ENGINEERING Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Unveils Cutting-Edge"Maker Space"

The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in ATU

Galway formally opened its Maker Space, housed in the Engineering Workshop, on Wednesday, 29th March 2023.

The Maker Space is a multi-use, creative educational space which houses a range of additive manufacturing technologies, such as a Laser Cutter, Vacuum Former, along with a bank of 3D Printers.

Housed within the same area are a suite of VR goggles for conceptual design, along with a 3D Scanner and Coordinate Measuring Machine which can be used to profile, reverse engineer and accurately precision measure components or parts. In the future the School of Engineering plans to add a bank of miniature CNC machines.

The Maker Space is currently used by students studying Engineering or Entrepreneurship programmes, but the School of Engineering hopes to make the area accessible to everyone.

Engineering students use the Maker Space to advance the design of protype or bespoke products by using the digital data stored in the CAD model.

Students like Roy Sheridan, who is studying Energy Engineering were first introduced to additive manufacturing when studying Manufacturing Engineering in stage 1 and have to use the technology assignment purposes. Roy has used the technology to work on his Major project and said: “I love going down to the area to see the parts of my Major Project, Miniature CNC Machine, being made. From the project outset, I always knew I had to use additive manufacturing to accelerate my project. I engineered and adapted my design to best use the technology.” The majority of the equipment in the Maker Space is funded by the Higher Education 4.0 project under HCI Pillar 3 which supports innovation, agility as a response to future skill needs.

To learn more about our range of engineering programmes on offer visit atu.ie/engineering-galway