarns and patterns, Nashua, Blue Sky Alpacas, Cascade yarns and not not to forget the complete Malabrigo line which is our best selling yarn. Several smaller yarn producing companies like Zealana, Jojo Land,Prism, Jade Sapphire and numerous sock yarns you will find on our ever growing shelves. Sock yarns include Opal, Austermann Step, Trekking, Paca Peds; the list is forever growing and changing."
University-based Maker Organizations
  • The Illinois MakerLab opened in Spring 2013 as the first makerspace based in a business school. It provides a unique and valuable resource for students and faculty to gain hands-on experiential learning with 3D Modeling and Printing, a technology gaining adoption at the consumer level.
  • Visualization Lab@ Beckman Institute - The Visualization Lab is conveniently hosted out of the Beckman Institute right here on campus (405 N. Matthews, Urbana)! For a monthly fee any student can gain access to “2D/3D/4D image analysis and quantification, scientific visualization, ultra-high speed video, macro-photography, macro-video, video production, 3D animation, high-resolution 2D scanning, 3D object scanning, full-color 3D printing, research presentation, publication graphics, and additional capabilities in support of imaging.” The Beckman Institute is one of the preeminent engineering research facilities in the country. As such, it represents an incredible opportunity for collaboration with U of I’s engineers.
  • 3D Printing Lab at the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Students (CEMMS) at UIUC - This lab, also located on campus (1206 W. Green Street, Urbana), uses a chemical process that is a result of a project headed by Professor Nicholas Fang (details of the process are available on the website). According to the lab’s website, “Nano-CEMMS offers a wide variety of materials, workshops, fellowships, scholarships, research opportunities, and group meetings.”
  • lIlinois Geometry Lab - This is another fabrication lab on campus, located in Altgeld Hall. The Geometry Lab focuses on serving students of, guess what, geometry. Undergrads, grads, and postdocs collaborate on projects that I’m sure generate some pretty cool 3D shapes: shapes that may even have practical value.
  • Others unlisted, Mechanical Engineering and in DCL
This list is incomplete!
Champaign-Urbana is a very Maker/Crafter/Designer/Artist friendly town.  If there are any community workshops, open workshops, community kitchens, or local businesses that we've missed, please contact us and we will consider adding it to this list.