Making Space for Makerspace

Introduction

The air is thick with the acrid tang of burnt solder. A 3D printer hums methodically in the background, its rhythm occasionally interrupted by the steady buzzing of a laser cutter. Across the room, a cluster of students huddles around a laptop, their anticipation palpable as their bot stirs briefly to life before lapsing into silence.

Above is the scene from one of the most distinctive aspects of the first year at IIT Bombay, the MS101 course, an initiative that became part of the ever-evolving curriculum at IITB in 2022. Though for most students it has become synonymous with the Makerspace program itself, the course is merely a small component of the three-phase, institute-wide initiative that constitutes the latter. The program, which began with the S&N Microfactory pilot facility a few years ago, followed by its expansion into the large-scale and well-known first-year course, MS101, will soon enter its third phase in the upcoming Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship building.

The efforts are certainly a step forward in the right direction, positioning Makerspace as an experiment that could stand alongside global initiatives of its kind. How these ambitions translate into practice, however, is a story that Insight explores through student accounts and faculty interviews in this article. While this article primarily focuses on the MS101 course, it also seeks to shed light on other aspects that together comprise the broader Makerspace program.

Look What I Made in My First Year!

Before there was Makerspace, there were the Workshop labs, where the practical side of learning primarily comprised welding metal plates, producing intricate drawings, and diligently filing wood and the like. There was a basic electrical lab accompanying as well, and the combination conveyed the sense of only an introductory obligation. Students often struggled to cultivate interest or even discover their passion in such fields, with a lack of purpose and relevance of these exercises looming over them in today’s fast-changing, technology-oriented world.

“When am I ever going to hand-draw these intricate designs in the era of CAD?”

Such was the sentiment among most students, and soon it became the consensus of the newer faculty as well. This is what led to the birth of the programme widely known as Makerspace, when then-Director, Prof. Devang Khakkar, and then-Dean of Alumni and Corporate Relations (ACR), Prof. Suhas Joshi, convened a committee of young faculty from various departments. It was sparked by an initial proposal from a group of alumni who wished to integrate project-based learning into the core curriculum for all students in line with today’s technological and industrial demands. Another aspect to be addressed was to provide all students with an opportunity to explore this domain, rather than only those who could secure a place in tech teams or access the right opportunities.

This mentality also resonated strongly with the issues that the new curriculum sought to address, which recognised the demands of the era in terms of imparting skills of synthesis far more than analysis. At its core, Makerspace promised exactly that on paper: aimed to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and real-world applications, and to give students early exposure to tools, sensors, materials, software, and teamwork under pressure. These ideas were what shaped the initiative and its early beginnings with the S&N Microfactory.

Meant to be a pilot facility for voluntary projects, the Microfactory provided access to otherwise difficult-to-obtain tools and the guidance of skilled technicians in an easily approachable manner. It aimed to create a bottom-up environment where a student, under faculty guidance and with an idea, could utilise the facilities and expertise, whether for academic or even extracurricular purposes. However, through its Microfactory Projects Initiative, it also offered opportunities to those without an idea by connecting them to faculty-floated projects, attempting to give students an initial push. The Microfactory’s role was not that of a traditional research centre, but rather that of a central facility which could provide the right tools, supervision, and most of all an encouraging environment for new ideas to flourish. Yet, it was understood by the originators of this initiative that extending such opportunities to all students would require more, and this very realisation gave rise to perhaps one of the most unique experiments at IITB: the MS101 course.

As the most visible and ambitious part of the initiative, MS101 aimed to extend itself beyond a simple curriculum update. The goal, rather, was to connect deeply with the student experience itself and instil in them a sense of joy and accomplishment through innovation and creation. Prof. Varun Bhalerao, former professor-in-charge of Makerspace, expressed this aspiration well, hoping students would return from their first-semester break excited to tell their friends, “Look what I made in my first-year course!”

More important, however, was the acknowledgement of the branch issue at IITB. “At IITB, the branch you enter is often more a function of your JEE rank than of genuine choice,” Prof. Varun Bhalerao remarked. “But the real breakthroughs in the world are interdisciplinary. Your rank does not determine your fate; you have the brains to do anything.” Not all branches offer the same level of technical exposure and opportunities, and MS101 seeks to bridge this very gap by providing a common foundation of technical skills and the confidence that comes from building something tangible. Prof. Bhalerao likens the course to a “sampler platter at a restaurant,” aiming for preliminary exposure rather than expertise, in order to maximise opportunities for students to pursue what caught their interest, be it through research projects, advanced courses, tech teams, or even Microfactory initiatives.

