Makers made here
Hey tinkerers, thinkers, makers, inventors, hi-tech DIYers and supporters of the maker movement: North County now has a makerspace.
Open Source Maker Labs quietly opened in a 4,500-square-foot space in Vista’s business park in August. Its owners, Dan and Mary Alice Hendricks, say it’s the first place of its kind in North County.
Customers who buy memberships in the digital fabrication lab get access to equipment that ranges from laser cutters to 3-D printers and from welding and soldering tools to a computer lab with drawing and modeling programs.
It’s a workshop, it’s a classroom, it’s a lab. Build a table. Build a robot. Build something electronic.
“It’s like a dream garage workshop,” Mary Alice Hendricks said, and it emphasizes “a little more science and technology,” her husband added.
The maker movement, which is gaining in popularity around the country, is about individual creation and innovation. It’s about do-it-yourself, from woodworking to engineering, robotics to electronics. For makers, passive consumerism is passé.
Fans of the new Vista makerspace include Eric Chagala, principal of the Vista Innovation and Design Academy, a magnet school serving sixth, seventh and eight graders in the Vista Unified School District.
Chagala took his staff of 38 teachers to the new lab for a three-hour, hands-on training session on how to create things. Some have already signed up for a membership, Chagala said.
Dan Hendricks has also helped create a small maker lab on the school’s Olive Street campus.
The kids “love it,” Chagala said.
“They love the opportunity to innovate, design, create,” he added. “And they love going into our makerspace and not have an adult tell them what to do and how to do it but to go in and create on their own.”
He said he is hopeful that his older students — those whose skills outgrow the small lab — can work together at OSML, perhaps starting sometime next year.
“It lets their imaginations take them to different places,” he said about the maker movement.
The Hendricks said their lab has partnerships in the works with other local schools, including colleges.
Samantha Eaton signed up herself and her three kids — ages 10, 12 and 15 years old — as members of the lab. In the few weeks that the place has been open, the Rancho Bernardo resident — a patent agent by day — has learned to weld, cut plywood and even helped make tables.
“I was looking for a makerspace. I was hungering for it,” Eaton said Tuesday. “I love that it encourages inventiveness and independence and capability. That is exactly what I want to give my three kids. We do together and we dream together.”
For more information, visit opensourcemakerlabs.com
