Shackleton Lounge opens with 3D printer challenge

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Pictured: Prof Suzi Jarvis, Innovation Academy, UCD

31 January 2014

The Shackleton Lounge a new purpose-built innovation space was opened by the Innovation Academy, UCD today. Located in the O’Brien Centre for Science at the heart of the Belfield campus, the new space will be the home of students of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise at the Innovation Academy.

“Our entrepreneurial education programmes have been developed to provide a combination of action based learning and skill building, with the ambition of fundamentally changing the way participants think and act,” said Prof Suzi Jarvis (pictured), founding director, Innovation Academy. “Within UCD, entrepreneurship has been developed as an integral part of a multi-disciplinary, education process. Innovation Academy, UCD students explore some of the more challenging aspects of the entrepreneurial experience and the Shackleton Lounge provides us with an exciting, vibrant space in which the UCD community can work together and develop into energetic and resourceful entrepreneurial thinkers.”

Graduates of the Innovation Academy are drawn from across Ireland and include recent graduates, PhD students, industry professionals and job seeking graduates funded under the HEA’s Springboard programme. Over 500 students will participate in Innovation Academy programmes this year.

The official opening of the Shackleton Lounge is being marked on 1 February with a 30-hour 3D Printer Challenge, where 40 multi-disciplinary teams will be challenged to build ‘from scratch’ a 3D printer and then design and print out their model of choice.

The teams include professors, post graduates and undergraduates from the UCD community alongside members of Trinity College Dublin, National College of Art & Design, IADT, DIT and Dublin City University.

The winning team will have the choice of attending the prestigious 3D Printshow in Paris, or London, later in the year and each team will be allowed to keep their ‘functioning’ 3D printers.

“By building their own printers they learn about how they work, how to maintain them and importantly how to improve the technology.  We hope to create a ‘maker’ community in Dublin which is as vibrant as the digital community,” said Prof Jarvis.

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