As ambitious as its goals were, however, even its makers understood that the course would need to go through multiple iterations before it could achieve the perfect balance between practicality and innovation. The perpetually changing nature of the course lends it credibility and ensures its relevance, but it also ends up being the chink in its armour, particularly when viewed through the lens of student experiences.

Curiosity to Confusion

When it comes to practice, the outcomes have been somewhat of a mixed bag for most of the students. The experience, which typically begins with enthusiasm and curiosity, has at times devolved into frustration and perplexity. There has been a fairly significant and troubling gap between what the ambitious plans and goals were and what the actual on-ground implementation entails.

The most major point of debate and contention is the central group project in the course that begins taking shape post the mid-semester exams. The project makes up most of the latter half of the semester, contributing a crucial amount of weightage to the final grade as well. It is the key element that differentiates this course from most other first-year courses and aims to inculcate the application of theoretical concepts among students.

The project has seen several iterations since the beginning of this course in Autumn 2022. While the first two semesters comprised the building of a line-follower bot from scratch, which, though fairly simple, helped students steadily apply concepts in practice, it was followed by the Universal Testing Machine (UTM) in the next semester and subsequently by the creation of a drone and its various components, such as the joystick, in the following semesters.

This brings us to the very theme of the course, where experimentation is inevitable every semester. Insight notes, however, that the outcome of these changes often results in uneven execution, with the course struggling to strike the right balance between learning and approachability.

The UTM project, particularly, felt like a mammoth task in comparison to the previous projects, as it demanded design, fabrication, and code integration along with a deep understanding of topics to achieve a decent result. The goal was to help students learn a wide range of new concepts and maximize their learning, which it did achieve to some extent. Yet, for many, the experience quickly became overwhelming due to the complexity, especially since, for many, this was their first experience with robotics. Without a strong fundamental base, compounded by the lack of constructive feedback and the frequent unpreparedness or unresponsiveness of TAs, the project became nightmarish for some groups. The final outcomes were ultimately a potpourri: while students undoubtedly expanded their conceptual horizons and gained valuable experience working under pressure, many were left extremely exhausted and even disheartened when their efforts did not bear fruit.

On the other hand, the simplified drone, introduced as a new twist to fascinate students and capture their attention through the idea of flight, also saw mixed results. In efforts to make it accessible, the projects saw a significant dilution of learning.

A student recalled, “It felt like we were just following a simple recipe to reach the goal. Everything was so easy that, in the end, success seemed to depend entirely on luck on the final day.” 

Students were provided with detailed instructions for every step, from coding and calibrating sensors to final assembly, leaving little scope for independent problem-solving. In trying to make the project manageable, the core values of innovation and creativity were compromised. Since even students without a strong grasp of concepts could assemble the drone, success often became a matter of chance on the given day, with little to distinguish one drone from another. The drone project continued into the following two semesters as well, with attempts to introduce slight complexity and variation in order to foster deeper learning.

Prof. Kushal Tuckley acknowledged that finding the right balance in allotted projects is a continuous process, i.e., ensuring that the project promotes learning while remaining a fun exercise rather than a source of stress. Yet, the question persists as to when this balance may truly be achieved, so that execution becomes more even and students do not feel disadvantaged in terms of knowledge or experience compared to their peers. It remains to be seen how the course evolves further, and when the elusive balance between practicality, creativity, and inclusivity will finally be attained.

Another frequently discussed and recurring criticism of the Makerspace course is the breadth of subjects and topics it attempts to cover. In the rush to push students into building and working on their projects, the fundamentals are often compromised. Students are introduced to topics only at a surface level and are provided with tools to solve problems, but without deeper grounding. While this rush and methodology are understandable, given that the project is ultimately the most defining part of the course and what sets it apart, students are often left bewildered about how they arrived at certain conclusions, leading them to resort to blind acceptance. This highlights a critical issue: without a solid grounding in fundamentals, students struggle to internalise and rationalise their learning.

