The Innovation Lab is a hub for creativity and exploration, a place where ideas can be designed and built.

iLab News:

Young Inventors Take on Trash

For the second year, Hatfield's iLab hosted invention-minded teens from Newport High School participating in the iInvent Youth as Inventors program. Oregon State University's Pre-College Programs and award-winning Newport High School math and physics teacher Brian Hanna spearheaded the effort. This four-week after-school program culminates with an intensive three-day workshop at Hatfield where students build prototypes, create informational posters and give presentations about their inventions.

This year, three teams devised inventions to address the problems of beach litter and microplastics. Pictured left to right above, the teams included:

  • The Trash Tomb is a trash can whose pyramid shape does NOT blow over in the wind. (Pacifica Young and Lexi Burke)
  • The Sand-o-Gator, an alligator-shaped microplastic mower, picks up the top layer of sand as it is pushed along the beach and filters out small plastic pieces. (Colin Kimberly, Elena Gordon and Jose Hernandez-Hernandez)
  • Nami is an interactive trash can/sculpture shaped like a whale that provides feedback to users. (Eberildo Ramos Matias and Lynt Araujo )

iLab Manager Drummond Wengrove says of the program, "It's rewarding to partner with OSU Pre-College Programs and work with these promising students. The Youth as Inventors program allows the iLab team to create opportunities for high school students to design and invent within the Innovation Lab. Hopefully, experiences like this provide insight and inspiration to these students and inspire them to pursue a future solving problems in the marine environment."

Two college mentors also helped the teams build prototypes of their invention ideas. These mentors, Adrian Mobley and Camden Galen, are also former Newport High School graduates and current engineering students at OSU.
 

Idea - Prototype - Production

One of the gems of the Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building is the Innovation Lab or iLab. This lab has space and equipment to take your project from the idea phase, to fabricating and testing a prototype and into production.

This vast 2,563-square-foot workshop will be filled with equipment for electromechanical design, CNC and manual machining, welding and fabrication, lathes, 3D design, modeling, printing and laser cutting. There will also be audio and video systems to support innovation in the marine sciences.

In addition, there is an art studio in the MSB. It overlooks the iLab and provides artists and scientists with a collaborative workspace to explore the passion of the marine world.