With new 3D printer, laser cutter, CNC mill, you can “fail early and often, and quickly learn from your mistakes.”
A Knox College faculty member recently installed some high-tech equipment designed to help students fail.
Nicholas Gidmark, assistant professor of biology, installed a 3D printer, laser cutter, and computer-controlled milling machine—supported in part by a grant from the Scripps Foundation—to create a “science makerspace.”
“Makerspaces provide the hands-on technology that enable you to test and improve your ideas,” Gidmark says. “This equipment makes it possible to quickly and cheaply build a prototype, try it, and watch it fail—which almost always happens the first time you try something.”
A makerspace “makes it OK for students to—as the saying goes, ‘fail early and often’—and quickly learn from…
