Illinois MakerLab

The Illinois MakerLab opened in Spring 2013 as the first makerspace based in a business school. The Lab is managed by Dr. Aric Rindfleisch (Executive Director) and Vishal Sachdev (Director).

The objective of this lab is to provide a unique and valuable resource for students, faculty and the CU community to gain hands-on experiential learning with 3D Modeling and Printing, a technology gaining adoption at the consumer level. We also encourage interdisciplinary projects in the lab, and are very pleased to have started out with a partnership with Dr. Matt Sherburne, from Material Science and Engineering. This lab will also be a resource for faculty interested in conducting research about 3D printing in specific, and the growth of customer-empowered creation in general.The objective of this lab is to provide a unique and valuable resource for students and faculty to gain hands-on experiential learning with 3D Modeling and Printing, a technology gaining adoption at the consumer level. We also encourage interdisciplinary projects in the lab, and are very pleased to have started out with a partnership with Dr. Matt Sherburne, from Material Science and Engineering. This lab will also be a resource for faculty interested in conducting research about 3D printing in specific, and the growth of customer-empowered creation in general.

3D printing (and the emerging Maker Movement) provides a means of democratizing innovation by empowering individuals with the know-how and tools to manufacture the objects they consume. In addition to revolutionizing the means of production, this rise of makers will also present scholars with the challenge of re-examining their conventional wisdom about an array of topics, including their notion of objects, the role of consumers, and the nature of economic institutions.