Since its opening in Fall 2018, The Dr. Welch Workshop: A Makerspace at Penn College, has been feeding the innate desire of Penn College’s tomorrow makers to create in their own time and in tactile ways.
Anthony F. O’Koren, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in applied technology studies and was named the college’s makerspace attendant this fall, shares how the makerspace has enhanced his Penn College experience:
A makerspace is an amazing resource for people who are always wanting to learn more. It is great for people wanting to explore creativity and priceless for those who are driven by their imagination. It is a place for those who are continuously looking for interaction with other like-minded individuals. A makerspace is truly a place where diversity of ideas, experiences and skills are the lightning rods for invention, innovation and exploration needed to electrify one’s curiosity.
“Everything I ever needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten” is a well-known statement that is not completely true. It just appears that way because, after kindergarten, the method of education changes, leaving the most important part behind: personal innovation, the part that invests the learner into the lesson. The makerspace allows individuals the choice to grow in any direction they want, which helps unleash hidden potential, improve skills and reinforce current knowledge, all in a supportive setting that encourages experimentation and peer-led instruction and promotes a maker culture.
Maker culture is a technology-based extension of DIY culture that embraces open-source engineering mixed with hacker insights. It promotes promotes the creation of new devices, as well as tinkering with existing ones, such as electronic microcontrollers, digital fabricators, 3D scanners and printers, robotics, vinyl sticker plotters, and Computer Numerical Control tools. It also includes more traditional activities, such as sewing, metalworking, welding, woodworking, and traditional arts and crafts. The beauty is in the convergence of analog and digital skills, where self-expression is the ultimate unifying characteristic of maker culture.
In the makerspace, people are open-minded, encouraging, creative, generous and willing to help you help yourself to create your vision. The makerspace culture emphasizes active learning via an informal peer-led, shared-learning environment that is focused on novel applications of technology. It brings the attention back to the importance of executing the “explore, learn, do, teach” method that was so effective in our fundamental learning stages. Maker culture is vital in preserving this method of knowledge transfer by maintaining a realistic, human-level interaction where competition, profits and shareholders are not as important as those of personal growth and satisfaction in seeing your designs grow, skills shared and ideas come to life.
A makerspace will help you learn skills to take you to a different level in any industry, guaranteed! The makerspace has helped me stand out in my labs and projects by giving me the tools to take very little and transform it into a functioning solution to display my comprehension. It has given me the blessing of many quality friendships that will result in long-lasting relationships. But, most importantly, the Dr. Welch Workshop has taught me that my path to happiness is finding a place that I can share my knowledge with others and instill in them the same confidence that the makerspace did for me.
The Dr. Welch Workshop: A Makerspace at Penn College, is named for a local orthodontist who loved to spend time “making” in his own backyard workshop. A charitable trust established two decades ago by the late Dr. Marshall D. Welch Jr. and his wife, Mary L. Welch, matured this year and, in addition to continuing support for the makerspace, will provide scholarships and unrestricted support for the Penn College Fund.
