Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “MIT Hobby Shop: The hub for mind and hand”.
Hayami ARAKAWA, The great thing about MIT is concept, hits the ground here. And at ground level. When you are working with your hands, the value you get at it is an immediate response, a real response. Sure., Looking at things and visualizing things is still very conceptual., But once you start moving things around with your hands and using tools, you really start to understand. On a whole different level, volume and efficiency, Already people are curious. And that’s how they explore here. Anyway., That’s what makes it an engineering school. You’re, not getting out of MIT without making something or being involved that way. It’s mind and hand.. That’S the whole motto. And I think it is its core value..
The Hobby Shop was started by 14, very ambitious students in 1938, who wanted basically a space to work on their hobbies., So they started the Hobby Shop, Club. And the first rule of Hobby Shop Club. Was you can’t work on academic projects in the shop.? It was to work on themselves ultimately. And that kind of spirit we try to keep into the shop.. We encourage people to design and build and fail and rebuild., Because that’s the only way.
They’re really going to learn. And the other part is sure academic work.. But it’s pretty fun., It’s pretty light.
Students definitely help each other out. They’re, very generous with their time. And the same with the faculty and staff who use the shop. As long as they’re around they’re, a great set of eyes.
But they’re, also very generous with input And helping out when needed. COBY UNGER As the shop evolves, we always want to remain a space where people can come in and learn. And we’re always evolving to meet that challenge. And what that means for me sometimes is taking classes on campus to keep up with My learning and my personal growth in terms of being able to work in the shop and help others., So I, for instance, took the medical device design class in the MechE department, with Professor Alex Slocum. And then that transitioned into in March 2020, the pandemic really hit. And the Institute was shutting down.
Alex Slocum asked me if I would help him on a ventilator design., So we transitioned very quickly.. The shop was closed for members, but became the main manufacturing and prototyping hub for the MIT e-vent project.. I worked with a small team of about a dozen folks, mostly from the engineering department, some from computer science and artificial intelligence department, and ended up publishing a design for a open source. Low-Cost ventilator that groups all around the world started copying adapting upon and building our own version, of. HAYAMI ARAKAWA, So the Hobby Shop, Zoom demos were another component where we wanted to keep our members involved.. They obviously couldn’t be here.. So we’d come up with one hour. 1 and 1/2 hour demos, we could do where people from home could use basic tools or no tools..
They could just watch us for entertainment value and keep them thinking yeah about the Hobby Shop, but also things they can do at home.. As far as the Hobby Shop moving on we’ll keep doing what we’re doing evolving as far as new technologies., We’ll definitely embrace those.. There are new things happening all the time which I don’t see ever stopping here.. This pandemic is a blip as far as I’m concerned.
On this radar., Mainly because we have a very engaged alumni., The students are very engaged with the school as well.. They love this place. And they’ll keep the Hobby Shop going, no matter what .