Cuyamaca College Prototyping and Invention Laboratory
The Cuyamaca College Prototyping and Invention Laboratory (aka the Prototyping Lab, aka the Invention Lab) is a place for you to make things. The lab features a variety of prototyping tools including a 3D printer, machine tools, and a full-featured microcontroller facility. List of lab capabilities.
First developed as a way for freshman engineering students at Cuyamaca College to gain experience with real design projects, the Prototyping Lab has grown into a resource for all residents of San Diego's East County, operating a bit like TechShop in San Jose.
We meet Saturdays between 9 am and noon in room F301 at Cuyamaca College. Feel free to drop in and grab a cup of coffee. Bring a project to work on.
Starting Spring 2012 access to the lab will be more structured: You will need to sign up for Robotics & Prototyping Laboratory through Cuyamaca College's Continuing Education Division. This is an 8 week course which can be repeated as often as you like. The cost is $95. Click here to go directly to the Webadvisor registration page. From there, select Continuing Ed, then Register and Pay for Continuing Education Classes, then type robotics as where it says Search For (Key Word). Or if that seems complicated, just call the Continuing Education Office at 619-660-4350.
| Robotics & Prototyping Laboratory | Sat 9 am - noon, 1/28/2012 - 3/24/2012 |
| Robotics & Prototyping Laboratory | Sat 9 am - noon, 3/31/2012 - 5/26/2012 |
Robotics & Prototyping
Laboratory can be approached in
one of three ways:
1) Work on a project of your own choosing, and
simply use our facilities. You must be
checked out on the equipment before using it.
2) Take one of the structured 8-week classes listed below. If you haven't done this kind of work before, we strongly recommend you start with one of the two Introduction to Microcontrollers Courses. Note: All the courses listed below require equipment. You can either use ours, for free (but you'll be limited to using it in the lab), or you can buy your own, which we recommend. Estimated costs are provided in each course description.
| Introduction to Microcontrollers (Basic Stamp) (non-credit equivalent to ENGR 170) |
| Introduction to Microcontrollers (Arduino) - this is a less expensive alternative to the Basic Stamp course |
| Introduction to Robotics (Boebot and Basic Stamp) (non-credit equivalent to ENGR 171) - Study of autonomous robotics using a behavioral robotics approach. Intro to Microcontrollers (Basic Stamp) strongly recommended before taking this class. |
| Intermediate Microcontrollers using the PIC and PICBasic (non-credit equivalent to ENGR 172) - Intro to Microcontrollers strongly recommended before taking this class |
| Intermediate Robotics (non-credit equivalent to ENGR 173) - Intro to Robotics stongly recommended before taking this class |
3) Design your own course of study. For example you may want to learn to program PIC microcontrollers using C. We can work with you with the understanding that we're no experts - we'll be learning alongside you.
Photos and movies from previous ENGR 170 - 173 classes
Questions? Feel free to contact Duncan McGehee at duncan.mcgehee@gcccd.edu