Peery Makerspace

Overview

The Peery Makerspace grew out of a cross-disciplinary faculty Maker movement, and is located in the Peery Residence Hall as an anchor for our RU Makers living-learning community. Faculty from the Colleges of Visual and Performing Arts, Science and Technology, and Business and Economics are the leaders in this initiative. The space is funded by the Office of Academic Programs.

Access

The students in the living-learning community are the primary users of the space, with dedicated staff for approximately 30 hours per week. Campus faculty and students from all majors are invited to use the space by appointment.

Tools, Materials and Resources

3D Printing and Design:

5 Printrbot Simple Metal printers

1 NextEngine Ultra-HD scanner

3 Networked PCs

1 Graphics Workstation

Electronics:

Soldering stations, resistors, LEDs, capacitors, wire, breadboards, and other general electronics parts

Programming/microcontrollers:

Arduino

Raspberry Pi

Sensors, motors, etc.

E-textiles and fabrics:

1 Cricut Air

Sewing Machine

LilyPad microcontrollers

Textile supplies

General Fabrication:

Assorted hand and power tools: Dremels, drill/drivers, sanders, wrenches, files, screwdrivers, hammers, clamps

Access & Usage Costs

There’s no charge to use the Peery Makerspace for most projects. If a project requires an unusually large amount of consumable materials, a fee may be assessed. The space is subsidized by the Office of Academic Programs.

Management

An interdisciplinary team of Maker faculty oversee a dedicated staff of student workers who manage the space.

Training

Faculty and students will offer periodic workshops and training. These workshops will be open to the entire campus community. 

Use and Activity

There will be required regular workshops for the RU Makers learning community. Members of the learning community will then use the Makerspace on a regular basis to complete their own projects that have been initiated by these workshops, or other projects of their own imagination.

Student workers will attend these learning community workshops and then direct their own workshops for the general university community. Faculty and students with a particular skill will be encouraged to submit their own requests to host workshops in that skill. The university community will also be encouraged to submit requests for desired workshops, and those will be held or developed as the skills/materials are either identified on campus or developed by the faculty and student workers involved in the Makerspace .

Faculty will submit requests to reserve the makerspace for specific classroom projects/labs; these will be single- or multiple-use dates/times that will be scheduled by the Makerspace coordinators. 

Culture and Community

The Peery Makerspace has initiated both the mechanism and the location to build faculty and student interest and expertise in making. With the Makerspace being a campus-wide entity, multiple departments use the space for their own projects. In addition, the initial group of student workers--from a variety of majors--have already made a number of items at the request of faculty and staff members. 

Challenges and Lessons Learned

With a soft opening of our space in spring 2016, our policies around access, usage, and management are still evolving. Equipment check-out procedures are still in progress. We have studied and visited other related spaces and will have an initial system in place in the fall of 2016. 

Advice to other Makerspaces

We just opened. Check back later!