Bechtel makerspace facilities a boon to gift givers on a tight budget

Students from any major can bring their creative gift ideas to life at the Purdue makerspace — and they can do it for free

The gifts Silas Owen gave last year are going to be hard to top this Christmas.

He gave his basketball-fanatic dad an engraved wall hanging that featured an outline of Purdue’s Mackey Arena, adorned with historical facts about the iconic building.

He gave his mom an ornate cutting board made from four different types of wood arranged in an eye-catching chevron pattern.

He gave his girlfriend Lex’s parents a wall hanging in the shape of their home state, Alabama, that featured logos of the college sports programs they root for — Alabama and Auburn.

All were thoughtful, personalized gifts. And here’s the best part for a college student on a tight budget: They cost virtually nothing because Owen made them by hand at Purdue’s Bechtel Innovation Design Center.

“I think it’s more meaningful for people to get something that you spent time working on, but it’s also a really good financial decision,” says Owen, a peer mentor at the Bechtel Center who graduated in December with a degree in mechanical engineering technology and a certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation. “Thinking that I’m going to spend $30 on a gift is not crazy at all. That’s a very normal amount of money to spend. Well, I spent $0 on most of the gifts that I made last year, and I was able to give them something personalized.”

Owen estimates that he is among roughly 20 to 30 Purdue students who make holiday presents for family and friends each year using the array of tools available at the Bechtel Center. He says the center has the capacity to accommodate many more if students have time available at the end of a busy semester.

Owen and the other peer mentors are happy to help fellow Boilermaker students learn how to operate the equipment, which they then use to create anything from 101-level items like cutting boards, bowls and jewelry boxes to more elaborate objects like furniture or chess pieces.

I think it’s more meaningful for people to get something that you spent time working on, but it’s also a really good financial decision.

Silas Owen

Bechtel Center peer mentor

Operation manager Dan Bollock (BSME ’87, MS forestry ’24) has even seen a student create a handmade engagement ring — no word on how that proposal turned out — during his time overseeing the 100 student workers who directly assist visitors to the campus makerspace.

“I love helping the students anyway,” Bollock says. “But when they’re making a present for their mom or dad, it’s just even more fun to help them.”

It’s important to note here that students do not need to have prior experience operating the equipment to use the tools available in the Bechtel Center. In fact, it’s more common for visitors to have no experience at all.

“I would say two-thirds of them come in here and don’t know too much, and that’s OK,” Bollock says. “We’re willing to train them.”

But once they walk through the doors for the first time, many are blown away by what they encounter. There are tools for woodworking, welding and composites manufacturing. There are 3D printers and laser cutters. There’s a fabrics lab to make and repair clothing. There is an electronics lab to make custom components.

Starting in the spring, there will even be blacksmithing equipment available, the result of two years of effort by Owen to get grant funding for the necessary materials.

“As the Boilermakers, I think we have an absolute need for blacksmithing,” Owen jokes.

And again, students can complete their projects at no cost thanks to the generosity of Bechtel Center sponsors who provided free or discounted equipment and the materials available in the facility’s stockroom.

“I’m still amazed every day that I can go downstairs and get a 4-inch round of stainless steel and it’s just free for me to use when it might be $150 for me to buy,” Owen says. “I think it amazes other people too because when folks come in here for tours, we’ll go in the stockroom and I’ll say, ‘And anything in here, you can use for any project, completely for free.’ And everyone’s always like, ‘What? Really?’ It’s a super cool reaction. I think that makes it even more accessible than it already is.”

Of course, the Bechtel Center was not created to be a place for students to make free holiday gifts. Named in honor of 1946 civil engineering alumnus Stephen Bechtel Jr., the former chair of the Bechtel Group LLC, the $18.5 million facility opened in 2017 to provide Boilermaker students — no matter what they may be studying — with a space to make anything they can imagine. They can build prototypes, implement innovative designs and even test ideas for new products that might someday become the centerpiece of a business venture.

Owen says student groups like the Purdue Orbital team and Purdue Space Program regularly use the Bechtel Center’s equipment to build essential pieces like carbon-fiber nose cones for rockets.

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The facility’s array of resources so impressed Owen as a high school student that he says it was a primary motivator when he chose to attend Purdue.

“It’s tough to find any makerspace, really anywhere in the world actually, that is student-run to the level of the Bechtel Innovation Design Center,” Owen says.

A week before Thanksgiving, the facility’s various disciplinary labs were packed with students working on capstone projects. Owen was among them, having spent most of his recent free time working on his final project before graduation in December. His goal was to finish with enough time to spare that he’d be able to work on some of the Christmas gift ideas he’s had percolating lately — and he predicted that some of his fellow peer mentors would be in the same boat as fall semester neared its conclusion.

While the Bechtel Center might not have been introduced as a facility to be used for this purpose, it provides an unbeatable value proposition for students during the holidays or any other point on the calendar. If they’re willing to learn, their time is the only investment required to bring their ideas to life.