Mahtomedi's Fab Lab brings world-class engineering to students

MAHTOMEDI, Minn. -- Students wander into a well-lit and inviting space at Mahtomedi High School, pull on white lab coats and log into their laptops.

Soon, they are immersed in software, discussing angles and prototypes, which some students are already creating out of both paper and wood.

This is the Fab Lab at Mahtomedi High School, the first in a K-12 setting.

"Fab Lab stands for fabrication laboratory," explained Principal Kathe Nickleby, who helped make this state-of-the-art design center a reality at the school. 

Nickelby says Fab Labs are a creation of Massachusettes Institute of Technology, with the intent of helping developing countries learn to build products to sustain their own society.  There are 21 in this country, many at colleges and universities.

Each lab is equipped with digital design equipment and a connection to MIT as well as other Fab Labs worldwide, so labs can collaborate on ideas.  Each lab has to be led by an MIT trained instructor.

At Mahtomedi, it's a chance to bring engineering concepts to many disciplines, in addition to science.

"Our foods classes, our math classes, our English language arts classes," said Nickleby.  "Students take ideas and concepts that they use in other disciplines and actually build a tangible product that they can hold in their hands.

That product may be something they design digitally and create out of wood, paper, metal, even plastic with the help of a 3D printer.

"By the time they get to college, or a community college, it's too late," said instructor Tierney Putman, who co-owns design firm Putman Planning and Design.  She's stepping back from that business this year, to be Mahtomedi's MIT-trained instructor.  A Mahtomedi teacher is currently being trained to step into that role next year.

"We as a business believe in the Fab Lab," continued Putman.  "That's getting technology into ordinary people's hands so they can invent and create."  Putman says she hopes to design Fab Labs right into communities of the future.  Right now, she's focusing on the future of Mahtomedi's students.

"I really think this batch of students, I would hire them," said Putman.

Kristine Brust is a senior who signed up on faith for Fab Lab.  The lab hadn't yet opened when students had to declare their intentions for this year.  Like every other student in the class, Brust had no idea what the course or the lab was.

"I ended up during the summer going in and talking to my counselor, and she showed me some of the things that we were going to be doing with the 3-D printer.  I was, like, I need to get into this class," said Brust.

The fact the class has so many girls in it is also a plus for Mahtomedi.  Principal Nickleby said the lab, with its brightly lit spaces, and even a few flower vases, was intentionally designed to appeal to students who hadn't considered themselves engineers.

"This is a very friendly space.  The colors were intentionally chosen so that females, as well as males, feel very comfortable here," said Nickleby. 

Comfortable enough to let their imagination take over.  "When students walk in here, it is not the prescriptive, 'This is what you have to build.'  It's 'come on in, here are the tools and the equipment that you can use. What do you want to build?'" said Nickleby.

The invitation is open to the public as well. Adult courses are offered through Mahtomedi's Community Education program.  Program Coordinator Mary George says classes are full and have attracted a diverse population.

Also dropping in are various community partners and foundations, including the 3M Foundation, that provided expertise and seed money for the lab.

"We are at the ground level, and as exciting as this is today, I can only imagine what's going to happen in the next couple of years as this grows and we finish construction and more and more students understand what a Fabrication Lab can do for them," said Nickleby.

(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All rights reserved.)