Makerspace Update: October 2026

Hi Friends,

September was our busiest month of programming yet. Between twice weekly FLEX periods and our after-school Founder’s Cohort course, we’ve been building stuff with students more than ever!

The beginning of October is already off to a fantastic start, as I’ve recently hired our first Makerspace Technician, Claire Doemland! She’s only been here a week and is already improving our programming, and increasing our capacity. Full introduction to Claire below.

On the building side, our team is busy dialing in the interior details, from windows and lighting to working with our engineers to pinpoint exactly where each machine and duct will go.

As always, thanks for reading and sticking with us!

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of our team, Claire Doemland! Claire joined us in early October, and in just a week she’s already making a serious impact. She jumped right into our Founder’s Cohort mid-course and has brought a ton of great ideas to the table.

Claire has spent the past nine years as both a classroom teacher and informal educator, including six years teaching middle school STEM. She’s a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has worked with students in North Carolina, Alabama, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Along the way, her students have built pinball machines, invented custom kitchen gadgets, and competed on youth robotics teams.

In her current project she’s designing and 3D printing accessories that keep rescue inhalers easy to grab and identify for people playing sports. Claire is deeply passionate about making STEAM accessible, and the South Shore is lucky to have her. If you see Claire around, give her a warm welcome to town!

One of the main ways I’m engaging students this semester is through FLEX period at STHS. FLEX is a 30 minute period towards the beginning of the school day that allows students the option to pick between an elective or study hall type opportunity.

We host a Makerspace FLEX every Tuesday and Thursday on campus with the goal of giving students a relaxing or a creative break from their regular class schedule. It’s a low-risk, low-commitment way to try out our tools and get a taste of what The Atrium will offer once our doors open.

Recently we’ve been doing lots of feel good crafts. Last month was fuse beads, arranging tiny plastic beads into pixel art and heat-pressing them into a solid piece. We also brought back block printing, which was a hit at Mt. Tallac. Everyone is given a rubber eraser and carefully carves it, cover it an ink, and stamps away!

More fun 30 minute projects to come…

The Makerspace Founder’s Cohort is our ten person after-school course. Each session is two hours long, giving students time to dig a little deeper into our technology. We just past the halfway point of this six-week course.

Students have already engaged with a broad range of technologies. We kicked things off with a classic I picked up at the Exploratorium’s Art of Tinkering workshop this spring. The challenge: wire up a DC motor and convert its vibrations into motion, thus creating an autonomous abstract artist!

Next, we dove into a deep discussion about AI, critically analysing where it shines, where it falls short, and how we should be using it responsibly in a makerspace context. Then we put that conversation into practice, using AI powered tools to accelerate our intro laser cutting activity - custom metal trading cards.

From there, we moved into a introduction to electronics, using breadboards to build basic circuits.

Now it’s time for students to put it all together. We just started our first multi-day build  which combines all the skills we’ve learned so far. I can’t wait to share what they come up with!

Think big and make a difference in South Lake Tahoe through innovative programs in our core operating pillars: FEED, READ, and LEAD. Learn more here.