With over 130,000 square feet of hands-on makerspaces, MIT has more of these facilities on its campus than anywhere in the world. Yet, according to findings from a student-wide survey conducted last summer, the top two places where MIT students make things are in their dorm rooms and off-campus. The reason? Students face too many barriers when trying to use MIT’s expansive maker infrastructure.
Students across the Institute need access to makerspaces not only for their studies but to work on personal and entrepreneurial projects. Rebecca Li, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, notes that students often have to “hijack a club or lab’s machine shop access, pay many different membership fees, or stumble into little known shops like MITERS [MIT Electronics Research Society] and Maker Works.” According to Li, who helps manage the MITERS space as…
