The University of Wyoming provides unique creative opportunities for both staff, students, and the Laramie community through their makerspaces.
“We really are one of the university’s best kept secrets,” Victoria Evans, Senior Team Lead of the Makerspace, said. “This a place where you can take your awesome ideas and use the emergent tech, experience, and knowledge foundation in the space to turn those ideas into awesome realities.”
There are two creative spaces on campus; one in the Coe Library and one in the Engineering Education and Research building each with their own speciality equipment.
“The real special part of having a space like this is that, instead of investing in prohibitively expensive machines like laser cutters and 3-D printers, it allows people to get that training and the skills they need to create,” Evans said.
The space serves students and educators K-12 as well as higher education and other individuals in and around the community.
The Makerspace team also works to reduce boundaries by providing online training for each piece of equipment and encouraging the expansion of makerspaces across the state.
“We are open to members of the community, university students, literally anybody,” Evans said.
Evans notes that no two projects are alike and even recounts some of the more unique ones she has seen come through the space.
“We had a student from the art department come in, something I remember vividly is they had sculpted models of a unicorn fetus and they used our 3-D scanner to put them into the digital space so they could 3-D print them in full color.”
However, the space is not only for educational purposes. Several hobbyists and community members also pursue entrepreneurship and innovation opportunities through the space.
“We have a couple that come in here and they run their business using our laser cutters and our vinyl makers,” Evans said. “They sell things like engraved glasses and coasters, and it’s kind of a great way that the sky is really the limit.”
The Makerspace had originally planned to start a First Year Seminar class to introduce more students to the space when the pandemic hit.
“We were just about to put the jump on one for Fall 2020 and sadly just had to pull the brakes on that,” Evans said. “We are always hoping to have more classes come through here, lead tours for those students, but we’d really love to have a class that meets here.”
The UW campus maker movement originally started in 2012 alongside drafts for the EERB and as a test sight in the Coe Library in 2017.
“There was always plans for a makerspace in this building [EERB],” Evans said. “We had so many visitors in those first 18 months in the library that when we moved, it was clear that the university needed this space.”
The Makerspace is now expanding statewide to bring STEM learning to students and community.
“We are working with Wyoming’s Department of Vocational Rehabilitation,” Evans said. “They give us funding and we, in return, provide these makerspaces to give students good work experience before they go into the world.”
The WY DVR program works with individuals with physical disabilities or mental health barriers to establish gainful employment.
The makerspace is also working on their Mobile Makerspace Initiative.
“We’re retrofitting buses and trailers to take out to the more rural schools in Wyoming to sort of hunker down for a year to allow those teachers access to the type of tech that we have so they can teach STEM,” Evans said.
