Come one come all to Wheaton College’s MakerSpace, the WHALE Lab, located in the Science Center room 1340! Wheaton’s MakerSpace is full of equipment for projects and prototyping, from designing intelligent robots, to making chainmaille, and building the next Facebook!
The WHALE Lab, which is an acryonym for Wheaton Autonomous Learning Lab, is full of robots, computers, tools, and space to facilitate the requirements of students, staff, and faculty with their research and project needs. Students can learn how to use the equipment safely with the help of student mentors and faculty.
In addition to WHALE is the FiberSpace, located in the Science Center, room 233. Lauren Slingluff, Social Sciences Liaison for LIS and First Year Seminar Coordinator, runs the space. The FiberSpace is open on Fridays from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., but the space is open to trained campus members throughout the day.
“The space has materials for scrapbooking, knitting and crocheting, as well as three sewing machines, a serger, and an embroidery machine. There are pattern books as well as a number of reference resources on topics from bookmaking to e-textiles,” Slingluff explained. “ In addition to items for working with traditional textiles, there is a variety of conductive textiles (these carry a charge and can be used to make a circuit) along with small, easily programmed computers known as arduinos.”
Interested members of the Wheaton community are welcome in these spaces, even if their creations are not made for academic purposes. Other makerspaces on campus include iLab, Science Center 1348, csLab, Science Center 1315, and the Machine Shop, Science Center 258.
If you want to know about upcoming events in either the WHALE lab or the FiberSpace follow @W_H_A_L_E on Twitter or like “WHALE Lab” on Facebook.