Insight emphasises that fundamentals are not ornamental aspects of learning; they form the foundation of understanding. They help students not only grasp what is being taught but also appreciate the reasoning behind it. This goes beyond simply supporting learning, and in an era where AI can solve most routine problems, a strong foundation becomes the need of the hour. Those who understand the basics well are better equipped to use these tools effectively and thoughtfully, which is valuable both in research and in industry.

The reason for this shortfall is not too difficult to identify either: there’s simply too much to teach in too little time. The program’s ambition clashes head-on with the constraints of the semester, with weekly hours of lectures and labs piling up into an extremely exhausting workload. Early weeks can feel unnecessarily meandering, only for the post-midsem stretch to become a cramped mess, showcasing the uneven execution.

Perhaps the most glaring flaw, however, is the lack of coordination between the theory and the labs. 

“More often than not, in the mechanical labs, we were asked to work practically on topics we hadn’t even been taught yet,” remarked a student in frustration.

The result is a room full of confused students, fumbling through tasks not as an attempt at discovery but rather as a desperate race to complete checklists and secure marks from TAs, who themselves are frequently unable to help them. The disconnect between what is taught and what is practised leaves students with the sense that they are neither mastering fundamentals nor genuinely applying them during the semester.

The guidance provided by teaching assistants often compounds these difficulties. Their support has been observed to be unpredictable, an inconsistency that is far from a minor inconvenience. Not only do a large number of TAs lack the expertise to guide students effectively, but deficiencies in communication skills, as well as a lack of willingness and motivation to support students, are also common. TAs frequently leave questions unanswered, leading to a sense of distrust in the student–TA relationship, and slacking on their part is not an unusual occurrence. In a course where a single malfunctioning component can derail an entire project, the absence of proper guidance has led to situations where a group’s project fails, directly impacting their grade despite their sincere efforts.

This very sense of helplessness is further heightened by frequent inequitable distribution, with some students freeloading while others carry the bulk of the workload. Less discussed, however, is the additional mental burden female students repeatedly shoulder in these often male-dominated groups due to demographic imbalances.

A female student shared, “In my group, the male students relegated me and the other female students to the ‘softer’ tasks, while they took on leadership, made technical decisions, and even held meetings in their hostels without us.” 

This isn’t an isolated incident but a common experience, and while Insight acknowledges that it reflects broader cultural patterns rather than a problem unique to the course, it is an aspect that deserves acknowledgment and attention within the course.

Although many professors do personally take the initiative to reach out to students and gather feedback during the course itself to address issues of such kinds, given the reluctance of first-year students to be forthcoming about their issues in an unfamiliar environment, the existing informal mechanisms reveal significant gaps. The introduction of formal peer reviews and in-semester feedback mechanisms could potentially address pressing concerns during the semester itself, enabling improvements to be made when they matter most.

The result of these situations ultimately contributes to the souring of the student experience in this course. Insight observes that what is intended to be the beginning of a transformative journey ends up feeling like an obligation for most students. As one of the first things students encounter at IITB and their initial experience with robotics, this negative aftertaste makes them averse to pursuing these topics further, even if they might otherwise find them interesting. To truly achieve the visionary goals it was conceptualised with and exert the influence it deserves, the course must reach a steady state soon and shed the perception of being a mere box-ticking exercise.

Gearing Up for the Future

Despite its setbacks and inevitable complaints, the future of Makerspace and its initiatives appears promising. It will soon enter its third phase as a central hub in the newly constructed Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship (DSSE) building, envisioned to house specialised thematic labs across domains, with the ambition, as described by Professor Bhalerao, to let students “walk in with an idea and walk out with a prototype.” The aim, Professor Suhas Joshi adds, is to enable students to transform ideas into reality, particularly in their entrepreneurial ventures, through the facilities provided. The model’s influence is already visible: now, as the Director of IIT Indore, Professor Joshi successfully implemented a similar initiative there within just six months.

While forward-looking vision and planning are crucial steps, it is equally important to refine the present so that its stakeholders, i.e., the students, remain genuinely connected to the project. While undeniably one of IITB’s boldest attempts to reimagine engineering education, its core tension lies in the paradox of trying to mass-produce an experience that is, by nature, personal and creative. As the first batch of students under this curriculum graduates soon, it remains to be seen how this experiment matures, adapts and continues to shape the learning experience at IITB.