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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!

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One Time Donation

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

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Pi Day Open House 2017!

Pi Day: the time of year when people come together in the spirit of peace, goodwill, and mathematics! Come celebrate all of our volunteers and supporters on Tuesday 3/14 at our special Pi Day Open Hours from 6:28PM-9:42PM.

Schedule:

6:28PM-9:42PM: Tours of Makerspace, 3D printed pi swag, & pie eating!

7PM-8PM: Lightning Talks – Come see Makerspace members give lightning talk about some of the amazing projects they have worked on at Makerspace Urbana. Each speaker will have to inspire us in only 3 minutes and 14 seconds.

8PM-9PM: Soldering Demonstrations – If you’ve heard of soldering before, think soldering may be a difficult skill to acquire, or are unsure what the purpose of soldering is—or if you don’t even know how to pronounce the word (pst: it’s SAH-der)—this workshop is for you! That’s because soldering is easy! In this intro level demo, you will learn the principles of soldering by creating a circuit on a light up LED robot badge. (Age 8+ for soldering)

9PM-9:30PM: Dance Party in Room 15

Support Makerspace Urbana!

Makerspace Urbana exists because of everything the community brings to it: interests, skills, curiosity, and financial support. As we celebrate Pi Day, we encourage you to make a donation to Makerspace Urbana (one-time or monthly).

To show our appreciation, donations made between March 1- March 17 will be eligible for the following donation incentives!

Sustaining Donations
New monthly recurring donations of:
$25 or more: free Makerspace Urbana t-shirt
$75 or more: free Makerspace Urbana sweatshirt

Raffle
All donors (online or in-person during the event) will be entered into a raffle for the following prizes:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 + Starter Kit
  • Makerspace Urbana t-shirt
  • $25 SparkFun gift certificate
  • $15 I.D.E.A. Store gift certificate

Why support Makerspace Urbana?

My experience has been that this community strives to be an inclusive safe space for women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, people of all faiths, people with disabilities, and survivors of violence. I was surprised at how instantly comfortable I felt at Makerspace Urbana. -Amy W.

As an open community lab where people of diverse backgrounds can learn, teach, tinker, collaborate, share, innovate, socialize, and create, Makerspace offers a special combination of warmth and creativity in a world where technology use and isolation too often go hand in hand.

Makerspace Urbana supports the Champaign Urbana community in a variety of ways. In the last year, Makerspace has: raised money for the rape crisis center, participated in Pride Fest, hosted banner making events for local organizers, planned the Heartland Maker Fest, organized a fidget blanket workshop supporting individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, and facilitated Make-a-tion workshops for all ages.

Since Makerspace Urbana is a project of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (a 501c3), your donation is fully tax deductible.

 

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Heartland Maker Fest was amazing!

Makerspace hosted our 6th annual Heartland Maker Fest on Saturday, Oct. 1 at Urbana’s Lincoln Square Mall and we had the most amazing time!  We were happy to provide the platform for 25 makers, 3 performers, a fashion show, and a swordfighting demonstration to showcase their incredible projects.

We had close to 1700 members of the community stop by and learn about medieval swordfighting, electronics, playing in a virtual terrain sandbox, various art forms, origami, reuse and recycle, braiding/tie-dyeing tshirts, game making, and many more activities.

Check out a full set of pictures on our Facebook page or on our Google album.

And!  Save the date for next year’s Fest which will be taking place on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017 at Lincoln Square Mall.

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Heartland Maker Fest 2016 is here!

Heartland Maker Fest 2016 is here!

Join us on Saturday, Oct. 1, 9am-2pm at Urbana’s Lincoln Square Mall for a day of making!

Makerspace Urbana is excited to host our annual event, the Heartland Maker Fest, celebrating the amazing makers in Urbana-Champaign and the surrounding communities. We wish to:

  • Inspire By searching for creative and unique makers to exhibit at the festival, we hope attendees are inspired by the creative projects of others.
  • Empower By focusing on hands-on experiences, we hope people feel empowered to make their own projects a reality.
  • Connect By creating a free and open public festival, we hope to connect attendees to the local resources they need to help make their ideas come to life.

We’re enthusiastic to share the work of over 25 new and returning crafters, artists, tinkerers, engineers, inventors, and performers! Keep up-to-date as we announce new participating makers at our “Meet the Makers” page.

