Collaboration is in the air at the University this year and soon it will come to Jerome Library. This spring, 2,000 square feet will be dedicated to the new Collab Lab on the first floor of the library.
Half of the 2,000 square feet is already occupied by the Student Technology Assistance Center, which will provide a solid foundation for the lab. The lab is geared towards innovative thinking and problem solving and centered on design thinking.
“It’s not a business incubator, it’s not a maker space, but it’s an idea accelerator,” Jerry Schnepp, future director of the Collab Lab, said.
The set-up of the lab will be fluid, with movable tables to accommodate any project, big or small. Students can expect white board tables and markers that are always within reach but the lab is not planned to be heavily technology-centered – one could visit the lab and never touch a piece of technology.
The lab has been a long time coming and the concept and set-up for it are not new. There was a “series of task forces and we were inspired by several other models,” Schnepp said, including the Harvard I-Lab and the MIT Media Lab.
Originally, collaboration wasn’t necessarily the goal of the task forces. The focus was on creative spaces for students to work on ideas. When seeking inspiration, the task forces “started to see that a commonality among all of these creative spaces was a focus on collaboration and sharing,” Schnepp said.
A focus of the lab is rapid prototyping of ideas to create a tangible object. “Pretty early in that whole process there needs to be a visual representation…using whiteboards and newsprint and paper and marker…as soon as you jot it, it becomes a thing in reality,” Schnepp said.
Depending upon the idea or project, prototyping could range from pipe cleaners and paper to more advanced prototyping and although the focus of the lab is not technology, students will have access to a number of gadgets to help in the prototyping and ideation processes.
“We have purchased two 3D printers, we have a 3D scanner, (and) we’re getting a laser cutter,” Colleen Boff, an associate dean of the University Libraries said. The lab will also have a green screen video production studio.
These more advanced technologies will aid in the ideation process, but will also serve students beyond use of the lab. 3D printing is still free for all students and this semester, after teaching some University faculty members how to incorporate it, there are around a dozen courses that have 3D printing assignments. Students who just want to tinker and explore these new technologies can utilize them too.
“These are the technologies that students are expected to go out in the field and have some context on how to use,” Boff said.
The lab atmosphere and resources will foster more than just group projects; when used to its full potential, students will gain lifelong skills and experiences from the Lab.
“These are skills that are hard to pick up from reading a textbook, and a lot of employers really emphasize the importance for people to be able to work collaboratively,” Boff said.
One key to the lab will also be finding resources to help accomplish the tasks at hand. Often, an idea may come to a dead-end due to an obstacle or lack of information or expertise.
The lab will be able to connect students and faculty with the right person at the right time to ensure an idea doesn’t fizzle out. Even if lab staff don’t have a resource immediately available, be it a person with expertise or a piece of equipment, they will do their best to connect students and faculty to the needed resource.
Exact details of staffing at the lab are still in the making, but all lab staff will go through design thinking training and will be able to assess where in the design process an idea is and help creators get to the next step. The STAC student employees will be part of the lab staff; student employees of the lab will become more marketable for potential employers after learning and working with the design thinking model.
The lab is currently expected to open in February, but an exact date has yet to be set. All students and faculty are encouraged to utilize the new space and its available resources, after all, “Everybody has a good idea percolating somewhere in the back of their mind,” Boff said.
