Spring 2024 Funding Round
We are thrilled to announce the funded projects for Spring 2024 at making@stanford, showcasing an exciting range of initiatives that underscore our commitment to innovation, creativity, and hands-on learning. These upcoming projects span diverse fields and interests, including advanced engineering tools and resources, arts and theater materials, and support for student and staff roles essential to our mission. Key projects include the acquisition of Hapkits, iGem student club materials, and CNC electrical components, which will enhance our technical capabilities. Additionally, funding for sewing machines, dress forms, and supplies will support the World of Wearable Art and Theater Making projects. Upgrades such as Formlabs enhancements and a Lab64 laser booster pump are set to improve our fabrication facilities. Essential teaching and support roles, including UG CAs for courses like TAPS 42, ME108, and ME248, along with the UTL staff scientist and GSE fellow, will be pivotal in evolving our curriculum. This funding also extends to the provision of various materials and components, such as plywood, PLA, sheet metal, and analog circuit components, ensuring our labs are well-equipped for innovation. We are excited to see the impact of these projects on our vibrant maker community!
ITALIC 99 Art Materials
ITALIC 99 courses, one-unit Student Initiated Courses hosted by the ITALIC program, served a record number of students this year: more than 150 Stanford students participated in 17 different hands-on making courses. The making@stanford funding enabled those students to work with the materials of their choice, from specialized clay to marbling dyes, screen printing ink and frames to sewing materials for a fashion up-cycling course.
ME108: Making & Breaking Things
ME108 introduced 40 undergraduate and graduate students to the hands-on activity of opening and tinkering with modern devices and repurposing them to perform new and different functions. Working with Making Mentors and Materials, students learned and applied new skills including soldering, silicone molding, and working with a variety of hand tools, while gaining broad perspectives in making and hacking culture. In a series of 1–2 week sessions, they dissected audio greeting cards and built paper speakers, converted hand fans into kinetic LED sculptures, made silicone flashlights, hacked hard disk drives into metronomes, and transformed vintage popcorn poppers into coffee roasters.
CRISPRkit: A Frugal Gene Editing and Regulation Kit for Equitable and Accessible Education
We have used our funding to develop CRISPRkit, an affordable kit designed for gene editing and regulation in high school education. CRISPRkit eliminates the need for specialized equipment, prioritizes biosafety, and utilizes cost-effective reagents, thereby offering a novel, accessible educational opportunity for high school students interested in exploring the cutting edge of biological technology.
Uytengsu Teaching Laboratory 3D Printer Space
Making@Stanford is supporting Tony Tam as a making mentor for training, operating, and maintaining the 3D printers in the Uytengsu Teaching Labs. These printers will be made available for courses and student groups throughout the year.
Funding Boosts Speed and Safety in 3D Printing Technology
Thanks to recent funding, new Form 4 3D printers will replace older models, as they operate up to five times faster than its predecessor and significantly enhances throughput and safety when using photopolymer resins. The investment also supports dedicated spaces for resin work, reducing contamination risks, and introduces advanced cleaning and post-processing tools, ensuring safer and more reliable finished parts.
Sewing Machines on campus!
Sewing machines are one of the most sought-after tools on campus. We received funding for 10 new sewing machines, adding to our current 7 to create a fleet of machines for campus use. They will be used for our Costume Construction course as well as workshops and other sewing activities on campus.
Making 3D Printing & Laser Cutting Accessible to All
The GSE Makery provides a wide variety of equipment and supplies to all students, staff, faculty, and community members free of charge. This grant has enabled us to significantly expand our stockpiles of 3D-printing filament and plywood for laser cutting, which allows us to give our community even greater flexibility when prototyping, building, and learning with this equipment.
Expanded Digital Components and System Areas for the Applied Physics Teaching Laboratory
New projects included an Independent Study constructing a Muon Cosmic Ray detector (based on a compact scintillator and Arduino signal processing). The functioning system was tested at Stanford and in Japan. Materials for an expanded Proportional-Integral-Derivative control lab were supported and a student group had the fun of controlling a real motor with load, and discovering if they poorly configured the controller the system oscillated and it set their power amplifier on fire.
Costume Construction! Materials for Learning
Fashion is one of the most popular pastimes on campus. Making@stanford is supporting a much needed course, Costume Construction, providing supplies and materials so we can double our class sizes. This support will fund sewing supplies such as scissors, muslin, patterning paper, pins, seam rippers, measuring tools a dress form and much more. Outside the class, students can use these supplies in our makerspaces.
Bay Area Theatre-Making Breadbowl
The Bay Area Theatre-Making Breadbowl was a portfolio review featuring the work of Theatre Making students. This event was a showcase of design, directing and making happening at Stanford and beyond. We had 15 students participate and many professional artists came give them feedback.
World of Wearable Art 2025
We are excited to work on new and exciting wearable art pieces of which the materials are funded by making@stanford. The wearable art will be built next season and we are excited to show off the clothes we make! Themes we are interested in this year are Avant Garde and Air.
Costume Construction! Teaching students how to sew.
For our upcoming Costume Construction course, making@stanford will support a TA so that we can double the enrollment in the course. Because this class is so hands on, our TA will be an integral part of instruction, from learning the sewing machine to mastering basic patternmaking.
Making Grippers for Improving Robotic Dexterity
This funding will enable students taking ME 314: Robotic Dexterity to prototype their robotic grippers and fingertips to accomplish complex manipulation tasks in lab sessions. Students will be encouraged to use and compare off-the-shelf grippers and sensors, with grippers they fabricate and integrate with tactile sensing while comparing effectiveness in dexterous manipulation tasks.
Musical Instrument Acoustics and Building
Students learned about the theory, measurement, and simulation of the acoustics of musical instruments. A making@stanford grant allowed them to build or modify their own instruments, applying and exploring the theoretical principles learned in the class.
