Nearing its first anniversary, OU’s Innovation Hub has become a center for people on and off campus to work on personal projects or collaborate for group projects.
The Innovation Hub provides students free access to innovation tools, such as 3-D printers, laser etchers and more.
“It’s just a place to be creative,” said Trenton Turner, a visual communications senior. “You don’t really know how valuable it is until you get inside it.”
Brandt Smith, director of the Fabrication Lab, said he believes in the openness of the program to the students.
“If we give more help to the entirety of the student body, then they’re more likely to be successful,” Smith said. “If they are more successful, then OU is successful.”
The opportunities the Innovation Hub provides the students allow them to create anything they can imagine.
Smith said some of the most impressive projects created have been a wooden ring that used resin to fill in the cracks of the wood, a cutting board that had the American flag lasered into the wood, and a group of students who are working on updating a rock climbing wall.
Some of the most impressive ideas could not be relayed because of the security of intellectual property.
Along with OU students, the Innovation Hub also provides the same resources to the Norman community.
“There have been some K-12 groups that have built solar-charging stations,” Smith said. “I can’t even pretend to tell you how many tours I have given to K-12 groups and other universities that want to Innovation Hub-type things.”
Even though the Innovation Hub has been open for a year, the impact on people involved has been significant.
“OU values all ideas of all students and will work to validate all of those ideas from all of those students,” Smith said. “We need to support a greater amount of the campus community and the state, for that matter, in entrepreneurial matters.”
Turner, the student, says it’s done just that.
“I think it offers experience. I think it’s another thing that is necessary to really tackle what you want to do,” Turner said. “If you have an idea and you just don’t have any idea how to do it, the people here know how to use the machines and the tools.”
For more information, visit the Innovation Hub website.
