Nova Labs

We are opening our doors to the public with our 2025 Open House! This is a great opportunity for us to show the community how we've transformed our makerspace since we moved to Fairfax City in 2022.

The Nova Labs drive team heads for the field, following Perry the Platypus, their 2025 entry in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).

Can you believe this past December marks three years since we moved to Fairfax? Way back when our main focus was just keeping the power on and passing fire marshal inspections. We've come such a long way since then, from clearing space and building walls, to developing some awesome programs and building strong relationships with the broader community. Check out Nova Lab's first ever Annual Report below to learn what we've been doing and where we're focusing on going next, or click here to...

Working with National Bell Festival to support the Solidarity Bell.

When Nova Labs was looking for a new home on a tight deadline, we searched far and wide, trying to find something we could afford, continue to grow in, and in a location that wasn't so far out that it would disrupt our established community of members. When we found this building, we knew it would take a lot of work, but it checked all the boxes. We loved the opportunity to add a makerspace to the middle of Fairfax, right off 66, and close to George Mason and Northern Virginia Community...

Every year the American Homebrewers Association has a Big Brew Event where they encourage Home Brewers across the country to spend the first Saturday in May making one of their own recipes. I have participated in this for several years at Jay’s Brewing shop in Manassas, where Jay’s also partners with Downright Obsessed Homebrewers (DOH) to host a competition for local homebrewers, with qualified beer experts as judges, and brewing-related prizes. Since the first Saturday of May this year...

If you don’t have plans for July 4th, you do now! Come see Nova Labs in the Independence Day Parade in downtown Fairfax! We’re bringing the award-winning Kinetic Sculpture with fresh decorations, just for the fourth, and we’ve made another round of awesome cupcakes… but not the kind you eat. Nova Labs has been perfecting its cupcake game since 2017, when the Go-Cart Cupcakes first appeared in a holiday parade. Before that, they were designed around little red tricycles. Every year the design...

2024 Nova Labs Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race troupe. It is not hard to picture a kinetic sculpture, or a race. But when the terms are put together, all bets are off! Wikipedia defines kinetic sculpture races as, “organized contests of human-powered amphibious all-terrain works of art.” While this barely scratches the surface, the event does involve such vehicles and it is somehow organized, if you are not too picky about semantics. As for the racing part, getting to the finish line quickly...

Juneteenth is a time for family, friends, and community to celebrate freedom. Here at Nova Labs, we bring people together to celebrate over a community cookout with fun activities and great food. It has become one of our biggest events of the year. This was the fourth annual Juneteenth celebration Nova Labs has hosted, and every year we’ve needed to add longer tables and more chairs than the year before to accommodate increasing awareness and interest in the holiday. Over 80 people...

The Nova Labs First Robotics Competition (FRC) team had a rollercoaster of a season! Our goal was to make it to Worlds, and by winning Ashland to compete at Owings Mills and Districts, we all worked hard to achieve that goal. When we did make it to Worlds, we were all blown away by the sheer enormity of the convention center, and by the creativity and uniqueness of all the other teams' robots and their approaches to problem solving. Waiting to find out if we might be chosen for the next...