Just off Pine Street and Sears Lane in Burlington’s South End Arts District sits a black building with a large colorful mural adorned across the front, and the word “generator” fixed to the corner in orange letters. Sharing a small side road with a furniture store, a lighting design space, an art gallery, and an auto repair shop, Generator fits perfectly beside these otherwise disparate locales. From the moment you set foot inside the space, you immediately see why. Vibrant sculptures, large dreamy blue photographs, soon-to-be sculpted wooden blocks, and brilliant dancing electronic diodes fill the bright, welcoming setting – it’s a creator’s playhouse, and soon it will be re-opened for UVM student creators. 

Returning in the fall semester for the first time since pre-pandemic, Generator and University of Vermont have partnered to provide 15 UVM interest group students with 10-month memberships along with training on two rapid prototyping machines.

“We’d been offering Generator memberships to UVM students for many years, pre-pandemic,” says Dan Harvey, Director of Operations for UVM’s Office of Research and Generator’s Board President. “We learned there were many UVM students interested in making and maker spaces but weren’t eligible to use UVM’s existing maker spaces. Generator became the destination for those students.”

Students will have the opportunity to join the Makerspace as members and use the space to empower their own ideas, and work collaboratively with artists and industry professionals to make their ideas a reality. 

Each of the 22 studio spaces are divided with low partitions offering both separate space and the invitation to collaborate with fellow artists, engineers, and designers in an open setting. The studio spaces are bookended with state-of-the-art machinery – heavy-duty saws in the wood shop, drill presses and compressors in the metal shop, lapidary equipment in the jewelry studio, digital oscilloscopes in the electronics lab, and laser cutters and 3D printers – all available for members to use to bring their ideas to life.

“Generator is a community space that thrives on a diversity of thinkers, doers, and makers,” says Generator Director Meg Hammond. "Having UVM students join our community brings a new perspective and a refreshing energy to the space. Hosting people of all ages in this type of creative space spawns new & exciting interdisciplinary collaborations at the intersection of art, tech, engineering, and entrepreneurship.”

The space is designed for creators from absolute beginners to proficient designers and everywhere in between. Artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and hobbyists are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity for the next year.

Applicants must be enrolled currently at UVM and in good standing, in their 2nd, 3rd or 4th year, 18+ years old, and a member of a Career Interest Group. More information on the space and membership eligibility can be found here.