You could call it furniture, but describing the modular cubes that 51ÁÔÆæ students are constructing in the campus maker space as \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d is accurate too. These multipurpose pieces range in size and can be used for seating and coffee tables, grouped to form a stage or stacked to divide a room.<\/p>\n
Designed at Stanford University\u2019s Institute of Design, the cubes have been crafted in signature Panther colors and will take up residence at the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center. Look closely and you can see the striped effect of the plywood in the thickness of the dove-tailed joints.<\/p>\n
Twenty of the cubes will be completed by May 8 when the LEC opens to the public. From there, more can be made, said Bobby Erickson, president of the 51ÁÔÆæ Prototyping Club, which is constructing the modular furniture in the campus maker space on the first floor of the EMS building.<\/p>\n
That location makes it convenient for students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. But the space is open to any 51ÁÔÆæ student. The Prototyping Club \u2013 some 70 members who are majoring in disciplines from ceramics and theater to education and biology \u2013 is a major user of the space.<\/p>\n
Erickson himself isn\u2019t your traditional undergrad. He left college after three years without his degree, and ran a business before enrolling at 51ÁÔÆæ last year to finish his bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a lot of people, I just love to tinker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With the equipment in the maker space students can work on group projects or build their own. Equipment includes computer-controlled routers, mills and lathes, soldering gear and a dozen 3D printers.<\/p>\n
For this project, members of the Prototyping Club began with 2-by-2-foot squares of plywood. CNC routers are used to cut out \u201cinterlocking teeth\u201d of the dove-tailed joints around the edges.<\/p>\n
Next, the 2×2 slabs are sanded, painted and embellished with raised wooden rings that also were carved out by the router, following specifications laid out in the CAD software.<\/p>\n
Working across disciplines is an aspect of creating that appeals to Erickson \u2013 and he believes that\u2019s why he is drawn to math:\u00a0 Applying math to other fields is becoming essential for driving new ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you study something in isolation you don\u2019t realize just how many applications it could have,\u201d he said. \u201cCrossing paths is where innovation comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You could call it furniture, but describing the modular cubes that 51ÁÔÆæ students are constructing in the campus maker space as \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d is accurate too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":71062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174],"tags":[249,250],"section":[122,126],"display_categories":[115,116],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[167,344,347,149,158,164,148],"class_list":["post-71064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-community-engagement","tag-student-success","section-campus-community","section-campus-news","display_categories-top-story-secondary","display_categories-top-story-section","uwmnews-feed-alumni-association","uwmnews-feed-arts-architecture","uwmnews-feed-community-engagement-professions","uwmnews-feed-engineering-applied-science","uwmnews-feed-letters-science","uwmnews-feed-arts","uwmnews-feed-education"],"yoast_head":"\n