Thanks to our sponsors, especially the Urbana Public Arts Program, the event is free and open to all.

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Pride Fest 2016

As an inclusive queer-friendly space, Makerspace members were super excited to participate in Pride Fest 2016! Building our float was a blast, utilizing making skills of all types, including woodworking, painting, audio engineering, and lighting.

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Fidget Blanket Workshop

Makerspace Urbana and the United Way Emerging Community Leaders had a blast hosting the Fidget Blanket Workshop as part of the National Week of Making! Thank you to everyone who came out to help!

Makerspace Urbana hosted an educational workshop on June 6, 2016 to teach the skills necessary for others to make their own fidget blankets.

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2nd Place in RACES Fundraising Campaign!

Makerspace Urbana participated in the SOS RACES crowdfunding campaign to support Rape Advocacy Counseling and Education Services! As a feminist organization, we recognize that supporting RACES is critical to supporting the type of community we wish to build within our own space.

The Makerspace team raised $5,441 to support RACES, coming in second place for the team competition!

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The Heartland Maker Fest wants you!

The Heartland Maker Fest wants you!

Are you a maker, crafter, tinkerer? Have you thought about sharing your making, crafting, tinkering with other people? Then you (yes, you) should fill out the Heartland Maker Fest Call for Makers form today!

The Heartland Maker Fest our yearly event celebrating the amazing makers in Urbana-Champaign and the surrounding communities. And with your help we want to make this years event bigger and more creative than ever.

The Fest will be held at the Lincoln Square Mall in downtown Urbana from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, October 3rd. We’ll provide tables, chairs, and electricity (if requested). We’ll handle all the publicity, and we’ll work with you on connections through Facebook and Twitter to get the buzz going. We are supported again this year by an Urbana Arts Council grant, so there’s minimal cost to be a Maker and attendees will get in free.

Have a project idea, or know someone who might? Let us know! We are looking for a diverse group of talented individuals to showcase so Apply Now.

Any person or organization who embraces creativity and the DIY spirit and wants to share their accomplishments with an appreciative audience is encouraged to apply!

 

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Heartland Maker Fest 2014

 

 

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Summer Make-a-Tion 2015!

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)
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Pi Day Celebration This Saturday!

Pi Day Celebration This Saturday!

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.

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A look back…

A look back…

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:

  • Py-CU’s first year anniversary event (Saturday, Feb. 1, 6-9pm)
  • Mitch Altman’s Cool Kits workshop @ MU (Saturday, Feb. 15, 2-5pm)
  • Electric Waste Orchestra concert (Thursday, Feb. 20, 7-9pm)
  • UIUC Fine Arts class visit @ MU (Friday, Feb. 21, 8-9:30pm)
  • Hardware Freedom Day Event (Saturday, March 15)
  • Open Hours & Arduino‘s 10th Birthday celebration (Saturday, March 29)
  • Family Science Day @ Redbird Arena, Normal, IL (Saturday, April 5, 2014, 11am-4pm)
  • Graduate School for Library and Information Science tour (Saturday, April 5, 2014 – 1:00)
  • MU table @ Champaign Public Library’s 2014 Home School Fair (Saturday, April 19, 10am-noon)
  • LED workshop @ Dr. Howard Elementary (Wed, April 23, noon)
  • AGORA Festival (May 2nd and 3rd)
  • Table at the Market (7am-noon) + Garage Sale (Saturday, May 10, 10am – 4pm)
  • MU participated in a Panel on Makerspaces & Illinois Emerging Technologies Report
  • PyCU’s Women’s IT and Computing Open House (Saturday, May 31, 1-4pm)
  • Martin Wolske’s Community Informatics Studio class (June 19 @ 2pm)
  • Art @ the Market (July 12, 7am-noon)
  • Bloomington Children’s Museum workshop (July 17 @ 3pm)
  • Outta mouths of babes workshop (July 26, 2-4pm)
  • Summer Make-a-tion 2014 workshops (Aug-Sept):
    • Knitting
    • Harry Potter Wands
    • Tablet Case
    • Cross Stitch
    • Soldering I
    • Soldering II
    • 3D Printing I
    • 3D Printing II
    • Arduinos
    • Beer/Mead brewing
  • Innovation Living-Learning Community workshop (Thurs, Aug 21, 3pm)
  • Pride Fest Table (Saturday, Sept. 6)
  • CUDO Plays launch party
  • Py-CU workshop hosted by Elizabeth at Univ of Illinois
  • UIUC NSBE “When I grow up, I want to be an engineer” Workshop (Thurs, Oct 2, 4-5:30pm)
  • MU hosts CIGG Workshop (Thurs, Oct. 9, 6-7:30pm)
  • Design For America workshops I & II (Oct. 4 & 25, 1-3pm)
  • International Day of the Girl Table (Saturday, Oct. 11, 9am-noon)
  • Organized 2014 Heartland Maker Fest (Saturday, Oct. 18, all day)
  • Urbana Free Library Zombie Prom and Costume Workshops (Friday, Oct. 24)
  • Sew-O-Ween 2014 Open Hours (Oct. 22, 25, and 29)
  • Society of Creating Anachronism Glass & Fire Workshop (Sunday, Nov. 23)
  • Chambana.net workshops on Constructing Technology and Computer Basics (Saturday, Dec.13, 1-3pm)
  • Makerspace Urbana 5yr Anniversary party and fundraiser (Monday, Dec. 15)
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Open Hours New Year’s Day 1-4pm

