The workspace also has an industrial sewing machine, engraving and laser cutting machines and 3D printers that can handle larger projects more quickly or use stronger materials like carbon fiber. One printer uses liquid resin and lasers to create objects that can be stronger than ones from the filament printers but are less flexible.

Jakob Statz, a freshman civil engineering student, used the printers to create a stick dulcimer, which is a small musical instrument similar to a ukelele, but with only three strings.

“It’s sort of like ukelele on easy mode,” Statz said. “...It takes skill to really play a bad chord with one of these things. I just wanted one that was made out of plastic so I could feel free to take it camping.”

While he worked on the dulcimer’s final touches, he also used computer-aided design software to plan another project for the 3D printers. The design was for a folding game set that could hold cards, dice, scoresheets and a cribbage board.

Nearby where Statz was working on his laptop, Tevon Smith — a mechanical engineering freshman — fiddled with a small circuit board for his own project. The electronics were part of a charcoal smoker he’s been building, and he was working out how fast the fan needs to spin to control the heat.

“You have to use some tricky math and realize how charcoal is, because it doesn’t just — it’s not up or down like a kitchen stove,” Smith said. “...The heat naturally pulls in so much air that you have to find the point where you can restrict it enough that the charcoal doesn’t just go off on its own.”

After doing robotics in high school, Tevon fell in love with engineering, he said. Starting a new project comes with a steep learning curve, but that’s part of the fun for him.

Several of the students working in the lab on Tuesday were using woodworking tools to finish a class project. As part of an introductory engineering class, students had to demonstrate basic skills with tools by building a character out of wood.

Drew Flores and Travis Zadra, both freshman mechanical engineering students, worked on their assignments with hand saws.

When he has more free time, Flores said he hopes to use the lab to make metal pens, which is a hobby of his.

Zadra said the lab is a good way to learn skills that could come in handy later in his career. For fun, he wants to build web shooters like Spider-Man’s, he said.

“The dream — for me, at least — I wanna work at NASA or one of the F1 teams and build their racecars or rocket ships,” Zadra said. “So I think a lot of this will apply — just hands-on, knowing how things work in real life.”

An early version of the Makerspace was started in a portable lab space around 2013 by the MakerCATS club, said Thomas Burney, a 2021 graduate who now works full-time as the Makerspace director.

The workspace is named for the late Bill Wurst, a 1959 alumnus who left $4 million to the College of Engineering when he died in 2014. His donation was meant to support the building plans for Norm Asbjornson Hall, which was completed in 2018.

All mechanical engineering students “dip their toes” into the Makerspace as freshman to get hands-on experience, Burney said. On Tuesday, Burney spent his time supervising students, helping them use tools like the 3D printers when they needed it. He knows many of the students who come into the Makerspace, including how each of their projects are coming along.

The lab also supports work for things like a junior-level class where students work together on things like remote-controlled cars, Burney said.

“(Students are) designing that kind of from the ground up, integrating components, integrating electronics from your (electrical engineer) and mechanical design with your chassis and frame, and then it drives over a bridge that a civil (engineer) makes,” Burney said.

The lab has open hours for students, faculty and staff to come and go as they wish for free and it can be reserved for a fee. Non-MSU groups can also contact the university about using it. Some of the tools, like the 3D printers and laser cutting machines have per-usage fees.