Learning Factory

Earlier this week, I had the chance to visit the Learning Factory and become certified in safety, power tools, and machining. It was great to check out another resource on campus and learn about how to operate the machines safely and effectively.

Before going to the Learning Factory I didn't realize how many opportunities and resources students have access to. I think it's really great that the university is taking the initiative to encourage students to build things and giving them the resources to do it. One of the recent trends that I have heard about is that many engineering students come into college without a lot of building experience because they grew up with electronics and other devices that were harder to take apart (and probably more expensive to replace when they couldn't be put back together). I definitely can relate to this and it's one of the reasons I didn't enter college initially in engineering. I thought that I had to have a lot of building experience to be successful. Luckily, there are places like the learning factory where I can gain that experience.

In the future, I am looking forward to using the learning factory to do more hands on work and am grateful that our class was encouraged to go check it out. The possibilities there for art and engineering students are limitless and I am so excited to do some making!