Creativity’s Home
Makerspace fosters innovation and exploration for all ages
On a cold, blustery day, the snow is flying outside. Meanwhile, roughly two dozen kids and adults are warm and cozy inside the Valley of the Tetons Library Makerspace in Driggs, engrossed in their activities.
An area for younger kids has a toy kitchen, train tracks, a dollhouse, and building equipment to inspire creative play. Farther back, robots, electronics, and a tinkering area beckon the older crowd. Inviting creative expression from kids and adults alike are craft supplies, hot glue guns, a working kitchen, a music studio, hand tools, areas for sewing, knitting, crocheting, and building, as well as robot building kits, laser engraver, media room, and more. Makerspace is a program of the library, and every day that it’s open, an average of forty to sixty community members come by to connect, explore, and create. Makerspace users are able to collaborate with one another on projects or work independently, and many like to watch others create to find inspiration of their own.
“To fully inhabit it and know it, you have to come into it because you don’t really know what will spark your interest,” says Savannah Wake, Valley of the Tetons Library assistant director. (The library hired Dr. Chris Heilman this past summer to take on the role of director.)
Savannah says Makerspace provides a warm, safe space for community members. That aspect, combined with the creativity that is unleashed there, makes the program popular.
During the day, library staff see a good number of adults and homeschoolers using the space; then, after school, the school-aged kids show up in force. It’s available to everyone during open hours, but after school is the program’s busiest time.
“There’s no set curriculum,” says Tanya Alexander, Valley of the Tetons Library programs manager. “They [students] have their freedom to explore, they can see their friends outside of school in this really free environment, and they get to connect with people of all ages and with all backgrounds inside the Makerspace.”
It all started as a “tinker club” held a few times a week at the Victor branch of Valley of the Tetons Library in 2016. The club then moved into a space in the Driggs branch in 2018, but the location they were using was also the location for a variety of other activities, so it wasn’t perfect. When the place next to the Driggs branch became available, the library decided to rent the additional space to use for programs like Makerspace, which moved in and opened in early 2021.
Now, the space is a free-flowing opportunity for creativity. While there are set hours and dates of operation, once someone arrives, they are free to discover for a few minutes or all day until closing time. The environment isn’t structured into one-hour or two-hour programs; rather, it allows creativity for however much time a person has available.
“There is really an ethos we’ve built in Makerspace,” Savannah says. “You don’t have to choose from only a list of five activities that we’re offering that day or anything like that. We do have staff there to help guide, but we’re not there to just give structured activity.” She praises it as an opportunity for people to learn together, adults and youth, staff and patrons, and explains that a really amazing aspect of the space is that it is an environment that’s really free to use and enjoy.
Julie Field is a Victor mom of four. Two of her kids are active participants at Makerspace, including her twelve-year-old son, Jameson, who attended almost daily after school in fourth and fifth grades. He especially enjoyed creating projects like a small blue snake, as well as woodburning and working with electronics.
“He was basically there every day after school,” Julie says. “He absolutely loved it. It was such a great place for him to go after school with some friends… It was a great, comfortable place for them to go and be together to play and explore and find some new interests.”
Providing a place for kids and adults alike to grow, explore, learn, and have access to equipment to try all sorts of different things is part of the joy of Makerspace—in addition to the human connections.
“When I go home at night, what I think about sometimes is the friendships and the connections that are happening,” Tanya says, pointing to the interactions unlikely to happen in a more structured environment, like school. “The other thing that I love about Makerspace is watching the evolution of an idea and how everybody’s brain is so active and creative in the right environment… I think that’s a really valuable thing to express and to explore for everyone.”
Visit the Makerspace
77 North Main Street, Driggs
(208) 354-6388
Hours: Monday-Thursday, noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
