Laboratories open to the entire Unicamp community, with equipment and materials available for developing projects and manufacturing things. This is the dream of Control and Automation Engineering students at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM) from Unicamp, Lucas Silveira and José Edil Macedo, responsible for Cube Incubator, which promotes Unicamp's 24st Maker Week from September 28th to 1th. “The idea of the week is to bring this Maker environment into the University”, explained Lucas.
Started in mid-2017, Ao Cubo arose from the need felt by space engineering students to put into practice the content developed in the classroom. “Even laboratory activities follow a script for you to observe the physical phenomenon, there is no space to build something from scratch. We created the entity to promote this at Unicamp, so students can get their hands dirty and prototype things related to their course themselves”, explained Lucas.
Based on similar needs, the teacher Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism (FEC), Gabriela Celani, created in 2006, the Automation and Prototyping Laboratory for Architecture and Construction (Lapac), with resources from Fapesp and Capes. “It was the first Maker laboratory or FAB Lab, open to undergraduate students,” he said. Equipped with a laser cutter and 3D printer, the Laboratory provides undergraduate architecture students with contact with digital manufacturing.
The structure of the laboratories, always linked to research, restricts, according to Lucas, to researchers and professors linked to a given project. “Not just anyone can come and use it,” he said. According to him, the objective of the opening table of the event, which takes place on Monday (24), at 17 pm, in the auditorium of the Cesar Lattes Central Library (BCCL), is precisely to bring some of these teachers, course coordinators and heads of laboratories, to start a discussion about how these spaces can be used by the entire community.
“These spaces are facilitators for people to do things. It is an environment that encourages creativity, entrepreneurship and Innovation”, said Gabriela, who came into contact with the Maker Movement during her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The program includes lectures and workshops, which will be held in the various Institutes and Faculties according to the topic covered. According to José, there are many areas that can benefit from the initiative and one of the main objectives of the event is to bring these people together. “The idea is that Ao Cubo belongs to Unicamp, rather than FEM,” he stated. The lecture “Education and the Maker movement”, which takes place on Wednesday (26), will be held in the auditorium of the Faculty of Education.
“There is a demand for spaces like this for most courses. Everyone can benefit from an environment where they can manufacture things and develop projects linked to study and research. If we had spaces like this spread across Unicamp, it would be excellent”, emphasized Gabriela.
Architecture and design, biohacking, bioart and implementation of low-cost laboratories are some of the topics that will be covered during the event (check out the full schedule). All lectures and workshops are open and free. Registration can be done via the website. Some workshops, such as “3D Printing”, require registration due to the limited number of places.
