Zack Weaver
Teaching Assistant Professor • Director, BTU Lab
ATLAS Institute
zaja9653@colorado.edu

As an ATLAS PhD student in 2014, Zack Weaver helped establish the BTU Lab. In 2015, he left ATLAS to work for an electronics company he co-founded while a student at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2017, he was appointed as co-director of the Boulder Public Library's BLDG 61, a maker space that has received national recognition for helping pioneer the incorporation of similar facilities into public libraries around the country. Zack taught undergraduate and graduate classes for ATLAS for two years as a lecturer before joining the full-time faculty in October 2022. An evangelist for the role maker spaces can play in learning and community building, Zack has a dynamic vision for the role of the BTU Lab in the ATLAS community. Zack earned a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MS in architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. His passion for equity and accessibility in hands-on learning drive him to advocate nationally for public access to technological literacy. 

The Joy of Learning and Creating: The Rise of Maker Spaces (KGNU)
Auto-Meter Reader Feeder Keeps Meter-Maids at Bay (Hackaday)
 

Member of the Blow Things Up (BTU) Lab  

In the news

Students pose in field with flight control unit after retrieving it in Eastern Colorado.
Black box designed by ATLAS students rises 101,000 feet, captures data and imagination

April 12, 2022

First students built the instrumentation. Then they attached it to a high-altitude weather balloon that took it to an altitude of 101,000 feet. Thanks to the geolocation technology they had incorporated, they were then able to locate the instrumentation 120 miles away in Eastern Colorado.

zack weaver at maker made event
Maker Made 2022 features work by ATLAS community

Feb. 22, 2022

A group of six artists and technologists connected to the ATLAS community contributed to BLDG 61’s Maker Made 2022, which runs through March 28 at the Boulder Public Library. Zack Weaver, who played a key role in establishing the ATLAS BTU Lab and the show’s curator, says the inspiration for Maker Made goes back to his days at Carnegie Mellon with ATLAS Director Mark Gross.

Wayne Seltzer holds several face shield parts next to his 3D printer, which is making several more.
ATLAS makers print face shield parts to help protect medical personnel from the novel coronavirus

April 14, 2020

Joining the global grassroots response to shortfalls in personal protective equipment, members of the ATLAS community are 3D printing face shields to help protect local medical personnel against the highly contagious novel coronavirus.