Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/642573
104 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3.16 STUDIO SHOT Photo by Adam Mescan Four-year-old Sammy holds up a dark-blue plastic octopus. Flyborg, as he's named it, is made of a couple dozen mov- able parts snapped onto an octopus head, all printed from one of the Maker Mobile's 3-D printers. The Maker Mobile is essentially a trailer pulled by a pickup truck. Inside, futuristic machines operate with a low hum. A click of the mouse brings most of them to life. Two large lasers cut and carve wood, acrylic, plastic, cloth and more. A vinyl cutter sits in the corner across from a comput- er-controlled router ready to embellish a plank of wood with intricate patterns. On the counters are some of the creations: an Abraham Lincoln bust made from layers of card- board, a 3-D-printed model of the Millennium Falcon, a small green nylon shoe. A Cub Scout troop recently customized pinewood-derby cars with their names or graphics (say, a snail with fames shooting from its shell). Artists can create and build with tools that are too expensive to buy. Entrepre- neurs can produce prototypes. Architects can print models — one, a Gothic cathedral, is still on the 3-D printer. One high- school business class created a Louisville-themed Monopoly board with custom-printed game pieces. Engineers John Riley and Brian Nichoff, who launched the Maker Mobile at the 2014 IdeaFestival, drive to events and schools free of charge (donations are accepted). The two of them and their wives are in the process of expanding to a brick-and-mortar in down- town Jeffersonville, Indiana. Maker13 will be available to members and include a wood shop, metal shop, textile equip- ment and computer parts. "There's a lot of companies that run into these entrepre- neurs and inventors — they come in with a napkin sketch," Riley says. "For them to take that napkin sketch and try to fgure out how to manufacture or make it, it's kind of tough. The creative mind and the manufacturing mind, they can be different but they share so many common traits." — Michelle Eigenheer Leading by Trailer On the move with Maker Mobile.