This post was written by the Mines Timber Strong Team as part of the InnoHub blog series focused on how Mines students have used InnoHub resources to bring their projects to life.

“Start earlier. When the deadline is fast approaching, rushing will cause mishaps…“

Concept

The Mines ASCE student Timber Strong competition team was in need for a uniform T-shirt during construction stage in the regional and national competitions. We explored many options but it was very difficult to find a vendor that can provide the customized design we need with the budget we had. We heard about the Labriola workshop capacity and started to explore the potential of design and making customized T-shirt ourselves. 

Inspiration | Process | Finished Product

We purchased blank T-shirts from Hobby-Lobby and designed the sponsor and team logo ourselves. We even took our building’s Revit 3D model and incorporated that in our T-shirt design, which is super cool. Once the design is complete, we used the fabric printer in Labriola to do some test prints, and eventually developed a reliable process to print out very nice, customized team T-Shirts. 

In the end, we successfully printed about 40 T-Shirts for the competition team, sponsors, and Mines family members who came to the competition. The entire printing process took a few hours in a span of 2 days. We end up reimbursing the printing ink for the lab and it is very affordable compared to other commercial options for customized T-shirts. We used the T-shirt in both the regional (Colorado State University) and national (California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo) competition events and everyone loves it! 

“Everyone is still wearing the T-shirt. It is a nice souvenir also!”

Things Learned

One great surprise was the capacity of Labriola to accommodate our needs in an efficient and cost-effective way. We are likely to come back next year when the new ASCE student competition team is formed!