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A new “maker hub” at Wright Brothers Institute Tec^Edge center will let Air Force Research Laboratory scientists “tinker” with ideas that could be turned into prototypes made in the lab.
Marking its “grand opening” Thursday, the hub will connect AFRL scientists and engineers with the maker movement, and manufacturers “looking for the next big thing,” said Emily Fehrman Cory, AFRL Maker Hub director.
“This is a place where scientists and engineers can get their hands dirty and try some new things,” she said.
The hub has desktop-sized manufacturing equipment: 3-D printers, computer-controlled mills and a computerized sewing and embroidery machine.
“We need advanced manufacturing capabilities that are in desktop form for our researchers to tinker with, explore and eventually come up with new products and ideas,” she said.
The maker hub is open to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base civilian and military scientists and engineers and contractors, but the agency would like to let small businesses and entrepreneurs in once details are worked out, she said.
“We’re trying to be a user-defined space,” she said. “We want the community to tell us how they want to work with AFRL and we also want the AFRL to tell us how they want to work with the community.
“What we want to do is find ways to bring in manufacturers and small businesses and entrepreneurs so we can work together to solve some of our biggest challenges,” she said.
One of those may use brain waves to control equipment, part of a Defense Department initiative on teaming humans with machines.
First Lt. Kyle Matissek, an AFRL engineer in the Aerospace Systems Directorate, said the maker hub would provide insight into how 3-D printing works and a better understanding of it’s limitations today.
“I wanted to learn more about the process and teach myself to do 3-D printing,” he said.
Fastlane, a manufacturing extension partnership part of the University of Dayton Research Institute, was at the maker hub to both show how it works with manufacturers and recruit a future workforce.
“The skills that people learn at the maker hub or an any other maker spaces that are set up here, are the same kinds of skills that manufacturers want to hire,” said Joshua Kemplin, a Fastlane manufacturing growth specialist.
To make an appointment to use AFRL Maker Hub, log onto www.afrlmakerhub.com.
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