News
Michael Buffalin IV

Making at RIT has hit a new level now that several makerspaces in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) have opened to provide students access to equipment and support for classwork, club advancement, and personal projects.

The SHED, touted as the new heartbeat of campus, makes its Imagine RIT debut this year. This multi-use facility embodies RIT's blend of technology, the arts, and design, offering a vibrant hub for creativity, interdisciplinary learning, and innovative performances year-round.

RIT’s makerspace capacity has grown exponentially from a crowded room on the fourth floor in an engineering building to three floors in the centrally located SHED. New last fall, the SHED complex showcases different kinds of making and learning under one roof—in workshops, performing arts spaces, and extra-large classrooms designed for active learning.

Come explore inside the SHED (Student Hall for Exploration and Development) during an open house for the RIT community.

With its five extra-large classrooms, seven makerspaces, performing arts studios, and glass box theater, the $120 million SHED complex is made for a new generation of RIT students who see themselves as makers and doers, performers, and active learners.

Meet Gabe Carson, a third-year computing and information technologies major from Williamsport, Pa., who works at the SHED information booth.

RIT’s Launch Initiative won first place in the Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge this summer in Las Cruces, N.M. They were among nearly 6,000 students from 159 international collegiate teams at the annual competition that challenges students to launch solid, liquid, or hybrid rockets to altitudes of 10,000 and 30,000 feet.

In only a few weeks, the SHED will open to the RIT community, and Tiffany Brodner is preparing for her new role overseeing the multi-use facility.

Tiffany Brodner was named RIT’s inaugural executive director of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED), following a national search. She assumed her new position in April. She will work closely with Michael Buffalin IV, who was appointed director of RIT’s makerspace within the SHED.

Nearly 70 different RIT student teams and clubs are poised to move into the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) this summer in preparation for the building’s official opening in the fall semester.

How do you teach students to use scientific instrumentation when a pandemic forces classes online and the students have no access to the usual lab or analytic equipment? Adjunct Professor Bruce Kahn found a creative solution this spring while teaching an experimental techniques class.

Many RIT faculty, students, staff and alumni are among the collaborations here and across the nation, providing expertise to improve or create much-needed equipment and protective gear for medical personnel fighting the Coronavirus.