November 21, 2024

Author: makerspaces_wm_edu

Welcome back! It’s so mice to see you again!

Welcome back to campus everyone! It’s the start of the Spring semester, and it’s 2022! Can you believe it? While you were gone we kept chugging away on some fun projects. Did you know that the Makerspaces at William & Mary love helping faculty get research going by prototyping needed hardware? This winter break we finished a fun project request from the Del Negro neuroscience laboratory, a precision treadmill for a mouse along with some other contraptions for studying effects on locomotion. We hope our little mice friends enjoy their new health club, take a look:

The Makerspaces at William & Mary has a lot of great things coming this semester. While we still have all the features of last semester such as 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC machining, sewing & embroidery, and more at Swem, Small Hall and elsewhere; this semester we’ll also be rolling out a program for everyone wanting to learn to fly and program UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Systems, Drones)!

In conjunction with VIMS, the CGA, and W&M Athletics, the Makerspaces will be hosting UAV flying sessions at Martin Family Stadium every Friday morning from 8am-11am (weather permitting). We’ll bring our fleet of heavy lift UAVs and see you there! If the weather is bad, then we’ll be in the Small Hall Makerspace Center learning how to program autonomous flight using open source hardware. If this sounds of interest, great! Come join the fun. If it sounds really interesting, stop by and we’ll talk about you getting your FAA part 107 commercial UAV pilots’ license as well!

A practice session in the Fall

As always, check the calendar for upcoming sessions and open times or put a request into our online ticketing system and a makerspace student engineer will get back to you as soon as we can.

End of Semester Hours

Expect the Makerspaces to be open our normal hours until Sunday, December 12th. After that, we will be running at partial hours as needed by students. Make sure to get your requests in soon if you’d like to have them completed before winter break!

Up, Up, and Away!

Interested in flying drones? Join Henry’s Drone Design user group Tuesdays at 2:00pm in Small Hall to work on designing a drone. Or head to the Martin Family Stadium Friday mornings from 8:00am-11:00am to learn UAV maneuvers with Jonathan. Whether you’re into designing drones or flying them, the Makerspaces at William & Mary have what you need to get started!

DnD Character Embroidery

  • Join Mikayla in the Small Hall Makerspace Wednesdays at 1:00pm for her DnD & Cosplay user group! Whether you’re an expert or just interested in learning something new, this user group can help you get started on a fun new project. Here’s an example of a DnD mini embroidery the group made last week.

Making Circuits

Apart from the soldering and electronics stations in the Small Hall Makerspace Center, did you know we also have the capability to mill custom printed circuit boards (PCB). Below is a time lapse made of a student producing their custom simplified synthesizer board.

From Trash to Treasure

This sign was made in about 20 minutes (manufacturing time) by a faculty member at the School of Education learning the fantastic world of digital design and manufacturing! The wood with which it was produced was actually pulled from the rubbish bin, and is an old pine shelf reinvigorated. Learn CNC and digital design; come spend some time with the makerspaces, our student engineers, and learn how to turn your own trash to treasure.

Interested in Cosplay or Dnd?

Join Mikayla’s user group in the Small Hall Makerspace (Wednesdays at 1:00pm) to explore cosplay and make DnD minis.

Build out your research

One of the many goals of the Makerspaces at William & Mary is to help faculty, staff & students expand and develop their research paths. To this end we have already helped many faculty and staff prototype initial equipment, use our existing equipment for initial data collection, or borrow equipment for their own labs. For instance, did you know that we have a Flir handheld infrared imaging camera that faculty & staff (and students with an advisors’ permission) can reserve for use? Let us know how we can help.

Did you know MSEs can help with tutoring?

Don’t be afraid to ask MSEs for help with school work! Our MSEs study a range of fields including Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Computer Science, and even Studio Art. Working together to solve problems is what the Makserspace is all about and helps contribute to our collaborative workspace.