Open Hours New Year’s Day 1-4pm

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.

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Happy Holidays!

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!

Hey Ho Ho Ho Let's Sew (24 of 17)

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Happy Birthday, Makerspace Urbana!

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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!

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Countdown to Heartland Maker Fest

Countdown to Heartland Maker Fest

Only days left until Heartland Maker Fest 2014!

The Heartland Maker Fest is Makerspace Urbana‘s annual event celebrating the amazing makers in Urbana-Champaign and the surrounding communities.

Come learn to spin your own yarn, create art from math, or perhaps design and print a 3D object. This year’s fest will be full of family friendly maker fun and showcase all kinds of local maker talent.

You will also have a chance to hear many speakers discussing the maker movement and DIY phenomena.

And thanks to River City Labs Makerspace we’re also planning a Quadcopter Obstacle Course with prizes! If you have a small quadcopter that can be flown safely indoors, bring it!

This year’s Fest will be be held on Saturday, October 18 from 10am to 4pm at the Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana, Illinois.

Interested in volunteering at the fest? Sign up here. We need you!

For more information, check out our
Website: www.heartlandmakerfest.org
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/heartlandmf
or like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/heartlandmakerfest

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Central Illinois Day of the Girl Rally

Central Illinois Day of the Girl Rally

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):

dayofthegirl_flyer

Hope to see you there!

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Human-Centered Design Workshops on Urban Flooding


dfaWe’re very excited to announce that Design for America has chosen to team up with Makerspace Urbana for an exciting workshop series. This series aims to teach the human-centered design process to the members of Makerspace Urbana and the wider Urbana-Champaign community(all ages, all welcome). This will be carried out through 4 design workshops on urban flooding. In these sessions, DFA students will work in tandem with Makerspace Urbana members to conduct research using ethnographic techniques, reframe a design challenge, prototype, test their designs and re-iterate them based on user feedback from the John St Watershed Steering Committee. By the end of Spring 2015, DFA and Makerspace hope to deliver an installation type product to be handed over to the John Street Watershed Steering Committee.

The prototyping sessions will be a chance for Makerspace Urbana to mentor DFA members and members of the public in the art of making things through various media such as sewing, digital prototyping, 3D printing and other skills.

 So mark your calendars now! And if you would like to receive an email reminder closer to the first workshop date, sign up here!

The workshop series is funded by a grant from the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Public Engagement.

