Makerspace Urbana, a project of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, 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.

We are a 501(c)3 non-profit charity, and we rely on generous donations from members, visitors, and supporters to keep our space and resources open and free for public use. Your tax-deductible donations also make our many public workshops and events possible.

Your tax exempt one time donation or monthly sustainer subscription helps to ensure the future of Makerspace Urbana as a non profit public resource! Please click on one of the donate buttons below to support us today.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for a list of frequently asked questions on payments and cancellations.

Become a Monthly Sustainer

Help sustain Makerspace Urbana by donating a set amount each month. This option really helps us plan the growth of the Makerspace. Your contribution will be automatically deducted every month. Just choose which ever level fits you the best! Thank you!

One Time Donation

If you have a major credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) donating is easy. Click this button to get started.

Summer Make-a-Tion starts June 13th! 

Make-a-tion is our summer long workshop series inviting everyone of all ages to learn, teach, tinker, collaborate, share, innovate, socialize, and create. This is the third year in a row we’ve run this event and it’s been a huge success. We are very excited about this years planned workshops. All our workshops are put on by volunteers and are open to the public.

Here is the list of workshops so far, we’ll add more as we plan them!

June 13th

• 1pm Soldering, Level I: Blinky Badges (Sign up here)

June 20th

• 1pm Intro to 3D Printing (Sign up here)

July 18th

• 1pm Soldering, Level II: Soldering kits (Sign up here)

August 1

• 1pm Arduino Robotics (Sign up here)

Makerspace and Py-CU Present

Pi Day Celebration!
Saturday
3.14.15
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

We will be holding a Pi Day Celebration this Saturday and we want to invite you all to attend!

We have the following super fun Pi Day activities planned:

• Pie Contest
• Bake Sale
• Calculate Pi
• Pi Swag
• Lightning Talks
• Python Programming Contest
• Raspberry Pi Programming Workshop
• Raffle for Raspberry Pi 2 Starter Kit

Come and celebrate this mathematical awesomeness!

All proceeds from the event event will be donated directly to Makerspace Urbana so we can continue providing services to the community!

Check out the full schedule and details at the event page.

2014 was quite the year for Makerspace Urbana. We expanded our open hours, held more workshops and special events than ever before, and acquired many new cool shared equipment items that are now available to the public! We also had our first annual maker celebration under our new Heartland Maker Fest name and saw huge growth from the previous year.

Thanks to the amazing energy and dedication of Makerspace Urbana volunteers, we were able to organize, host, and attend over 40  special activities this year! (see below) And these are all in addition to our weekly Computer Help Desk, Open Hours, and Py-CU Hack Nights.

We also launched our Five Year Five Hundred Campaign aimed at increasing our monthly sustaining donation amount to over $500 per month. We’re on track to surpass our goal and it’s all thanks to the support of over 30 wonderful community members donating as little as pi ($3.14) each month! If you would like to help the Makerspace remain sustainable and support our growth, consider becoming a sustainer by donating here.

We can’t wait to see what 2015 brings and we hope you’ll join us in making cool things happen!

2014 Makerspace Urbana Special Achievements:

Thinking about making something in the New Year? Looking for ideas?

Stop by Makerspace Urbana on New Year’s Day!

We will not have our regular open hours on Wednesday (Dec. 31). The space will be open on New Year’s Day for working on projects, getting help with projects, giving help on projects, socializing, planning events, and just having a good time. The Shared Threads group also has open hours at this time so drop on in if that interests you as well.

No project needed! You can just come see the space if you’d like.

We’re located in the basement room #16 of the Independent Media Center in Urbana.

The space can be a little tricky to find but if you enter through the back bike project door (near the radio tower) and take your first left, we’re at the end of the hall. If the outside door is locked just call (816) 287-1717.

Makerspace Urbana is closed for the week!

There will be no Py-CU hack night on Tuesday (Dec. 23), no Wednesday Open Hours (Dec. 24), and no Saturday Open Hours (Dec. 27).

Our regularly scheduled programming will resume with Py-CU hack night on Tuesday, Dec. 30.

All the best and keep warm!

Join us for our fifth anniversary celebration! As a part of this momentous occasion, we’ll host special open hours where we will make things, eat, drink, and be merry. With this milestone, we want to celebrate the past by looking forward to the next five years of Makerspace!

This anniversary marks the start of our capital campaign to support and grow the Makerspace into the future! We will share some of our history and discuss our plans for expanding and developing within the community.

Most of all, this celebration is for you: the awesome people who make Makerspace THE place to be!

Do you have a quadcopter? Well, bring it to this year’s event and give a spin through the massive obstacle course brought to you by River City Labs Makerspace in Peoria!

We’re super excited to participate in the first (hopefully annual) Central Illinois Day of the Girl Rally!  This event will be happening on Saturday, Oct. 11 from 10am to noon right at our homebase in the Independent Media Center (202 S. Broadway Ave in Urbana).

You’re welcome to RSVP at the Facebook invite or simply show up.

If you’re not familiar with Day of the Girl, it’s a movement started by the United Nations to raise awareness of gender inequality around the world.

This event is free and open to the public and here’s the awesome stuff that will be happening (click for expanded view):

Hope to see you there!

Our very own Colten Jackson’s awesomeness has now been exposed to the techie world at large!

Colten’s side project of re-using old electronics and re-purposing them as musical instruments is a featured article on WIRED Design.  Read all about it here.

Way to go, Colten!