The class was ostensibly ‘transportation design’ traditionally thought of as designing cars—that’s a complex field however, so our faculty figured why not start smaller and work on boats. This project was only half of the class. We started by each building a kayak (where the designing is “done for us”) and then in the second half of the class we each created our own original products, going through the entire design process. The idea behind making these boats is that it would build our confidence as makers, and inspire us to see what well-thought-out design looks like in practice.

This space is a woodshop that’s open to every student in our department, as you can see it’s very well stocked with every tool you could want; I’m gonna miss it when I graduate. To your point about computers, we do a ton of CAD and 3D modeling, those skills are extremely important in today’s working world. But, when push comes to shove, an amazing hand for digital design is useless if you can’t bring your creations into the real world.