The MakerLAB at Cornell Tech
A place where anyone at Cornell Tech can take an idea from a first sketch to a working prototype.
The MakerLAB
The MakerLAB is Cornell Tech's makerspace: an accessible production hub with the tools to prototype and build. Students get hands-on experience solving real problems, startups refine their products, and faculty build prototypes for their research. It has a wood shop for large builds and assembly, a laser room for cutting and engraving, and an electronics lab.
The lab started in 2016 with two machines, a laser cutter and a 3D printer, and grew from there. Its new home on the first floor of the Tata Innovation Center opened on May 2, 2025.
Visit
- Where
- First floor, Tata Innovation Center, Cornell Tech, 2 West Loop Road, Roosevelt Island, New York, NY 10044
- Hours
- Access holders: 8 AM to 8 PM, seven days a week. Super Makers, who apply for it, have access around the clock.
Hours and access can change: the official MakerLAB page has the current ones and how to apply. The MakerLAB on tech.cornell.edu
People
- Niti ParikhDirector, Learning Spaces and MakerLABsntp27@cornell.edu
- Luis Rodrigo NavarroAssistant Directorln328@cornell.edu
Community
Through CRAFT@Large, the MakerLAB's community initiative, organizations across New York City can propose projects that need digital fabrication and make them with the lab.
Learn more
About this project
MakerLAB Tools is the lab's digital guide: every machine and hand tool in one catalog, with which units are free, the manuals, the safety requirements and the training each one needs. Inside it is the MakerLAB Assistant, an AI that knows the lab's real inventory. Ask it to help you:
- Operate
- “How do I use this machine?”
- Debug
- “Something went wrong — what should I check?”
- Create
- “I have an idea. How could I make it with the machines here?”
It answers from the catalog and each tool's manuals, says so when it doesn't know, and sends you to MakerLAB staff for safety questions, access and training sign-offs.
What MakerLAB AI can and can't do
To improve the lab, we keep anonymous usage counts — which tools and manuals are asked about and which questions go unanswered — never who asked.
It was built so that anyone can find the right machine and learn how to use it safely before they walk over, in their own language.
Built by Isaac Steinberg (Tech Lead, Johnson Cornell Tech MBA '26) for the MakerLAB, which Niti Parikh (Director) and Luis Rodrigo Navarro (Assistant Director) run.
If you spot a mistake, use "Report a correction" on the tool's page — corrections go to the staff queue and are fixed in the app. For a broken machine, use Report in the header.
Connect an AI assistant
The catalog is also available to AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT and Codex over MCP, at this site's /api/mcp address. Browsing needs no account. To let an assistant file reports as you, with your role's permissions and nothing more, sign in with Google from the assistant; a personal access token is there for clients that can't.