Joel Hopler

Joel Hopler is the Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab) Coordinator and Technology Specialist for FAU’s School of Architecture, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters, located in downtown Fort Lauderdale. He maintains and repairs all its equipment, manages a small staff of student workers and works with faculty and students to educate them about how to safely use the technology available in the FabLab. “I have chosen to pursue the educational content by setting up hybrid online/in-person Canvas courses for the safety and operational content in the FabLab,” said Hopler. "We currently have five canvas courses that cover general FabLab safety policies, laser cutters, 3D printing, wood shop, and Computer Numerical Control (CNC) routing cutting machines. My long-term goal is to make the FabLab in Fort Lauderdale a resource available to all FAU students, faculty and staff, alumni and local professionals."

Hopler lives in Fort Lauderdale and bikes to work every day when it isn’t raining and grabs an umbrella and walks when it is. Hopler and his wife, Emily, have four children, Ajax (11), Daisy (10), Leon (5) and Scout (3). Prior to joining FAU in January 2019, Hopler worked at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s makerspace, BeAM: Be A Maker, which designs and makes equipment for education, research, recreation and entrepreneurship. "Even though in my second year at FAU we have been working through a pandemic, I have seen the spirit of the university come together and support its students, faculty and staff with care and consideration for their health and quality of education," said Hopler.

Early in the pandemic, Professor Jeffrey Huber, Interim Director of the School of Architecture and Professor Anthony Abbate reached out to Hopler as they quickly recognized the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in Broward County. "We worked together with support from the College of Arts and Letters and professionals outside of FAU to develop a plan to produce and distribute PPE in Broward County by 3D printing," said Hopler. Recently, Professor Huber was awarded a grant from the Community Foundation of Broward to 3D print PPE. "I was initially 3D printing from home with two printers, but I am back on campus as we now have eight 3D printers working to create 5000 face shields in the FabLab," said Hopler.

When the pandemic forced everyone to work remotely, Hopler said it was essential to ensure the students they employed could keep their jobs. "So we shifted their responsibilities from physically monitoring the FabLab to remote tasks that increase the quality of our safety trainings, educational resources and set us up to better support students in the future," said Hopler, who added that one of their goals was to create an internal help desk to support architecture students as they transition to remote learning. This started out as a simple form to take questions and is now a full website with COVID-19 resources and how-to documents for architecture students.

Another fascinating fact about Hopler is that he is an accomplished artist. You can check out his work via https://www.joelhopler.com.