 

Schedule:

Workshop 1: Understand • Introduction to Human Centered Design

10/4/2014, 1pm-3pm
Digital Computer Lab Room 2320
1304 West Springfield Urbana, IL 61801
  • Talk on what human-centered design is and why it is beneficial in the context of making
  • Introduction of problem statement and key issues surrounding the problem (5mins)
  • Participants will view prior field research footage recorded by DFA students to get an idea of the surroundings and their problems and then craft questions (15mins)
  • John St Watershed residents come to the workshop and share their experiences and problems/ be interviewed. (40mins)
  • Develop insights into the problem (25mins)
  • Create How Can We Questions (20mins)

Sign up: Online or Facebook Event

Workshop 2: Reframe, Synthesize and Brainstorm

10/25/2014, 1pm-3pm
Digital Computer Lab Room 2320
1304 West Springfield Urbana, IL 61801
  • Brainstorming sessions (30mins)
  • Choose ideas (10mins)
  • Forming groups to prototype those ideas
  • Prototyping (40mins)
  • Users will be invited to critique ideas. (40mins)

*This workshop will be facilitated by Julian Bongiorno from DFA National HQ

Workshop 3: Prototyping

11/1/2014  • 11/8/2014 • 11/15/2014 (time flexible)
Makerspace Urbana or other TBD location
  • Consists of DFA students working with Makerspace members every week informally to re-iterate and build prototypes for testing

Workshop 4: Testing and Feedbackeframe, Synthesize and Brainstorm

12/06/2014, 1pm-3pm
Location TBD
  • Participants will learn to communicate their ideas in a compelling way through a pitching workshop. (20mins)
  • Show their prototypes to John St Watershed members to get their own feedback
  • Brainstorm ways to improve their designs (40min)
  • Devise ways to continue with their ideas if participants feel they want to continue with their ideas (30mins)

 

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No Saturday open hours – we’ll be rockin’ CU Pride Fest instead

No Saturday open hours – we’ll be rockin’ CU Pride Fest instead

Just a heads-up, we won’t have the space open tomorrow morning for our regular Open Hours.

Instead, we’re super excited to participate in this year’s CU Pride Festival taking place in downtown Champaign!

Stop by our table in the parking lot by Kofusion, in front of the Orpheum kids museum.  We’re hoping to repeat the awesomeness that was last year:

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We’ll be there 3-9pm.  We’d love to see you!

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Outta the Mouths of Babes: Electric Waste Orchestra and Makerspace Urbana Episode!

We were super lucky to have Outta the Mouths of Babes , an amazing local youth radio project, come by with their youth correspondents and explore Makerspace Urbana and Colten’s Electric Waste Orchestra Project. Listen to the awesome results here:

 

And you can see more photos from the event here.

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Electonic Waste Orchestra featured on WIRED.com

Electonic Waste Orchestra featured on WIRED.com

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!

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Unity Community Center Workshop

Last year the Children’s Discovery Museum’s education coordinator (Bethany Thomas) invited us to do a workshop with their Maker Camp. This year we were invited back to have more maker related fun with the wonderful kids at the Unity Community Center. Seven of our Makerspace Urbana volunteers were able to attend and we set up 3 different maker activity  stations for the kids.  One station was our classic soldering workshop!

Maker Camp Bloomington Community Center (1 of 33)

Soldering is Easy! And kids pick it up really quick.

Maker Camp Bloomington Community Center (6 of 33)

This girl quickly became an excellent soldering teacher after finishing her own blinky badge.

Another was Led/Throwy/Origami.

Maker Camp Bloomington Community Center (3 of 33)

Light up origami time!

The new workshop station we were able to provide this time was sewing custom plush dolls! Huge thanks to Judy Lee from the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab for helping teach and put this workshop station together.

The kids cut out the patterns they created.

The kids got to cut out the patterns they created.

Learned to sew and stitch their pieces together.

Learned to sew and stitch their pieces together.

And ended up with some amazing creations!

And ended up with some amazing creations!

Thanks to the all the awesome kids who made this event a memorable one for all of us.

Full photo album here.

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T-shirts into Tote bags @ the Urbana Market

T-shirts into Tote bags @ the Urbana Market

Makerspace Urbana is super excited to be invited back to the Art @ the Market booth this summer!  While we encountered a semi-tropical storm last weekend:

rainy_squirrel

we will not be stopped!

Visit us this Saturday, July 19, 8am-noon at the Urbana Farmer’s Market; we’ll be right up front.

The t-shirts beckon:

ready_tshirts

Did I mention this is a free workshop?

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Coming Soon!

Stay tuned for information on Summer Make-a-Tion 2014 and the (newly named) Heartland Maker Fest.  Make-a-Tion will start at the end of July and workshops will be held every other Saturday from 10-12 and 1-3.  Heartland Maker Fest will be on Saturday, October 18 at the Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana.

