MAKERSPACE Grand opening set for Oct. 19

The Sentinel-Record/Richard Rasmussen BUILDING SPACE: Julian Post, left, educational programs coordinator, and Robin Pelton, program director, on Thursday discuss the new Makerspace opening in National Park College's Innovative Technologies Center later this month.
The Sentinel-Record/Richard Rasmussen BUILDING SPACE: Julian Post, left, educational programs coordinator, and Robin Pelton, program director, on Thursday discuss the new Makerspace opening in National Park College's Innovative Technologies Center later this month.

The National Park College Innovative Technologies Center will hold a grand opening from 1-3 p.m. Oct. 19 for its new Makerspace.

"If you can imagine it, you can probably build it here," said Julian Post, educational programs coordinator for the ITC.

The college developed a strategy for creating the ITC through a $95,000 regional workforce planning grant in October 2015, a news release said. In July 2016, NPC was awarded a regional workforce implementation grant for $866,869 to begin executing the plan to establish the ITC. The center was awarded an $890,280 regional workforce continuation grant from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education in June 2018 which helped create the Makerspace.

"A Makerspace is simply just a space where people in the community can come in with an idea and leave with a completed project," said Robin Pelton, ITC program director.

"It can be tinkerers, it can be hobbyists, it can be an entrepreneur who has an idea that wants to come in, try it out and build a prototype before they take it to market," Pelton said.

"We can take folks of any skill and ability, so if they're a beginner then we'll have mentors on staff and volunteers that can help them learn the skills for their project."

During the grand opening, which is free to the public, Pelton said there will be demonstrations and refreshments, giving the community an opportunity to see the Makerspace at work.

"It's just an opportunity for folks to come in and see the Makerspace because what we found in the survey that we conducted is that we do have a good pocket of individuals that understand what a Makerspace is, but we also have a large group that is very unfamiliar with the concept of a Makerspace," she said. "What we're finding is whenever they come in they're like 'Oh, wow. I didn't know you had all this and that this is available to us.'"

Key components of the Makerspace include a computer numeric control, or CNC, router, a laser printer that will soon be outfitted with a vent, Arduino kits, and various tools and workbenches.

Employees and volunteers of the ITC are knowledgeable or have been honing skills related to the different equipment and projects that can be completed, Pelton said, through building some of the Makerspace's equipment.

"Part of the Makerspace, and also an attempt to save money, is we build a lot of these things instead of going out and buying them," she said. "So we had some scrap material that was already here on a shelving unit that we didn't really use. We tore that down and made some work benches out of it.

"We've had some volunteers from industry come in and help construct these mobile tables and, of course, we've got all kinds of hand tools and power tools. For a Makerspace you're going to have groups of individuals come in so you have to have multiples of many things, so that they can all be working on a project at the same time."

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The Sentinel-Record/Richard Rasmussen WOODWORKING: Michael Karr, educational programs coordinator for National Park College's Innovative Technologies Center, works on a project in the new Makerspace opening to the public Oct. 19.

After sending out a recent survey to the community on what people would like to learn through the Makerspace, Post and Pelton both said woodworking and robotics are the main needs the community has.

"A couple of guys came in the other day and they mentioned that there's many places popping up like this for the younger kids, but there's nothing for the adults," Post said. "This is going to meet that need for the younger group and for the older group."

Post said he has never known someone who got into woodworking and quit doing it.

"It's something that can really help people stay on the right track, so to speak," he said. "There's many people that can't afford certain things because they have to make a decision on food or something else, so there's an awful lot of wood lying around. So there will be a class on how to take a log, run it through a band saw and then you have rough cut lumber, or rough cut wood. Then we have all the necessary machines to process that to give you a nice smooth finish.

"This is a place for the community and we've had quite a bit of community involvement so this community place has been greatly assisted by the community in building. So this is a for the community, built by the community sort of thing."

The Makerspace will also be a resource for local school districts who often don't have access to this equipment or funding to teach students these skills.

As they are completed, Post said people's projects will be documented with videos and step-by-step instructions so others can complete similar projects.

"Some of these projects will be self-guided," he said. "You'll come in and view the catalog and have a kit. Some things will be free and some things will be at a very low price. While we're grant funded, they'll be very inexpensive. You can also bring your own materials because there will be a materials list, an estimation of time, estimation of the skill level required, a list of tools so if you're interested in learning how to use certain tools you might pick that project. If you're interested in gaining this skill, you may pick that project. There's many different ways to select the projects, but as you progress through the projects, you gain all sorts of skills and then you'll be able to come up with your own projects."

Pelton said giving people the opportunity to learn these skills is a win for industry that calls this community home.

"Most of my career has been out working with people in industry and what you keep hearing is 'We can't find people with skills,'" she said. "And the reason is we don't make things anymore. This is the way to fill that skills gap and so that is where I see not only just the community in general but the industry will benefit greatly from having this here."

Local on 10/05/2018

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