About The MIX LAB

The MIX Lab = Making and Innovating for X.

Our mission is to foster and catalyze innovation across all scales, with a particular focus on eco-social change. The Lab sits at the intersection of expanded ideas of Design as a force and methodology for real world change, a student centered entrepreneurial process, deep community engagement, novel technologies for rapid prototyping and enactive learning, and a new model of Innovation Design that catalyzes emergent systems based transformation.

We are:

A Research space for Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship

A Certificate Program in Innovation and Digital Fabrication

A Fab Lab

A Student, Faculty and Community Resource

Below and throughout this website you will find resources, stories, articles, videos, academic papers and more all born out of the MIX Lab, by and from it's team of collaborators and contributors.

MIX Lab Space

In 2014 we began with one 3D Printer no one was using. Once we unlocked its potential and showed students what they could do, the lines behind it have never stopped. We keep trying to keep up with demand.

Fast forward to September 2018, the Mix Lab is entering it's 4th fall. We begin this semester with a redesigned space. The MIX Lab space, is purpose designed with 60+ 3D Printers and digital fabrication machines, movable chairs, tables, cabinets and lecture space.

Teaching & Curriculum

We have developed a unique and transformative model of Innovation: The Innovation Design Framework which is the foundation of the curriculum for the unique 3 course certificate in Innovation and Digitally Mediated Making available through the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship. These courses in Innovation and 3D Printing also support the Minor and Concentration in Entrepreneurship in the Feliciano School of Business at Montclair State University.

Lectures, Workshops & Conferences

The Innovation Framework has been presented at lectures, workshops, keynote addresses and taught at other esteemed institutions across the United States and internationally: Japan to Beirut to Austria. 

Further, the MIX Lab is considered a trusted source who move and inspire in the world of Innovation, networking and hardware for 3D Printers and other digital fabrication devices, and for the role of digi-fabriaction in Entrepreneurship programs. As thought leaders we have been asked to speak and lead workshops at numerous universities both nationally and internationally.

The MIX Lab co-hosted a mini-conference on The Future of 3D Innovation, 3D Printing Changes Everything, have participated in numerous conferences and are proudly developing the inaugural conference for Montclair Design Week 2018.

Partial list of conference presentations: 

• VentureWell 2018 - Austin, TX: Poster Session > Won "Best Overall" poster

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Boston, MA: MIT ISAM 2016 - International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces

• GCEC 2016 Rochester - Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Center: What Comes After Design Thinking

• VentureWell 2016 - Portland, OR: 3D Printing + Creativity Disrupts Entrepreneurship & Design

• VentureWell 2015 - Washington, DC: Creativity Re-imagined: A hands-on deep dive

Academic Papers

The MIX Lab team publishes academic papers to support their research in their area of focus: Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.

Below are the MIX Lab published papers you may find of interest: 

• What Comes After Design Thinking

• Innovation Design - Develop The Genuinely Novel

• The Innovation Design Framework

Consulting

The MIX Lab is an active member of the business community in Montclair, NJ and the New Jersey community at large. As co-developers of the Innovation Academy, the consulting arm of the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship, we have consulted on and taught innovation to businesses and institutes that are often blinded by day-to-day demands, impeding creativity and innovation.

In  the  20th  century,  creativity  and  innovation  were  specialized  needs  but  today,  innovation  has  become  a  necessity  for  businesses  to  simply  survive. As such, innovation  design  gives  businesses  and  individuals  the  ability  to  create  new  possibilities  and  radically  rethink  old  problems  allowing  for  real  change  to  emerge. By  nurturing  a  lens  of  creativity, the Innovation  Academy  can  help  organizations  find  unexpected  ways  to  approach  problem-solving. Companies  are  often  applying  the  innovation  framework  by  stepping  back for the first time to  address  big  problems  and finding outcomes  far  exceed  imaginations. 

We love collaborating on big problems, please reach out.

Advising

The MIX Lab is active in advising curriculum development on innovation and 3D Printing on the West Orange, NJ and Montclair NJ school systems. 

Communities

The MIX Lab has fostered an active community of interest and practice around making, 3D Printing, design, innovation and creativity: We have developed a strong community for the Montclair State University and School of Business in the MIX Lab for students to congregate and collaborate around all forms of making including: digital fabrication, 3D Printing, ceramics, wood, metal, etc... 

Tours

Our community is much bigger than the Montclair State University campus. Since the official grand opening ceremony of the Mix Lab February 18, 2016, the MIX Lab has averaged 1 tour per week. Tours range from local schools and partners in the surrounding community to pre-shools to high schools; Newark, to Montclair, West Orange to Bloomfield, Take Your Kids to Work day, Robotics teams, Weston Scholars, Kent Place in Summit, NJ and beyond. 

We are dedicated to fostering student academic success at every level and rely on our student volunteer techs and mentors to help make it happen.

How Do You Want To Collaborate?

Do you have a design? An idea? A problem worth solving? Need help on taking it to the next level? Reach out - we are always excited to work on the next big thing.