University of Wisconsin – Madison

Garage Physics

Location: Madison, WI

Mission: “The Garage Physics lab in B613 Sterling Hall is a makerspace for student-driven interdisciplinary innovation. Garage offers all UW-Madison undergraduates and graduate students an unstructured safe environment to explore technologies such as 3d-printers and electronic devices and to develop creative ideas through project-oriented just-in-time learning. Garage supports research and development of product ideas by would-be entrepreneurs. Want to make something or make something happen? You have come to the right place. Invention is the mother of necessity. Physics student? This is a good place to explore and try stuff. Not a physics student but interested in getting you hands a bit dirty? Need a physics student to help you? Find one here.

Garage Physics is supported by the UW-Madison Department of Physics, the UW-Madison Physics Department Board of Visitors Fund for Undergraduate Research, the UW-Madison Kemper Knapp Bequest fund, Venturewell, and Gener8tor.”

Equipment:

• Makerbot 3D printer
• Power Supplies (Details Needed)
• Oscilloscopes (Details Needed)
• Digital Multimeters (non functioning)
• Function Generators (Details Needed)
• Soldering Stations (Details Needed)
• Miscellaneous discrete electrical components
• A PC or two
• Several Macs

Needed representative equipment

• Cables (BNC, Power and Banana)
• Breadboards
• Discrete electrical components – resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, inductors,…
• Switches, transformers,…
• Integrated circuits
• Aluminum sheet and chassis materials
• Wire in all sorts of gauges
• Hand and small power tools of all kinds
• Small motors
• Data acquisition systems
• Optical bench/breadboard
• Optical components
• Acoustic speakers and drivers
• Microphones
• Musical instruments
• Display devices

Application for Entrepreneurial Students:

• Garage Physics and Venturewell (formerly National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Association, NCIIA) offer a 2014-16 program of support for UW-Madison entrepreneurial teams to conduct R&D in Garage Physics leading to participation in local and national business plan competitions including the Venturewell programs. See http://venturewell.org/. Contact Prof. Duncan Carlsmith ([email protected]) for more information. Apply at the following link: https://www.physics.wisc.edu//GaragePhysicsVenturewellSupportApplication .

Projects:

• Directory ; examples include:

  • 3D printed musical instruments A trumpet has 28 parts. No problem.

  • Fizeau experiment – Light, moving water, optical interference, and special relativity.

  • PeopleCounter – R&D on monitoring occupancy.

  • WeightUpSolutions – What is up, what down. Repeat.

  • Synthene – Graphene-based supercapacitor R&D

  • Simulating Brain Activity – Build an interactive 3D display of a brain that will show neural activity through lighting.

  • High Altitude Balloon Close to space without a rocket, a tracked flight to 100,000′ above Madison, round 2.

  • Tests of gravitational time dilation Your feet aren’t aging at the same rate as your head when you are standing.

  • X-rays from peeling tape Maybe don’t try this at home. Oh, you already did…

  • Methane Digester Small-scale microbial digester that produces usable methane gas.

  • 3D Printer Recycling A personal recycler prototype, year 2.

  • Autonomous 3d scanner Multicopter based optical scanning and reconstruction

  • 3D printing Resources and suggested projects. Start with something from Thingiverse

Classes:

• Wisconsin Make Sustain M 3-5 pm Fall 2013 ; yielded Sustainability Project

• Introduction to 3D Printing 30 Aug 2013 by Brett Unks

• Introduction to Soldering by Brett Unks, Francisco Schlenker

• Introduction to Spot Welding by Paul Nonn

• Hardcore welding Flux core, stick, Metal Inert Gas ((MIG) and Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) Welding series with Bill Zimmerman

• Introduction to high speed pulses and transmission lines by Duncan Carlsmith

• SolidWorks workshop with Tyler Graf, CAE 175 Monday 14 Oct. ’13 6-7pm, [Tutorial from Mar ’14 (.pdf): SolidWorks.pdf]

• Physics demonstrations with Steve Narf

• Arduinos by Ian Wisher. Next workshop 27 Mar ’14 5:30pm

• Op-Amps by Brett Unks

• Motors/Generators by Brett Unks

• Introduction to Fritzing by Brett Unks. See how to make a PCB board at http://fab.fritzing.org/fritzing-fab

• Feedback Systems by Brett Unks

• Introduction to Labview by TBD

• Free software training for students http://sts.doit.wisc.edu/index.aspx?utm_source=textlink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=STS_2013_fall_faculty

• Fab Academy classes http://fabacademy.org/archives/2014/

Various Links and Resources:

• Entrepreneurship clinic – Entrepreneurship clinic

• Sustainability – WI Make Sustain resources and sustainability related suggested projects

• MadisonTech – Madison community tech group links

• Campus connections – UW connections

• Conferences – Outreach, conferences and other news

• Research funding – Resources for undergraduate and graduate research, internships, and careers

• Publish – Opportunities to publish and present your findings

• Awards – Garage students in the news

• Video competition

• Phase II – the future?

• Readings – Quiet time inspiration

• Support Garage Physics

• History – B613 Sterling History

Future Expansion:

• PHASE II

  • The Garage Physics experiment suggests a more ambitious campus Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, focused on multidisciplinary project-oriented learning for UW-Madison undergraduate teams. The themes of the center include exploration and innovative thinking, engagement outside and beyond the university (the Wisconsin Idea), sustainability, and social entrepreneurship.

    The center is envisioned to be a physical and virtual hub for project oriented student learning spanning the disciplines and schools of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The physical center itself will contain meeting and breakout rooms along the lines of WISCEL, and additional project workspaces, and tools. The virtual center will connect students to a network of facilities (e.g. student shops, media labs, WID rapid prototyping facility, art loft), resources (e.g. libraries, academic and career advising, international studies, UW Law, WARF, WEN), spaces (e,g, Hybrid Zone X, Physics Garage), and programs (e.g. UW Business School Certificate in Entrepreneurship, biomedical engineering, Entrepreneurial Residential Learning Community) with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.

    Scaffolding will include an academic certificate program. It will capitalize upon and motivate FIGs and other small classes in discipline specific innovation (physics, art, business, computer science, biology, engineering…) and entrepreneurship and more general Great Ideas classes for first year students. The core of the program will include project development and project competitions for second and third year students. Capstone activities for fourth year students will include existing and new academic classes, independent research activity, and startups.

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