Labriola Innovation Hub celebrates 1 year of helping Mines students turn ideas into reality
State-of-the-art hands-on learning and making headquarters opened to campus community in February 2024
Cornerstone Design students plan and build a physical model from wood and PVC in the new Cornerstone Design Workshop inside the Labriola Innovation Hub.
The Labriola Innovation Hub – the crown jewel of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem at Colorado School of Mines – is celebrating one year of helping students turn their ideas into reality.
Mines’ state-of-the-art hands-on project-based learning and making headquarters opened its doors to the campus community on Feb. 9, 2024, with a grand opening celebration that coincided with the university’s 150th birthday party.
In the year since, the Labriola InnoHub – named in honor of lead donors Frank ’52 and Mary Labriola – has established itself as the home for student-led collaborations, student maker-oriented clubs and project-based competition teams, with a full suite of makerspaces, machines, tools and materials for the Mines community to interact and create with.
All first-year students now go through InnoHub training and use of the facility is embedded across the student experience, director Victoria Bill said. The InnoHub has also launched a Prototyping Fund, which provides student-led groups up to $500 in funding in the first round and up to $2,000 in the second to build prototypes of their innovative hardware or software technology ideas.
“This is just the beginning for the InnoHub,” Bill said. “We are so excited to celebrate our one-year anniversary and more importantly, to continue to grow and make this space the beating heart of entrepreneurship and innovation here at Mines where students can come any time of day to create, prototype, test and iterate on their amazing ideas.”
The InnoHub officially celebrated its one-year anniversary Feb. 10 with cupcakes, giveaways and more.
The InnoHub is part of the greater Labriola Innovation Complex, which includes the adjacent classrooms in McNeil Hall and large work bays for student projects in the Aramco xWorks Innovation Space. The InnoHub includes a Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Capstone and Cornerstone, Tool Crib, Composites & Paint Shop, Electronics Shop, Open Build Shop, Makerspace, Software Makerspace, and several Collaboration Spaces and Conference Rooms.
Check out the InnoHub for yourself with our new virtual tour:
About Mines
Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and innovations to serve industry and benefit society – all to create a more prosperous future.
