By CYRUS ENGELSMAN

Sophomore Deacon Carreon stares at a sign made by the librarians that says, “THE LAB”.  Each letter of the sign is meant to represent a different piece of technology available for students to use in the Maker Lab at Redlands East Valley High School. (CYRUS ENGELSMAN/ Ethic News photo)  

The Redlands East Valley High School has had a few recent additions on campus, renovating and updating the library, including a new Maker Lab.  

The Maker Lab is a new area filled with technology to help benefit and to inspire creative passion for students.  The Lab is managed by head librarian Korrie Krohne, who was excited to finally be able to show off the Maker Lab.

The Lab is equipped with sewing machines, cricket machines, arts and crafts supplies, fifteen cameras, and 3D printers and scanners.  

The new Maker Lab had been in preparation and construction stages since 2019 and had it soft opening in the Fall of 2021 with a few events.

Krohne said, “I am so thrilled to have the space available to students. When we came back from Winter Break this year, all the scaffolding and other parts of the renovation were out of the way, and we can now use the lab the way it was meant to be used.”

Redlands East Valley High School junior Josh Burdick adds strings to a face mask he recently created in the new Maker Lab in the school’s media center as Korrie Krohne, teacher-librarian, guides him and other students.  Adding strings is one of the final steps of the face mask making process.   (CYRUS ENGELSMAN/ Ethic News photo)

To counteract large amounts of students from overcrowding the area, students have to sign up in advance to use the lab.  There are a variety of ways to sign up for the maker lab: the library tab on the schools webpage can bring up a form for personal projects, teachers can sign up the entire class to do a lab, and the librarian-led labs that students can sign up for.  

Librarian-led labs can be a variety of activities. The first of which was face mask making, students from all grades came together to create their own masks to make and keep.  When the second librarian-led lab was announced in December of 2021, students created their own Christmas ornaments.

Senior Amira Carthell sews her face mask together with the help of librarians at Redlands East Valley High School. This is the first step to the face mask making process.   (CYRUS ENGELSMAN/ Ethic News photo)

Krohne plans to have many more maker lab events in the future.

“I intend to run labs using the different lab equipment both after school and during lunch,” said Krohne. “Additionally, starting in the month of March, I plan on opening the lab one day a week during lunch time to support what people need–if they are working on a project they can come up on that day and use supplies available to them in the lab.”

Korrie Krohne, head librarian at Redlands East Valley High School, demonstrates how to use a sewing machine to the participating students.  The machines were used for students to sew face masks together and take home.  (CYRUS ENGELSMAN/ Ethic News photo)