Kansas, Wichita makerspaces busy and growing

If you happen to stroll through the Hutchinson Mall, Nathan Towle may try to interest you in spending a few hours learning to make something with a 3-D printer.

Towle staffs a makerspace in the mall operated by ESSDACK, a teacher training organization, and he’s trying to drum up interest.

He was one of three speakers on a well-attended Thursday panel discussion about makerspaces in Kansas. It was part of Wichita State University’s Entrepreneurship Forum series in Devlin Hall.

A makerspace is a place where people can use a variety of high-tech machines to make things. These things could be fine art, a craft project, a piece of technology, an invention prototype – or, said Fort Hays State University professor Paul Adams, a wolfman mask for Halloween.

There is a much larger, more developed makerspace in Wichita, called MakeICT, as well as the smaller, largely student-oriented one that Adams runs in the basement of the library at Fort Hays State.

MakeICT, 1500 E. Douglas, has about 150 dues-paying members and an extensive amount of woodworking, textile, printmaking, ceramics, electronics and computer equipment. It is open to the public on Mondays.

“So we have all kinds of things going on,” said Dominic Canare, president of MakeICT.

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Kansas, Wichita makerspaces busy and growing."