The NOVA Fab Lab - located on the Manassas campus - has acquired funding to support faculty members interested in developing instructional materials or hands-on classroom activities in collaboration with the Lab. The Lab is an advanced prototyping facility with open access to state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies, including 3D printers, laser cutters, a wood shop, and other machinery.
A proposed faculty member collaboration may take one of two forms:
1) A class collaboration in the Lab: Working with Lab personnel, faculty members will lead instruction at the Lab's classroom space and leverage its resources during their teaching. Students may use Lab equipment to build or prototype a project developed during class. For example, an engineering class might assign a bridge-building project using the materials and machinery availabie at the Lab.
2) A hands-on activity or lab focused on design thinking: Design thinking is a non-sequential human-centered approach to problem solving. A collaboration of this nature involves a faculty member proposing a signfiicant in-class activity or lab that applies design thinking to their discipline. For example, a Business faculty member might develop business case studies to help students develop their abilities to problem solve for a client.
The Lab is able to offer accepted faculty a stipend of $1000 (paid via a supplemental work assignment) and a $500 budget for materials and supplies. Faculty members may be from any discipline as long as they effectively make the case for the relevance of the Lab's resources to their instruction.