The Innovation Lab, located on the main floor of duPont-Ball Library, has workstations that can expand your creative abilities. This guide includes an overview of the equipment, provides links to tutorials, and other helpful information.
This lab is only meant for current students, staff, and faculty at Stetson University.
Below is a map showing the workstation layout of the Innovation Lab.
When entering the Innovation Lab, you will find a "welcome" area on the far side of the lobby. An Equipment Overview Catalog is available to keep you updated with our current machines and details about their capabilities. There are also "MAKE" magazines and a couple of other takeaways to help you get the most out of our lab.
The Cricut workstation is located further inside the Innovation Lab, down the hall to the right of the lobby area and past the 3D Printers.
Cut, write, and score on over 60 materials with absolute precision while using a variety in pen styles, colors, and cutting blades. Using the Cricut Design Space software you can create cards, seasonal and home décor, gifts and more with just a click.
All you need to do is provide the base material. You can learn more about what materials the Cricut can process here. All other tools are provided.
Head over to our tutorials to learn how to operate the software and hardware!
The Sewing/Embroidery workstation is located further inside the Innovation Lab, down the hall to the right of the lobby area and past the 3D Printers.
Feel free to come in and use our digital sewing machine to make a wide range of items, from clothing to quilts. Because our machine is digitized, you can either use our software to embroider a pattern or choose preloaded imagery and let the machine do the work for you!
All you need to do is provide the fabric. Thread and all other tools are provided.
Head over to our tutorials to learn how to operate the software and hardware!
The 3D Printing workstation is located further into the lab area to the right of the lobby. You will see the computer setup pictured below. These are the 3 workstations that house the creative and slicer software meant to help get 3D objects either created and/or printed.
You do not have to supply the filament for these machines. Come up with something innovative and you can create it for free!
Head over to our tutorials to learn how to operate the software and hardware!
Looking to create 3D objects? Visit our 3D modelling libguide.
In order to develop programs for XR headsets, you must have a powerful computer with up-to-date graphics capabilities. To accommodate this and other game creation, we have an Alienware computer with a powerful 3D graphics card. Multiple programs for Game Creation are installed.
Below is a picture of our Game Creation Workstation. At the moment, this shares space with our 3D Scanning Station/Conversion Station in Room 112. Due to space restrictions, if either the Scanning Station or Conversion Station is being used, patrons will have to wait until the space is available.
If you want more info on VR capable software and gaming engines, please visit our Libguides.
This workstation is located within Room 112 along with the Game Creation Station and the Conversion Station. Two scanners are available to be used in conjuction with this machine. Their loaning period is for 2 hours and cannot leave the library. They both must be used with this specific workstation. Turntables are available to help rotate objects (not too large or heavy) when using our Artec Eva Lite Scanner.
Below is a picture of our 3D Scanning Workstation. At the moment, this shares space with our Game Creation Station/Conversion Station in Room 112. Due to space restrictions, if either the Conversion Station or Gaming Station is being used, patrons will have to wait until the space is available.
Head over to our tutorials to learn how to operate the software and hardware!
This workstation consists of hardware and software meant for converting old media into a digital format. Common forms of media that tend to be converted are VHS tapes, slides, cassette tapes, and photographs.
The patron would just need to provide some form of digital storage to save the converted format. This could be USB or DVD +R. If files are small enough, saving to an online repository should be fine as well.
Below is a picture of our Conversion Workstation. At the moment, this shares space with our Game Creation Station/3D Scanning Station in Room 112. Due to space restrictions, if either the Scanning Station or Gaming Station is being used, patrons will have to wait until the space is available.
Head over to our tutorials to learn how to operate the software and hardware!
This workstation has a number of hand tools, power tools, and soldering tools that are kept behind locked doors in the Woodworking Room. In order to use any of these tools, however, each student must have gone through a brief safety session and have a signed waiver on file.
Below is a picture of various stations in our Workshop. We have a woodworking area with hand and power tools used to shape wood and other materials. We have a CNC machine able to carve precise cuts out of various materials using various methods. There is also a soldering station for electrical components or anything else you might need to hard-wire together.
In lieu of a tutorial, I will point out various helpful online resources to get acquainted with this rooms' varied equipment and capabilities. The types of projects that can be obtained from within this room cannot be given in a couple of tutorials but from resources such as the Innovation Lab Manager and researching similar projects to your own.
For the Axiom Pro AR6 CNC machine, we have the ability to cut into various materials in order to sculpt an object. To understand what kind of objects it can produce I will describe some of the major features and how they relate to project constraints.
First, the cutting area is 24"W x 36"L x 6"H. This allows for some rather large projects. Most materials do not reach this 6" height but if a project does include a dimension of this height, certain bits and cuts will have to be evaluated as the gantry does not allow for some cut depths with a material this high.
Second, it can handle one sided, two sided and 4 axis carving. One sided carving is the most common and involves cutting from only one side of the material (top). Two sided is a process to achieve a 3 dimensional object from cutting one side of the material first and then turning over the material to perform the second cut and completely cut out an object from the material. Lastly, a 4 axis carving involves the use of a rotary axis that will turn a block of material (3.14" max diameter) and rotate the material while the gantry performs general X,Y,Z axis movements to perform cuts that can be more detailed than two sided projects. The size of the material that fits into this Rotary Axis tool does create limitation on the kinds of projects it can perform.
Third, the types of materials it can cut also have its limitations. This occurs mostly with metals. For instance, Aluminum 6061 is a commonly suggested metal to be CNC'd and is an ideal metal choice for this particular machine. This machine should not be used for materials that would require flood coolant bed or lubricant. This would describe a host of other metals that can be CNC'd based on other heavier duty, well suited CNC machines that have coolant/lubricant accessories.
And lastly, the spindle for the cutting bit has speeds that can vary from 0 - 24,000 RPM. This might not be a dealbreaker for many projects as this is a good range of speed for most projects. But it is a constraint that I feel should be mentioned. Along these lines, the "0" (zero) speed does allow for the use of a dragknife. This can be useful in cutting some flat materials and turn the CNC into a very large Cricut Cutting machine. The detail of the cuts cannot be achieved as well as the Cricut cutter but are still within a 1/16th of an inch in tight corners.
We also have 3 iMacs at our Creation Station to enable use of demanding graphic applications. Usually located in Room 112 with our Game Creation Station, they are temporarily located in the East Room on duPont-Ball's main floor. This is due to space limitations.
Students who are preparing graphic dependent projects will benefit from the industry standard applications installed. Full Adobe Creative Cloud lineup as well as Autodesk products make this a powerhouse for visual creation.
