BetaBox: A Rapid Prototyping Lab You Can Put Anywhere

How would you connect the budding thinkers of the future with the best of the innovative tools to realize their dreams?

It’s simple: take it to their door step.

Well, that’s what North Carolina-based Betaversity’s BetaBox is designed for anyways. The shipping container-turned fablab packs more than enough practical and clever tools that bring some of the latest in fabrication technologies to help realize the dreams and ideas of students and small companies.

To put it simply, the BetaBox is built into a shipping container so that it can be easily transported and installed as a temporary innovation lab in schools, universities and companies. The idea revolutionizes the curriculum of educational institutions by providing high-end and updated technology at their disposal, and therein lies the brilliance of this idea. The BetaBox achieves this feat by enabling a share-based model of costly resources by multiple institutions.

Every BetaBox pod rented from Betaversity comes with rapid prototyping equipments like 3D printers, laser cutters, 3D scanners, and other speed-of-thought materials – they even provide a Betaversity expert to help guide the students in bringing their ideas into life. Additionally, the BetaBox pods can be customized to feature tools and equipments that would be optimal for the requirements of a particular institution.

Currently, each Betabox includes:

• PrintrBot 3D Printer
• Speed of Thought Materials
• 3D System 3D Scanner
• FDM 3D Printer
• Leap Motion Technology
• Touchscreen Interface Technology
• Whiteboards
• Rasperry Pi
• 3d Doodler
• Arduino set
• Solidworks 3d Modeling Software
• Adobe Creative Suite
• Soldering station
• Power Tools
• Chromecast
• Wacom tablets

So far, the BetaBox has been used in classes, events, and workshops by schools such as Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, as well as organizations such as Startup Weekend.

The trained staff of Betaversity conducts worshops on a variety of topics including 3D printing, Laser Cutting, Coding, Programming, Electronics, and Design Thinking. Some institutions have even embedded Betabox into their curriculum to provide the students an in-depth, hands on experience on various subjects. The Betaversity helps the students and instituitions in preparing proposals and crowdfunding initiatives to have the betabox service at the campus.

Find out more by heading over to Betaversity.

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