Making w/ Robots — a Course by Andrew Manto and Craig Long

Making w/ Robots is a spring semester workshop at the University of Kansas School of Architecture. Taught by Zahner design-engineers Craig Long and Andrew Manto, the workshop explores the intersection of design and making through the lenses of robotic fabrication and intensive material exploration.

The course functions primarily as a hands-on tech workshop, with students learning and controlling six-axis industrial robots in the service of creating physical artifacts. The workshop will engage with materials in the raw and explore how robots engage a spatial tectonic unique among other contemporary forms of material and fabrication.

About the Engineers

Andrew Manto is a member of Zahner’s experimental ShopFloor research and development team. He designs custom automated software-to-manufacturing processes that enable architects to bring their concepts into reality. Manto received his Masters of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has collaborated with design offices and fabrication shops across the country.

Craig Long leads Zahner’s ShopFloor Team, which is spread out across multiple cities internationally. He has played an integral role in Zahner’s engineering-design for projects such as Zaha Hadid’s Broad Museum, providing the proof of concept for the de Young Museum, and managing the project team for Frank Gehry’s MIT Stata Center. Long has a Bachelors of Architectural Engineering from the University of Kansas.

Robotic research made possible by the support of MIT School of Architecture, MIT International Design Center, and KU School of Architecture.