Scaling the DIY Approach: Do-It-Together with Student Service Learning

Abstract

This paper endeavors to reflectively analyze the process of building a fleet of large, durable tables with student workers’ labor, primarily using the tools in our FabLab. Exploring causalities between experiences gained as part of the table project and increased fluency with general FabLab tasks such as explaining nuanced processes to and/or problem solving with learners, this analysis seeks to contextualize the library culture that made a project like this possible, in the hopes that an honest sharing of our experiences and lessons learned might assist other academic makerspaces in employing student service learning projects to improve their own makerspace infrastructure.