Oakland Campus Makerspace Empowers Innovation for First-Year Students
A makerspace on the Oakland campus empowers students to innovate as part of the Cornerstone of Engineering class. The makerspace—made up of a woodshop, metal shop, photography lab, analog printing studio, ceramics studio and classroom equipped with digital tools—opened in fall 2024.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Kate Rix. Main photo: Associate Teaching Professor of Engineering Leila Keyvani, works with engineering student Sinead McGovern in the makerspace classroom. Photos by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
From design to reality, how the makerspace is empowering student innovation on Northeastern’s Oakland campus
OAKLAND—A 3D printer creates tangible objects from digital designs by layering materials like resin, metal or plastic.
So when students in Leila Keyvani’s Cornerstone of Engineering class needed parts for the robots they were building, they just walked next door to the new makerspace and printed them out.
And if they needed to change a part? Problem solved with a return trip.
“Having the makerspace so close also supports a more iterative design process, as students can quickly test ideas, gather feedback and make adjustments—all within the same class period,” says Keyvani, an associate teaching professor in the College of Engineering on Northeastern University’s Oakland campus.
The makerspace—made up of a woodshop, metal shop, photography lab, analog printing studio, ceramics studio and classroom equipped with digital tools—opened at the beginning of fall semester.
It’s been a game changer for academics and research, Keyvani says.
Students in Cornerstone of Engineering 1 attend class in the makerspace classroom. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
The fully equipped facility embraces experiential learning, enabling students to repeatedly practice using unfamiliar tools until they feel confident.
“Students explore tools and techniques in the woodshop, maker classroom, and makerspace,” Keyvani says. “The goal is to give them practical experience and a clearer understanding of which tools to use and when—an area they often found challenging in the past.”
Faculty say that the benefits of easy access to design and construction tools is clear in students’ work. Engineering, art and architecture faculty have become “super users” of the new facilities.
“Iteration thrives on proximity and the speed of getting quick ideas out of one’s head and into a form,” says associate professor Sarah Hirschman, who is teaching an architecture studio course and an art and design fundamentals course this semester.
Students Ty Sullivan and Kaleb Yu use a Vandercook letter press in the makerspace’s print media design studio. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
Her architecture students will design a new branch library for the Uptown neighborhood in Oakland, making use of the Makerspace over the semester to build iterative models of their designs, as well as models of relevant precedents that they’ll study.
Students in a course on architectonic systems will use tools in the makerspace to do all the jobs on a construction site in miniature form, Hirschman says. After mixing and pouring concrete, students will use the laser cutter to cut things that would normally require a band or table saw and 3D print steel caps for the tops of beams to construct models designed to withstand tectonic plate shifts.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News