Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design

As an institution, how would you define 'maker culture'?

The collection of students, faculty and staff who work in teams to design, fabricate and test new solutions, and share their processes and results with others.

How does your institution foster maker culture?

The Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design is the center of Yale’s maker culture. Open 24/7 to the entire Yale University community, the CEID provides space, equipment and resources for makers to gather, plan, create and share. Individuals who complete an online and residential training program (2 hour investment) are certified as “CEID members” with this membership proving 24/7 access to the space, and in effect, defining the members as the core of Yale’s maker culture.

How are you approaching maker education with your current or future curricula?

The Yale CEID hosts courses each semester focuses on making, including introductory courses on design and innovation, the design of musical instruments, biomedical device design, and capstone design courses. In each course design fundamentals and methods are addressed, with the term project usually being a team-based, client-focused, real-world problem that needs a solution. 

What are the key programs, initiatives or classes that support the development of maker skills?

The Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design serves as the headquarters for Yale’s engineering student associations which design and build rockets, autonomous robots, sailboats, hybrid race cars, Mars rovers, water systems for developing nations, genetically engineered solutions, micro-gravity flight, radio-telescopes, and software, to name a few. Students lead all aspects of the project, from its inception of the association to project scope to fundraising to design and testing. The groups often host workshops on their activities for others to learn from.

How are your students involved in making? Are there maker groups or organizations on campus organized by students?

The Yale CEID is 8,500 square feet of open classroom, meeting, studio and workshop space for individuals and teams to work in. Open to the entire university, the CEID is a meeting, learning and working place for those interested in making. The CEID includes hand tools, electronics equipment, 3D printers, laser and vinyl cutters, CNC router/mills/lathes, and other manufacturing equipment commonly found in a machine shop. The CEID also includes a BSL1 level wet lab equipped for microscopy and microfluidic projects.

Give a snapshot overview of the primary facilities, technologies and tools that campus makers have or will have access to?

CEID members participate in national and regional conferences, including Maker Faires, professional society meetings, and project competitions to share best practices within the maker community. In addition, the CEID regularly hosts visiting faculty members from other institutions who are planning to build an academic makerspace at their home institution. This work has, in part, been detailed in some professional society papers/presentations on academic makerspaces.

How does your school engage with the maker community at large?

Affiliations with New Haven MakeHaven and the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop (Hamden, CT) benefit members of all programs. In addition, Yale makers have visited community makerspaces in New York, NY and Boston, MA to learn about the local making communities.

What partnerships (informal or formal) do you have with makers and/or community organizations outside of campus?

Affiliations with New Haven MakeHaven and the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop (Hamden, CT) benefit members of all programs. In addition, Yale makers have visited community makerspaces in New York, NY and Boston, MA to learn about the local making communities.

What has been the impact of maker culture on your campus?

The maker culture has raised awareness of the value of creating and problem solving at Yale, and as a result has raised the profile of the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science. The Yale maker movement has been cited as a catalyst for creativity and as a unifying attribute of Yale’s diverse community.

What are the success stories relating to your maker culture?

A growing Yale maker culture has led to an increase in the number of design courses, student project teams and entrepreneurial activities on campus. As one example, in the last two years, four student-founded companies with origins tied to the rise of Yale’s maker culture have been started. Similarly, new design classes in green-design, appropriate technologies for the developing world, medical instrumentation, water filter design, and the design of musical instruments have origins associated with Yale’s maker movement.