DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering is launching its students into the future with a new high-tech workspace at its Downtown Brooklyn campus.
The 10,000-square-foot collaborative MakerSpace and lab opened Tuesday at NYU Tandon’s Rogers Hall, giving students access to commercial-grade equipment that’s typically seen only in specialized graduate laboratories.
At the new workspace, students from any NYU school will have access to equipment such as 3D printers, which were funded by a $150,000 grant from the City Council, and laser cutters.
Other specialized equipment includes:
► A water-jet cutter, which can be used on materials such as copper or aluminum that cannot be cut with lasers.
► A high-speed, high-precision “pick and place” machine, used to place electronic components onto printed circuit boards.
► A micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) unit that will non-destructively image the internal structure of objects on a fine scale.
► A plastic injection machine used in mass manufacturing.
► An electro-dynamic shaker, which tests a product or model under varying conditions of motion, acceleration and force.
The equipment can be used for a variety of student projects and is easy to learn with some special training, according to the school.
MakerSpace will also allow students to connect with the city’s larger tech and engineering community by hosting "hackathons," guest lectures and other special events.
