About Us

Illinois Tech’s Idea Shop, housed in the Kaplan Institute, helps to ignite ideas with cutting-edge tools to enable students to transform their designs, products, and inventions into reality. In this state-of-the-art, rapid-prototyping lab, full-time staff and a diverse group of student workers advise users on equipment use, mechanical and electrical design, embedded systems programming, and much more. As a campus wide resource students can use the Idea Shop for a class, research project, or theirown personal endeavor.

The Idea Shop is comprised of two spaces: The Grainger Maker Space, which houses our general shop tools, laser cutters, and CNC router, and the Janet & Craig Duchossois Idea Shop - also known as the Assembly Area - which houses our 3D printers, CAD and electronics workstations, and ample workspace and storage space.