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Wondering how to start a print on our Solidoodle 3D Printer? This video is for you!

Click through to watch the tutorial. The short version is: switch on the power strip, open pronterface, hit connect, hit “Set” temp on the bed and the nozzle, and then open Cura, open your STL, choose your raft and support, hit “file > save gcode” and save it somewhere you’ll remember — go back to pronterface and open that gcode, then hit print! Too fast for ya? Watch the video!

 

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New Kitz at Makerspace!

New Kitz at Makerspace!

1891280_10104903106447191_1743124750_nYou may not learn grammar here, but you will be sure to gain other excellent skillz at Makerspace with the purchase of one of our new kitz. Along with learning to hack, solder, and program you will get to take home a shiny new toy! We have:

TV-Be-Gone: Turns off almost any kind of television so you don’t have to watch Fox News at the pub anymore!

MintyBoost: A battery powered charger for any electronic device that uses USB. Charge your phone on the go! In the club! on a hike! Never be without Facebook again. NEVER.

Gemma started kit: Tired of the same old boring clothes with absolutely NO LEDs?? Suffer no more! This Gemma starter kit will get you on the way to the long term goal of being seen from space!

Atari Punk Console: This noisemaker will be sure to delight any parent or grandparent. What exactly does it do? Brings joy through noise. Get one today, kids.

Blinky Badge: The world’s most entertaining and affordable way to learn how to solder! Your new skillz will be accompanied home with a LED decorated robot badge, which is only appropriate.

Fonera Router: This ready to hack router is perfect for introducing you to the world of Open Source Router Software! With a few easy steps you can hack this router to do all kinds of things the large router companies routinely block you from doing with their locked down software.  More about OpenWRT and installing it on the Fonera.

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Hardware Freedom Day ’14 @ MU

Hardware Freedom Day ’14 @ MU

Makerspace Urbana celebrates Hardware Freedom Day 2014!

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Join us as we get together and do some open hardware hacking. Bring your Arduino board and we’ll show you how to make and program your very own walking robot creation. No programming experience required (but do bring your laptop).

Or come and work on your own project and socialize with fellow makers.

When: 3/14/14 – 11am

 

Where: The workshop will take place at Makerspace Urbana 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 you have any trouble finding us, just call (816) 287-1717.

If possible please let us know you’re coming through one of the following methods:

*We will have some computers for people to use for programming but if you can bring your own laptop and pre-install the Arduino software, that would be great. Or feel free to show up early with your computer and we will help you install it.

Resources:

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Mitch Altman – Variety of Cool Kits Workshop

Mitch Altman – Variety of Cool Kits Workshop

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What:  Learn to Solder, with a variety of cool kits!
You can easily learn all of the skills you need in a short time.
Make a project, and take it home with you!
When:  Saturday, February 15th, 2pm-5pm
Most projects take about 1.5 to 2 hours
Where:  Makerspace Urbana
202 S. Broadway Ave in Urbana
at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC).
Who:  You! All ages, all skill levels — It is fun to make things in the
friendly community of Makerspace Urbana.
Come join us. Everyone is welcome.
Cost:  Instruction is free! We ask that people pay only for the cost of
the parts used — kit prices range from $10 to $20.
 — No need to register — just come on by!

Learn to solder! Mitch Altman will bring kits to make cool, practical, intriguing, hackable things that you can bring home after you make it.

Plenty of cool kits are available to make, including:

  • TV-B-Gone (turn off TVs in public places!)
  • Brain Machine (Meditate, Hallucinate, and Trip Out!)
  • Trippy RGB Waves (interactive blinky lights!)
  • MiniPOV (more cool blinky lights!)
  • MintyBoost (charge your USB enabled gadgets!)
  • Hello My Name Is… badge (Geeky, blinky version!)
  • Arduino clones (make just about anything!)

More info on these projects is available at:
Cornfield Electronics (click on the “projects” tab)
Adafruit
Evil Mad Scientist
Analog Machines

Anyone can learn to solder! Even if you have never made anything in your life, you can learn this very useful and enjoyable skill. It really is fun! Mitch has taught tens of thousands of people to solder all around the world, and he can teach you, too! Add yourself to the ever increasing community!

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