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THE CU COMMUNITY FAB LAB INNOVATOR
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Welcome to the Innovator, a quarterly newsletter to report our happenings across campus and community wide. The CU Community Fab Lab is an open, collaborative, capacity-building makerspace. We strive to enable makers of all kinds through instruction, open access, mentoring, community engagement, and research.
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STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Neil joined the CUC FAB LAB back in May of 2019. He is the Technical Lab Manager and recently started teaching a new class at the Lab, CNC Fundamentals. Neil's favorite Lab tool is the rotary attachment on the Epilog Laser and most recently he built a CNC demo machine. When Neil is not at the Lab he helps raise a mighty flock of chickens, several geese, and an adorable 1 year old.
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REMOTE SERVICES
The Fab Lab will continue to offer remote services to the Champaign-Urbana Community due to ongoing Covid-19 health and safety restrictions. Although we are currently unable to open fully to the public we are looking at new ways to engage with you, we miss you. For example, check out our Free Zoom Software Series starting in February.
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TOOL SPOTLIGHT
While we have been apart the Fab Lab acquired a new super fun tool and we can't wait to share it with you - The Brother Scan and Cut. What makes it so fun? It can cut through thin materials such as paper, foil, or vinyl with your custom designs. It has the ability to scan a page and automatically create trace lines around anything on it. What it traces, it cuts! This allows you to cut out hand drawn designs, or digital creations without having to digitize and format your work first!
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In The Classroom
The Fab Lab’s main mission is to support education through promoting interdisciplinary design thinking, digital literacies and makerspace pedagogy.
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THEA 449 - TECHNOLOGY AND COSTUME CRAFT
This is a mixed-level course for students who are exploring costume technology in depth. Modern technologies such as 3D printing, use of programmable LED lights, fiber optics, laser cutting, and other innovations are the new resources available to create cutting-edge costumes. During the course students will learn the theory and foundations of these technologies and their practical implementation.
*Work by Akemi Garcia
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INFO 490 - GAME STUDIES
This course is a foray into game studies via makerspace production mediums. Students will study the role of play, tinkering and gaming in design, research and innovation and be challenged to learn a variety of makerspace production tools and techniques to create games.
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In The Community
We believe that programming and research should grow out of the needs, passions, and interests of the community in which it is based. Relationships with our community partners serve as the bedrock to our engagement work, allowing long-term, sustainable and consistent programing and services.
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THE (UN)UNITED STATES of AMERICA
As a recipient of the Urbana Arts and Culture grant program the Fab Lab and local teens worked to implement “Teen Art in Urbana,”. This program aims to bring together local youth to organize an art exhibition featuring and celebrating teen art. The initiative is led by a council of local teens, who have determined the theme, The (un)United States of America and will run virtual art programs throughout the community for their peers to make work for the exhibition. Due to COVID, this exhibition will be shown virtually for all to enjoy. This program runs in partnership with the Urbana Free Library.
*Artwork by Allie Kim, Grade 12
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URBANA NEIGHBORHOOD CONNECTION CENTER
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HYDRO DIPPING-IMMERSION PRINTING
10 Teens from the Urbana Neighborhood Connection Center currently involved with the Teen Art Program were able to learn and explore a popular new dying process called Hydro dipping. This technique utilizes oil based paints which are hydrophobic (oil-like), that rest on the surface of water. A pattern or design can be made by layering paint on top of itself, creating a marbled like surface and then dipping in your object (a phone case) into the water. The paint then wraps itself around the object and voila, you have a new, one of a kind phone case!
*Hydro-dipped phone case
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