February 16, 2025

Basic Rules & Regs

Some basic guidelines, rules, and intents for using the Makerspaces at William & Mary:

  1. All Makerspaces are open for use by all members of the William & Mary community. This includes students, staff, faculty and alumni.
  2. Makerspaces are run by our team of Makerspaces Student Engineers (MSEs) through an online ticketing system located at this website. This is the only way to engage with MSEs in order to schedule training, reserve a piece of equipment, or submit any other requests and all engagements must go through the ticketing (“Make an Appointment!”) system.
  3. Use only the equipment which you have been specifically trained and are competent at using. If you don’t know how to use something, but would like to learn, just ask!
  4. Follow the William & Mary Honor Code at all times.
  5. Off-hours access to certain spaces may be provided via your TribeCard depending on qualifications. If in a space during off-hours you are responsible for the actions of any guests present with you.
  6. 3D Printing Guidelines
    1. 3D printing services are currently provided at no additional cost to members of the William & Mary community and prints are prepared and started by on-duty MSEs only.
    2. 3D prints are limited by printer type for personal printing requests:
      • 12 hours of printing time per week per individual having no more than 1 printer operating for that individual at any given time on Airwolf EVO & EVO22 printers using ABS plastic.
      • 1.5 hours of printing time on Bambu X1Cs or X1Es using PLA plastic.
      • Alternative materials including PETG, ABS, Nylon6- & Nylon12-, and ASA, with and without carbon fiber fill, can be requested for academic, research, or student club use.
      • Markforged printing systems are reserved for academic, research, or student club use and not available for personal printing.
      • Designs will need to be submitted as .STL or .EMF file types for printing.
      • Designs will be reviewed and if they are found to need improvements to be more manufacturable, the MSEs will help guide ways in which to improve the design.
      • There is no post-processing available for printing within the Makerspaces at this time (acetone treatment, painting, etc.)
      • With the health and safety of our maker community in mind, we do not allow prints that will be in contact with an individual’s mouth or food. This includes items like whistles, wind instruments, cutlery, and dishware.
  7. User Prioritization Schema: As we receive a lot of requests around a multitude of topics, we have to prioritize the order in which these are completed. The priority is as follows:
    1. Curricular needs, research requests, and faculty grant writing/prototype support
    2. Non-academic group projects (Student clubs, team builds, etc)
    3. Ad-Hoc learning opportunities (It’s your first time printing, CNC milling, building a robot, etc. We’ll help you learn and give you a little material with which to work.)
    4. Everything else. (Want to CNC route a new sign for fun, or 3D print a cosplay aesthetic? We got you… after everything else is completed.)
  8. Users are expected to cleanup after themselves
  9. Prohibited items: users are not allowed to make &/or modify weapons (including fantasy and replica weapons), drug paraphernalia or vulgar items.
  10. Users cannot produce goods for commercial sale.
  11. Users are expected to utilize appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) when in the spaces and check to make sure they are not endangering any other nearby users with their actions.