Redesigned makerspace trainings reduce barriers

September 17, 2025

Author: Jeff Budlong

The Student Innovation Center is open to all -- students, faculty and staff -- and this summer center leaders revamped the training required to work in its eight makerspaces. The intent is to encourage more use of the spaces.

"We made the training more learner-focused, easier to understand, and really grounded it in helping users retain the important concepts," said senior program specialist Tera Lawson.

Training

Launched at the start of this semester, the new training process was designed and implemented through the makerspace tracker, built by a small team primarily comprised of student employees in the Student Innovation Center's Digital Modeling and Visualization Lab. Users choose which makerspaces they want to use and complete the necessary training. It's an intuitive system that doesn't require center staff to enroll users into each course.

"In our previous system, there were too many steps to do the training, and users were getting confused," said senior manager Dani Orris. "The new system makes sure users get the proper training without skipping steps, and it provides better management of in-person training for users and makerspace supervisors."

The new training is delivered three ways, though not all makerspaces require all three types:

Safety training: Each makerspace with potential hazards has its own video with foundational knowledge and safety requirements.
Online training: Equipment-specific courses and procedures, including machine and software overviews. Users must score 100% on a brief quiz for each piece of equipment to pass the training.
Hands-on training: Users register for hands-on, supervised training on a tool or group of tools. Most trainings can accommodate three or four users.

Training requirements depend on safety considerations in each space (see box). Users only advance to the next safety training after completing the previous one. With the videos on demand -- more than 40 were filmed this summer using students -- users can quickly get equipment and software refreshers, Lawson said. Makerspaces that don't require safety training instead offer skill-building workshops for new users.

Users scan in and out of a makerspace with their ISU Card. When they scan in, supervisors can see which machines they are approved to work on, and large monitors throughout the makerspace display the names of approved users.

A group effort

The safety video for the electronic, textiles and 3D printing makerspace was a group effort among the center, music and theatre department, and environmental health and safety (EH&S). Students developed the 11-minute video.

"We used music and theatre department students in the video because who is going to know how to engage with students better than their peers," Orris said. "The partnership essentially allowed them to create a musical about safety."

Reassessing the makerspaces

Another part of the summer project was to define proper safety measures for each makerspace.

"We were able to work with EH&S to reassess the space for needs and how we were using it," Lawson said. “This allowed us to reduce some of the personal protective equipment requirements for our low-risk spaces."

Following the review, the electronic, textiles and 3D printing makerspace is now a low risk space. Two remain high risk, where safety glasses are required all the time: metal and wood shop and heavy metals.

Instructor role in user training

Lawson said instructors who assign work that includes using a makerspace are asked to contact center staff prior to developing the assignment. An online form is available on the Student Innovation Center website.

"We know what works best here, and instructors know what works best for them," she said. "If training is needed, we want to make sure there is enough time for it to be feasible. We are open to everyone, so we can't shut down a makerspace to complete training for one class. By working together in advance of the course needs we can develop a strategy that works for everyone."

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