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I love making, and makerspaces. My dad helps run a makerspace outside of DC, and I grew up welding go-karts together in the garage. I’m an inveterate tinkerer and technical dilettante; my knee-jerk reaction to acquiring most objects (say, a coffee grinder) is to disassemble them. When the washing machine breaks or my car won’t start, I’m overjoyed at the now socially acceptable opportunity to grab my tool bag.

What differentiates making is the act of creation or repair purely for joy. When I head to a makerspace, I get to see someone completely different from me designing a board game using an inkjet printer and some friends, or a young entrepreneur trying to get the CNC laser cutter to cut out dioramas, an emo college student making her own clothes, or a father teaching his son how to use a lathe. Sometimes I’m one, or all, of these people.

I think that “maker” is the label, but the verb (and identity) is “learning.” Every single task is an apprenticeship. Sometimes it’s autodidactic, sometimes you take a class. But it’s always aspirational. You’re trying to create something that did not exist, and in doing so, become the person with a skillset you do not yet have. I think a maker is just someone who earnestly believes they could learn how to do anything— and we are all makers in our own right.

I’m under no delusions here; I didn’t go to trade school to learn how to wire my kitchen, and doing it myself is not the easiest path. It is occasionally dumb not to hire a professional, and homesteading is an unpleasant way to live. Most of what I make is not Good. But designing a keyboard or bad furniture or modding my espresso machine’s pump is fun and soul affirming and hard, and the overwhelming majority of human learning comes from doing. Assume that you can do anything, and let the world try to prove you wrong.

  • Test driving an electric go-kart
  • Making a bottle openerMaking a bottle opener
  • Espresso machine mid-pressure transducer modEspresso machine mid-pressure transducer mod
  • Welding in the shipping-container shop
  • Keyboard PCB at the soldering benchKeyboard PCB at the soldering bench
  • Making a tote bag from scratch fabricMaking a tote bag from scratch fabric
  • Split keyboard finally operational (this one was painful)Split keyboard finally operational (this one was painful)
  • Pulling a knife tang out of a 2000 degree forgePulling a knife tang out of a 2000 degree forge
  • Obviously I own many 3D printersObviously I own many 3D printers