Before 2016, finding the tech-ed shop at Waunakee High School was tricky. With it located behind a metal door, unless a student was enrolled in a class there, they’d have no knowledge it existed.

“Most people thought it was just kind of a broom closet because it was just a steel door—that’s all you saw from the outside,” said Jeff Willauer, the school’s technology education teacher, as he led a tour of the lab for TDS Telecom associates Monday.

Following a matching grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Waunakee’s Fab Lab or Innovation Center opened, with windows to encourage students to look into the space and bright lights inviting them in, Willauer said.

And today, it’s no longer a “shop” but a lab, similar to a science lab and used to expand STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

[Adapted from: Waunakee High School ‘fab lab’ piques interest in STEM courses November 30, 2022  Waunakee Tribune]