Tour Penn’s new makerspace: The AddLab

Penn’s new 3D-printing-focused makerspace, The AddLab, opens its doors this week.

Funded in part by an anonymous $250,000 grant, the 428-square-foot space acts as an “in-house service bureau” to the entire Penn community (not just the School of Engineering and Applied Science, where it’s housed), helping people “design and create new products, specialized tools, or unique teaching aids,” said Nick Parrotta, Penn’s Coordinator of Instructional Laboratories.

Visit the AddLab, located at 33rd and Walnut Streets, on Thursday, Oct. 2, from 4-5:30 p.m.

The AddLab. (Photo by Lamont Abrams for Penn)

Even though the space’s official opening is this week, some at Penn have already been using it. We asked Parotta, who worked on last year’s award-winning “Titan Arm” project, developed by a group of Penn students, to share some of his favorite projects. Here’s what he emailed us:

• Letting students design and build their own matchbox cars as an “intro to 3D printing” project for MEAM 101 (Introduction to Mechanical Design).
• Prototyping the impeller assembly for a remote control racing catamaran for IPD 501 (Integrated Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing, and Analysis).
• Working with researchers from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to develop customized proton therapy guides.
• Helping robotics researchers to create tools and parts to robots that have never existed before.

Here’s a list of AddLab’s 3D-printing equipment.

There’s another makerspace on Penn’s campus, at the design school. It’s where Penn veterinarians were 3D printing animal skulls last year.

(Photo by Lamont Abrams for Penn)