The next Maker Monday event featuring advanced soldering will be held on April 7 at the Fab Lab in Building 7, Room 7-310 to anyone looking for a creative experience.
Maker Monday, along with Fabrication Friday, is a MESA sponsored event series hosted by physics instructor Marco Wehrfritz, who is in his ninth year at Skyline.
“We facilitate an open-lab here in Building 7,” Wehrfritz said. “Students on Monday and Friday … can drop in from ten to five and can work on their projects.”
The space is open to students to come and get assistance for their projects during that time. They may also sign up for the workshop event from 12-2 p.m. for group learning on specific skills.
The Fab Lab, also called the Makerspace, offers a wide array of projects including 3D printing, Arduino programming, and of course, soldering. While larger, personal projects may require students to bring their own materials, small student projects are free and accessible.
“As long as you have a creative mind and an idea of what you would like to do, we can help you do that,” Wehrfritz said.
During these workshops, students go through various hands-on activities centered around a certain technique or tool, often using kits or other building materials. Anything they create during the event, they get to keep.
This coming Monday, students can look forward to learning about different types of advanced soldering technology, though basic experience with soldering is recommended.
Those in the engineering field may find this skill particularly useful, as Wehrfritz said when sharing his background as a physicist working with nuclear safety laws.
“I think soldering is a useful skill,” Wehrfritz said. “I could fix the boards and fix the electronics because I was trained to. We didn’t need to wait until someone from our workshop facilities was available.”
Wehrfritz also said that while these skills are useful for engineers, many outside of the mechanical field can benefit from them.
“My wife is working in neuroscience, but they use the same technology which we have in our Makerspace,” Wehrfritz said. “All of this combined is a very helpful set of skills if you go into the job market. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be engineering or physics.”
The Makerspace reflects this, opening its doors to Skyline students from other classes and majors.
“It’s not necessarily restricted to [engineering programs],” Wehrfritz said. “Chemistry, biology — everyone can come and use it for their projects, and they do.”
These workshops are mostly designed for people who have never done projects like these before and show them what is possible with engineering and design. Students can come in to express their creativity, or even repair and improve an appliance.
“If you are interested in widening your horizons, even if it’s not something you have ever tried before, Makerspace is a place where you can bring your ideas to reality,” Wehrfritz said.