William Coe Library has a creative space for all students
Photo by Darken Wolf
There is a space on campus where students can express their creativity, get materials for projects, or help supply their selected clubs. On the William Coe Library’s main floor, the Coe Student Innovation Center, commonly known as the “Makerspace,” is available to all students.
In an interview, Chareasa Bettger, a Makerspace social media staff member, said “the Makerspace is open to the public and the college students here. It has a lot of different resources that you can use to craft and create different projects. It’s just like an open, fun space to work in, to hang out with your friends, create things.”
The Makerspace provides a variety of devices and technology to allow students to create things from dog tags, to stickers, to posters.
Bettger walked The Branding Iron through the different machines available in the Makerspace, as well as their functions. “I start with the 3D printers,” Bettger said. “We have 11 of those in Coe. We also have two other maker spaces on campus. Then we have the laser cutter/engraver which is the X tool. We have a large one, and then we have the F1, which is a smaller one. We mostly use that for engraving dog tags and things. We have our sewing area. It has two sewing machines that are kind of like automatic, and then we have two industrial ones. We have an embroidery Brother machine as well. Next, we have a vinyl cutting machine. We also have a Cricut over there. We have two heat presses for our vinyl. I think we have a hat heat press as well. And then we kind of have our workshop area, which has different tools [for] soldering, stained glass making. We have a wall full of free crafts that you can use, with different materials for that. We have a 4H space with little robots and Legos and other things that the kiddos can use. We have our poster printer, our regular printer, and then kind of just our paper areas with different colored papers and things like that. And then also our sticker printer. And there are, I think, definitely more resources in here—boxes, like things—but those are like our machines.”
For the use of machines and materials, students will need to pay a small fee depending on which machine they use and how much material they use.
In describing the prices for student use, Bettger explained that “poster printer is like $1.75 per square inch,” while the “sticker printer [is] $2.25.” The “3D printers [are] 4 cents per gram, so once they’ve printed something, we just weigh it to the gram,” said Bettger. “It’s not usually over $5, really. Laser cutting materials are four to five dollars, maybe, if you’re using our materials, or you are more than welcome to bring your own.” Overall, Bettger explained that “most of the stuff you’re paying for is just like the paper for the poster printer, the ink. The sticker printer is also the ink and the paper, but people bring in their own filament for 3D printing, so most of the time it doesn’t cost any money for them because we don’t do machine usage.”
To use the lab, Bettger stressed that “most stuff is low cost or free, like our shelves with our colored pencils and other crafting materials—that’s completely free to use.” The makerspace even has resources like “a gift-wrapping station”. Our sewing area is completely free. Most of that is donations.”
The Makerspace is open all week, opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, and 1 p.m. on the weekends, and closed on holidays, or when the William Coe Library has a closure. The space is open to all students who are interested and want to take a peek at what’s inside.
“The Makerspace is a great place to just decompress and just create things.” said Bettger, who encourages students “to check out some of the clubs and different events that we run through the Makerspace as well.”
“Even if you’re not [crafty], there’s something here for everyone. I really do encourage students to come in, and use this space, and not be intimidated by the staff sitting at the front door. Just come in and explore what we have to offer.”
