FAQ

A space that:

• Provides access to a wide variety of tools and equipment for prototyping, as well as space for individuals and teams to create and share projects.
• Is community-centered and diverse; a social place for people with different skills and common interests to collaborate and learn from each other.
• Provides an open environment for innovation and creative expression.

In cooperation with Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, the Discovery Hall Collaboratory has been reimagined and redesigned to facilitate the following goals:

• Improve power and ventilation infrastructure for existing equipment
• Support inter/cross disciplinary teams working on impactful projects of various duration with industry/community partners
• Allow for students engaged in projects for formal courses as well as those engaged in co-curricular experiences to co-exist seamlessly
• Ensure flexibility for changing initiatives
• Allow visibility of work being performed while being inviting and welcoming to students of all interest levels
• Promote ideation and collaboration over fabrication.
• Provide sufficient work space and equipment to support virtual and physical prototyping.
• Provide secure spaces for ongoing projects.
• Foster the space to be inviting and welcoming.
• Provide sponsor opportunities for career engagement for students.
• Prioritize space as a student space for the entire student population.

While we did go primarily by “Makerspace” for the first several years, the official name has always been “Collaboratory”. With the new space renovations completed in early 2022, we decided to go with “Collaboratory” to better reflect the collaborative nature of the space. We will be referring to the space as the Collaboratory from now on.

We are providing this space to encourage creativity, discovery, collaboration, and exploration.

All current students, faculty, and staff at UW, regardless of department or experience level. We do not service Cascadia College students at this time.

The Collaboratory is designed to be very flexible. With most equipment and furniture on casters, the space is rapidly re-configurable to enable multiple and changing uses even within a single day. In addition to individual drop-in use, it will host a wide variety of maker-oriented workshops, safety training, and design/fabrication projects. In the future we hope to also host maker-oriented challenges and hackathons.

Absolutely! However, there will likely be some machine and group collaboration noise in the space, so it might not be the best location for quiet study. (Space Scout provides a great list of quiet spaces on campus.)

There are many ways that the Collaboratory can engage with your curricular activities. You can arrange to have your class visit the Collaboratory during one of your class times by coordinating with the Collaboratory manager. We can provide an overview of the facility and its capabilities. Additionally, students can work on their projects, capstones, etc. in the Collaboratory and leverage its equipment and staff for their work. For capacity issues we do have two restrictions, we are unable to book the Collaboratory as the sole classroom for a course and we request that you do not specifically require students use the UW Bothell Collaboratory equipment as the only method to complete their assignment. Beyond these two limitations, the sky is the limit. Please feel free to contact the Collaboratory manager with any ideas that you would like to explore as part of your teaching.

The Collaboratory is designed to be a student first space on campus with the primary time allocation for drop in collaborative/creative work. Requests for hosting an event in the space will be considered on a case by case basis. Priority will be heavily biased to requests that feature the unique facilities of the spaces, student project work done in the space, and/or creative ideation work. You may request an event by filling out a FUAC form here.

Stop by any time during the core drop-in hours and talk with a staff member or users of the space. To become a user, you need to be trained on general safely either 1-on-1 with a staff member or through a dedicated session. You must then sign the Collaboratory User Agreement.

There are no user fees for use of any of the equipment in the space. We will have a limited amount of stock (PLA plastics, material for laser cutting, ink and paper supplies, etc.) for first-time users to learn and build knowledge with. After that initial set of learning experiences, as well as for larger and specific projects, users will be asked to provide their own materials.

We also want to encourage users to “pay it forward” and contribute to the community with their time and talents – such as helping others by sharing knowledge and mentoring, helping to plan and execute events, helping in maintenance of the space, or helping with others’ projects.

The Collaboratory is intended as a community innovation space. Use of this space does not create any intellectual property obligations for the user. In other words, no new “strings” are added by use of the facility. See the Collaboratory User Agreement for more details.

The Collaboratory is networked with many departmental shops across the campuses that have considerable fabrication capabilities. We aim to complement these shops with a flexible, multi-use space to foster a cross-disciplinary design and fabrication community, as well as providing entry-level workshops and events open to all, while connecting users to other campus shops when more specialized capabilities are required.

The bed size can handle prints with the following dimensions:

• 8.66 (x) 8.66 (y) 9.84 (z) inches
• 220 (x) 220 (y) 250 (z) millimeters

The bed size can handle prints with the following dimensions:

• 8.66 (x) 8.66 (y) 10.63 (z) inches
• 220 (x) 220 (y) 270 (z) millimeters

The bed size can handle cuts with the following dimensions:

• 32 (x) 18 (y) 9 (z) inches
• 812.8 (x) 457.2 (y) 228.6 (z) millimeters

The bed size can handle cuts with the following dimensions:

• 24 (x) 12 (y) 4 (z) inches
• 609.6 (x) 304.8 (y) 101.6 (z) millimeters