UWG's The Garage Makerspace Has Become the Place for Everyone to Live Out Their Creativity Share this page
No matter if you're a student or a resident of the Carrollton community, there’s always something special for people to take part in at the University of West Georgia. One of these amazing opportunities includes The Garage Makerspace – an eventful place where innovation and creativity come to life.
Created by Witt Teem, the Garage combines workshops and community engagement. Teem was inspired to create a makerspace out of his experience of participating in one during his time at Berry College. During his undergraduate journey, he helped students with their projects by utilizing the makerspace’s tools and machines. Ultimately, he was able to bring this idea to UWG.
What he loves most about The Garage is how it has impacted students’ abilities to create their own projects, either for themselves or for class projects.
“What makes The Garage interesting, special and purposeful is that we have students coming in who work on projects, use the machines to be creative and inspire others to do the same,” he said. “I’m often pleased to see students working on something, which then often kind of becomes a conversation about why they’re learning, what they’re learning and what they're trying to accomplish.”
Many people such as UWG students and people of the community take part in what the Garage has to offer – and according to Teem, it’s built on a philosophy of purpose. Teem is always open to learning about what people need and how it can shape their lives both personally and creatively. That purpose streams into other UWG-affiliated activities, such as Winter West Wonderland and Safe Treat, as well as organizations such as the Alumni Association. Along with this, the many workshops and events that Teem holds for the makerspace show how impactful it has become over the years.
“You can’t just always have the philosophy ready,” Teem said. “You must start doing outreach and start offering people the hands of opportunities. [I] had to change the philosophy for a bit and find what the needs are.”
With how successful The Garage has become, the focus now is to continue building in the space, such as adding in new machines and establishing a better design philosophy. Teem does receive help from his lab assistant, who completed an amazing project on creating an acoustic guitar from the ground up. Teem is also looking forward to collaborating with the designs for Winter West, possibly his biggest project yet.
As he continues to welcome new people into his makerspace, he’s giving himself the ability to learn about everyone’s ideas, creativity and most importantly their needs.
“We’re continuing to change, adapt and continue to find what’s needed,” Teem said. “Different people come in with different things, and we found creative ways of accomplishing that.”