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The Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications (HIDRA) is a toroidal fusion device at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. HIDRA is the former WEGA stellarator that was operated at the Max Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik, Greifswald, Germany. The machine is a five-period, $l=2, m=5$ stellarator, with major radius $R_{0}=0.72$ m, and minor radius $a=0.19$ m. Initial heating is achieved with 2.45-GHz electron cyclotron resonance heating and an on-axis magnetic field of $B_{0}=0.087$ T that can go as high as $B_{0}=0.5$ T. HIDRA has the ability to operate as both a stellarator and a tokamak, initially operating in the stellarator mode. The focus of research on HIDRA will be doing dedicated studies on plasma-material interactions (PMIs) using the wealth of knowledge and experience at the Center for Plasma Material Interactions, Urbana, IL, USA. In early 2016, the first experiments were performed on HIDRA. This paper presents some of the first results obtained from the machine such as initial magnetic fields’ measurements and plasma discharges. It also shows the development of the control system being currently implemented and introduces HIDRA-materials analysis tool, the in situ PMI facility that will be mounted on HIDRA in the near future to further enhance the diagnostics and material testing experiments meant to be conducted on the machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]