Future projects
Future projects have been aimed towards new and existing exhibits found at the Museum of Science and Industry. These can include miners' hats for the coal mining exhibit, periscope, models of the U-505 submarine, and stamps of various other exhibits. Other projects were also taken and expanded upon.
The idea for these projects is for members to come to the lab and create something as well as learning more about the exhibit itself. This also gives the museum members a chance to take a souvenir with them as they leave and to expand their minds on what can be built in the lab.
At the moment students who have come to the fab lab were able to print (engrave) their pictures on acrylic boards, which can be used as keychains. At some angles the engraving seems very simple, but if the light is caught at the perfect angle, the image is shown with high precision and detail.
Additional opportunities for community outreach (and robotics projects) can be found through support of FIRST initiatives in Illinois. FIRST inspires students ages 6–18 to explore science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through robotics projects and Gracious Professionalism. Teams also play an active role in their communities, volunteering to improve their environment beyond their robot.
The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry(MSI), formerly known as the Museum of Science and Industry, is a science museum located in Chicago, Illinois, in Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood between Lake Michigan and The University of Chicago. It is housed in the Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Initially endowed by Sears, Roebuck and Company president and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and supported by the Commercial Club of Chicago, it opened in 1933 during the Century of Progress Exposition. It was renamed for benefactor and financier Kenneth C. Griffin on May 19, 2024.
The router is a power tool with a flat base and a rotating blade extending past the base. The spindle may be driven by an electric motor or by a pneumatic motor. It routs an area in hard material, such as wood or plastic. Routers are used most often in woodworking, especially cabinetry. They may be handheld or affixed to router tables. Some woodworkers consider the router one of the most versatile power tools.
A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who operates machine tools, and has the ability to set up tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling machines.
In machining, numerical control, also called computer numerical control (CNC), is the automated control of tools by means of a computer. It is used to operate tools such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers. CNC transforms a piece of material into a specified shape by following coded programmed instructions and without a manual operator directly controlling the machining operation.
Metal fabrication is the creation of metal structures by cutting, bending and assembling processes. It is a value-added process involving the creation of machines, parts, and structures from various raw materials.
A fab lab is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
FANUC is a Japanese group of companies that provide automation products and services such as robotics and computer numerical control wireless systems. These companies are principally FANUC Corporation of Japan, Fanuc America Corporation of Rochester Hills, Michigan, USA, and FANUC Europe Corporation S.A. of Luxembourg.
Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination was a traveling exhibition created by the Museum of Science, Boston, featuring props and costumes used in the Star Wars films, and focusing primarily on the science behind George Lucas' science fiction epic. The exhibition was developed by Boston's Museum of Science in collaboration with Lucasfilm Ltd., with the support of the National Science Foundation, under Grant No. 0307875. The exhibit was presented nationally by Bose Corporation.
The Computer Museum was a Boston, Massachusetts, museum that opened in 1979 and operated in three locations until 1999. It was once referred to as TCM and is sometimes called the Boston Computer Museum. When the museum closed and its space became part of Boston Children's Museum next door in 2000, much of its collection was sent to the Computer History Museum in California.
APT is a high-level computer programming language most commonly used to generate instructions for numerically controlled machine tools. Douglas T. Ross is considered by many to be the father of APT: as head of the newly created Computer Applications Group of the Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT in 1956, he led its technical effort. APT is a language and system that alleviates the tedious mathematics of writing toolpaths for numerically controlled equipment. This early language was used widely through the 1970s and is still a standard internationally. Derivatives of APT were later developed.
Digital modeling and fabrication is a design and production process that combines 3D modeling or computing-aided design (CAD) with additive and subtractive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is also known as 3D printing, while subtractive manufacturing may also be referred to as machining, and many other technologies can be exploited to physically produce the designed objects.
The mobile fab lab is a computer-controlled design and machining fab lab housed in a trailer. The first was built in August 2007 by the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The mobile lab includes the same computer-controlled fabrication machines found in fab labs worldwide.
A hackerspace is a community-operated, often "not for profit", workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, science, digital art, or electronic art, can meet, socialize, and collaborate. Hackerspaces are comparable to other community-operated spaces with similar aims and mechanisms such as Fab Lab, men's sheds, and commercial "for-profit" companies.
TechShop was a chain of membership-based, open-access, do-it-yourself (DIY) workshops and fabrication studios. As of 2017 they had ten locations in the United States, as well as four international locations.
The maker culture is a contemporary subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture that intersects with hardware-oriented parts of hacker culture and revels in the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ones. The maker culture in general supports open-source hardware. Typical interests enjoyed by the maker culture include engineering-oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3-D printing, and the use of computer numeric control tools, as well as more traditional activities such as metalworking, woodworking, and, mainly, its predecessor, traditional arts and crafts.
LinuxCNC is a free, open-source Linux software system that implements computer numerical control (CNC) capability using general purpose computers to control CNC machines. It's mainly intended to run on PC AMD x86-64 systems. Designed by various volunteer developers at linuxcnc.org, it is typically bundled as an ISO file with a modified version of Debian Linux which provides the required real-time kernel.
Milling is the process of machining using rotary cutters to remove material by advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This may be done by varying directions on one or several axes, cutter head speed, and pressure. Milling covers a wide variety of different operations and machines, on scales from small individual parts to large, heavy-duty gang milling operations. It is one of the most commonly used processes for machining custom parts to precise tolerances.
The history of numerical control (NC) began when the automation of machine tools first incorporated concepts of abstractly programmable logic, and it continues today with the ongoing evolution of computer numerical control (CNC) technology.
Three Lakes Junior/Senior High School is a public school serving grades 7–12. It also includes an elementary school for grades K–6. The student body comprises approximately 250–280 students. The principal is Gene Welheofer, and the district administrator is Teri Maney. The school’s mission statement is “Teaching students to be productive citizens.”
North Forge Fabrication Lab is a rapid prototyping workshop and business development facility located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Founded in September 2011, it is a fabrication laboratory, intended to assist entrepreneurs in developing their ideas into physical prototypes. Facilities at the site include 3D printers in several sizes, CNC laser cutters from 50 to 120 watts, CNC milling machines, a plasma cutter, wood and metal lathes, a Double 3 telepresence robot and facilities for manufacturer and test of printed circuit boards. Software resources include various systems for computer aided design.
Laser cutter station.
CNC machine station.
Computer station.
