After exceeding their threshold in the Colonnades location, the Maker Hub has opened a new home above Pandora’s Pies. Space was limited at the initial Maker Hub and the second location has been able to expand capabilities with more equipment and more opportunities for students to create.
“The Colonnades Maker Hub is fantastic, but doesn’t have enough space for the machines that we have in the downtown Maker Hub,” said junior Gavi Schankerman, student worker. “The Maker Hub is now able to expand into more detailed and intricate projects.”
The Maker Hub is a space where students can bring their ideas to life through various tools offered to students free of charge. Its biggest focus is “to provide at least some of the tools to ensure that they’re able to do that,” said sophomore Sajnee Thakkar, student worker. Students don’t have to be a design or engineering majors, since the space is open to all students.
“The fact that it’s open to the entire community means that even people who are not usually encouraged to be innovative and entrepreneurial, they get the chance to do that,” Thakkar said. “We want to ensure that students feel safe coming here and that they have the ability to create things.”
New equipment such as wood cutting machines, laser cutters, 3D printers and saws are now available in this space. Arts and crafts, embroidery and sewing are all activities supported and done in the makerspace.
Junior Joshua Donnald, student worker, describes the Maker Hub as being “different than the traditional classroom style of sitting there and listening to the professor lecture.”
“Here, the learning is in your own hands and it’s at your own pace. It’s really what you want to learn,” he said.
Engaging in activities found in the Maker Hub has allowed students to discover potential new interests. The makerspace, especially the new location, invites students from diverse majors to participate in this new kind of learning.
Junior Griffin Evans, a computer science major, says his frequent visits to the Maker Hub in Colonnades allowed him to, “explore a more creative side” of himself he was never really able to express.
Evans says the time spent there is, “an awesome experience” that to him means, “a way to relax and relieve some stress.”
He says he was initially a political science major and possessed no knowledge on how to do any of the activities offered, but with time he was able to do a lot of learning.
“The workers there are really, really good at being able to teach you how to operate everything, and within a couple weeks I was able to start teaching other people how to use the machines,” he said.
Senior Peter Carrellas, a double major in political science and international studies, said even though his major isn’t really related to the Maker Hub, he is still interested
in it.
Carrellas says the space, “encourages people who are not known for being artistic to step out of their comfort zone and try to make something.”