Cornell Maker Club

Members of the Cornell Maker Club speak about how having access to a space stocked with state-of-the-art equipment enhances their educational experience in Cornell Engineering.
Video Transcript:
My name's Michael, I'm a senior electrical engineer.
I'm Emma, I'm the current Maker Club president, and I'm a mechanical engineering student.
I think it's super, super important to have this space and mostly because in classes we learn all about theory.
We learn the math, we learn how circuits work, but we don't really get that much of a chance to apply our knowledge, and more importantly I think, put it into something we're passionate about, and that's what this space really lets us do.
It's a great way to really apply some of the stuff that I've learned; so both projects were at the sort of intersection of electrical and mechanical engineering, where there was a lot of mechanical design, a lot of integration of different components, and then applying sort of the electrical side to that, so making the things work.
It combines a lot of the electrical background we get from our classes with 3D printers, with rapid prototyping devices, with dremels, with drills, all these things we have here, really being able to exercise our creativity.
It's really great to have a space where the access is unlimited, where students can come in 24/7 and work on their own projects and learn all these skills for themselves, sort of use this space to explore more cross-disciplinary learning and different aspects of their major.
Now with some new tools, so the big ones being the three really nice 3D printers and the laser cutter, these kind of open up a lot of doors to better prototyping tools, more access to the top notch of technology that's out there.
And we can help fund student projects which is something that is like, that's a really cool thing I think to be able to do.
A student whose interested in their own entrepreneurial pursuits, for example, could come in and use this space to really take what they've learned in the classroom and see how that applies to their own projects.
We have a controller that can interact with a three dimensional interface, and so eventually you will be able to play all sorts of cool games on it.
This was my first prototype, this is my functional prototype, and this 8 by 8 by 8 is where we hope to be in -- after finals!
Students from different disciplines create these really cool projects that are at the intersection of different majors and having all those resources available to them, it definitely adds on to the whole academic experience.
ECEs have always been kind of hacky by nature, in terms of, we really like tinkering, we love taking things apart and figuring out how things work.
Having a space that's kind of student-run, having a space where there aren't any rules attached I think kind of goes into Cornell Engineering's whole motto of "breaking the rules to do better things."
And we kind of have this as our own space.
Getting people saying "whoa like you made that, whoa that's really cool," that's something really special and I think it motivates us as students just to keep pursuing what we're interested in and keeping passionate about making things.