Highly detailed resin figurines. Laser-engraved acrylic earrings. A fully functional ergonomic computer keyboard that splits the keys between two contoured halves.
Imagination is the only limit to what a maker can put together in the Paul A. Hotmer Maker Space, which opened this semester in North Engineering Room 1200. It’s an improvement upon an earlier iteration of a maker space at The University of Toledo, offering users significantly more elbow room as well as a slew of new and upgraded equipment, from high-tech resources like 3D printers and computer numerical control routers to workshop standards like hammers and screwdrivers.
Ethan Richey, an electrical engineering technology junior and treasurer of the Maker Society, solders on an electrical circuit board in the Paul A. Hotmer Maker Space.
“This is an open, creative space. You can come in here and make or do anything,” said Alexia Glaros, a mechanical engineering sophomore who helps students, faculty and staff to navigate the equipment as a student employee. “You don’t even have to know what you want to make. I had someone come in the other day and say, ‘I don’t know what I’m interested in, but I love the idea of this. Help me figure out what I can work on.’ I loved that.”
Maker spaces can be found in schools, libraries and other public and private facilities, where they typically promise access to a range of high- and low-tech tools that makers can employ toward whatever ends they choose — a functional fix with a soldering iron, for example, or a just-for-fun scale model of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai.
UToledo has hosted a maker space in its College of Engineering since 2015. Its new location, new equipment and new name reflecting the donor who supported the project to bring hands-on learning opportunities to students follows recent renovations to a formerly underutilized portion of the North Engineering Building, which carved out space for the new Paul A. Hotmer Maker Space in addition to 15 classrooms, 12 laboratories and a dedicated facility for Rocket Motorsports, the student organization that designs and builds a Formula One-style racecar for competition in Formula SAE, among other amenities.
Renovations concluded in December.
The responsibility for outfitting the new space has since fallen largely to the UToledo Maker Society, the community of creatives and tinkerers who take on the additional responsibility of organizing and operating the maker space.
Glaros, whose fondness for laser-cut acrylic earrings began in a maker space at her high school in Cleveland, is the president of the UToledo Maker Society. She credits a freshman design project with connecting her to the maker space at UToledo.
“We were making a prototype of a transtibial prosthetic leg, and we wanted to use a flexible filament called TPU to create the socket,” Glaros said. “That required a 3D printer.”
Others society members are drawn to the opportunities to learn new tools while exercising their creativity, or they welcome the maker space as a substitute for their home woodshops and workshops.
“I live on campus,” said Ethan Richey, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, an electrical engineering technology junior and treasurer of the Maker Society. “So, this became an opportunity to keep doing what I was doing away from home.”
Joshuah Taylor, an entrepreneurship and innovation junior, is a regular at the new maker space, where he’s taken the lead in setting up the woodshop. Taylor is a self-taught woodworker who uses a personal workshop to create the furniture, cutting boards and trinkets he sells through his small business.
“Once I was introduced to this project, I hopped right on board,” Taylor said. “My goal is to build out this woodshop for students in the future, so that they can all learn what woodworking is all about.”
The Maker Society also is responsible for establishing training protocols for some of the less intuitive equipment, like the printers, lasers cutters and a slew of power tools including drills, saws and sanders that are housed in the woodshop.
Members pick up these skills during weekly meetings at 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays.
Students, faculty and staff interested in a specific skill can attend the corresponding meeting or separate workshops offered by the Maker Society. Drop-ins are also welcome, with student employees available to assist makers in most projects.
For hours and additional information, go to the UToledo Maker Space website.
Now that the new maker space is largely set up, the Maker Society is prioritizing fund-raising efforts to purchase raw materials that society members can use in collaborative projects — including one that will make use of several of their new tools.
“We’re looking at creating an arcade claw machine,” Glaros said. “The idea is that we would also 3D-print all the prizes on the inside, too. Members will have a hand in pretty much everything, from design to fabrication.”
