Moonlighter FabLab seeks 20 for Lincoln Road art program

Moonlighter FabLab is recruiting 20 Miami-area adults for a free, six-month program in 3D printing and digital fabrication. The course ends with participants building a public art installation on Lincoln Road, and the deadline to apply is Wednesday, Nov. 4.

The program, called Maker Cities, is funded by an $880,000 U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Each participant receives a $5,000 stipend, a year-long residency at the FabLab, loaner laptops and materials, according to the program's website. No STEM degree or prior experience is required. Applicants must be 18 or older.

"We're trying to find ways for non-STEM folks to get interested in STEM skills," executive director Tom Pupo told Refresh Miami.

Pupo and his wife, Daisy Nodal, the lab's director of education, founded the nonprofit fabrication lab and STEAM learning center at 1661 Pennsylvania Ave. in Miami Beach. Both have architecture backgrounds. Pupo serves as the principal investigator on the NSF grant, which also funds a researcher, an evaluator and full scholarships for participants.

The cohort starts Jan. 12, 2027, and wraps June 3, 2027. Participants meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., learning CAD/CAM design, laser cutting, CNC milling and 3D printing alongside design thinking and entrepreneurship training. They earn certifications upon completion and build a digital portfolio throughout the course.

Five teams of four develop competing design proposals for a Lincoln Road site. The teams present their concepts to a panel of professional designers, architects and civic representatives. One proposal is selected for full-scale fabrication. All five teams then merge into a single build agency to construct the winning design, Pupo told Refresh Miami.

The previous cohort, which graduated in August, produced "Deco Portals," a series of illuminated archways installed on Lincoln Road on Aug. 29. The Art Deco-inspired structures pay homage to architect Morris Lapidus, who transformed Lincoln Road into one of the first pedestrian malls in the country, according to Moonlighter FabLab's project page. At night, integrated lighting turns the portals into a glowing landmark along the promenade.

Pupo said the lab has run similar programs twice before with Miami Dade College, but this is the first version backed by NSF funding. The $880,000 grant covers both the completed cohort and the upcoming one. Data collected from both rounds will feed playbooks for future Maker Cities projects nationwide, he said.

The new cohort's finished installation is scheduled to go up during the weeks of June 7–25, 2027, with a final exhibition planned for July 2027.

Applications are open at moonlighterfablab.org/maker-cities. Early-applicant interviews run Nov. 2–6, regular interviews Nov. 16–20 and final announcements Dec. 7–11.

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