Welcome to The Hatchery
When Sarah Ryan ’26 was a sophomore, she moved into an eight-person suite with an attached kitchenette, and found herself in need of a cutting board. Instead of heading to a store or clicking “Add to cart,” Ryan walked across campus to The Hatchery, Boston College’s state-of-the-art makerspace, and made one herself. Two years later, the rectangular board, crafted from solid walnut using a CNC router, is still in regular use, and the list of projects Ryan has completed continues to grow: from 3-D printed door stops and vases, to crocheted hats and beach bags, to a stained-glass rendition of Gasson Hall.
“I keep saying that, aside from living with my best friends, this is probably the thing I’m going to miss most about BC,” said Ryan, a human-centered engineering major, in an interview during the spring semester. “If I’m not in class or in my dorm, I’m at The Hatchery.”
A small makerspace once existed in the basement of Higgins Hall, but The Hatchery, which opened in 2022, is palatial by comparison. Spread across two floors in 245 Beacon Street, it houses just about every kind of machine and tool imaginable. There’s a fleet of 3-D printers (some smaller than a coffee maker, some larger than a minifridge), laser and vinyl cutters, a full woodshop, sewing area, screen printing equipment, and a water jet that can cut through titanium. Everything, including materials, is free for any student, faculty, or staff member to use, provided they complete the necessary training.
“We assume that everybody walking into this space for the first time has no prior experience,” said Lucas Ewing, The Hatchery’s design and prototyping manager. “I know some people are nervous if they don’t already know how to use the tools, but this is a school, it’s a place of learning. You can come here, make mistakes, learn from them, and take that knowledge with you.”
The Hatchery's second floor sewing area. Photo: Caitlin Cunningham
Last year, more than 2,500 students used The Hatchery, nearly a sixth of the entire student body. Many were engineering, computer science, and art majors, who attend class in the prototyping studio or use the space to work on projects. Others came in to design merchandise for their clubs or bands, print posters for their dorm room walls, or use the sewing machines to upcycle vintage clothing. One student spent an entire year crafting a wooden stringed instrument, slightly smaller than a guitar; another spent a few hours designing and 3-D printing a towel hanger for his bathroom.
“There are people who come in with the most creative ideas,” said Ryan, who is one of 48 yellow-aproned student employees who work at The Hatchery, helping peers with projects and training them to use machines. “If I don’t know the answer to a question I’ll encourage them to just try things out. Try it, tweak it, try again—it’s a nice low-pressure situation compared to so many other things in life.”
Sarah Ryan ’26 helps a classmate use the CNC router during a recent shift at The Hatchery. Photo: Matthew Healey
When Lucas Schmidt and Leonard Alsleben of the Class of 2026 had an idea to start a company selling travel medical kits, their first stop was The Hatchery, where Alsleben spent an afternoon in the sewing studio making their first prototype: a compact navy blue zippered bag with an embroidered logo. The pair brought the bag to their first elevator pitch, held next door at the Shea Center for Entrepreneurship, where they secured funding to launch Wohlsein, which means “well-being” in German (both Schmidt and Alsleben were born in Germany). After months of back-and-forth with manufacturers, their Weekender bag is now selling steadily on Amazon, and Schmidt and Alsleben are considering adding a second product.
Lucas Schmidt and Leonard Alsleben, founders of Wohlsein. Photo: Matthew Healey
“The Hatchery is such a great resource for entrepreneurship,” Alsleben said recently. “If you have an idea, you can come here and make it—it’s a great way to have something tangible that you can show potential investors.”
Unlike makerspaces at technical colleges or art schools, The Hatchery isn’t designed for a specific type of student. From the outset, its mission has been to foster a culture of collaboration, and to be a space where a student studying sculpture and another studying physical computing can work side by side. Its glass walls and open door policy encourage eavesdropping (even when classes are in session, students often wander in and out to work on projects).
“When I was in elementary school, it was very much ‘Keep your eyes on your own page. If you look at anything that anybody else is doing that's cheating,’ but here it's very much the opposite,” said Ewing. “We’re all about the cross-pollination of ideas: look at what other people are doing and use that to build your own projects up further.”
Most of the projects created in The Hatchery are tangible items, like turned wooden bowls or screen-printed tote bags, but digital making is now supported as well. This spring marked the launch of a new Digital Prototyping Studio where community members can learn to use a range of design software, including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Figma (used in web design), and Fusion and Blender (for designing 3-D models). BC students, faculty, and staff can sign up for free training sessions and then use the studio’s powerful computers to practice their skills.
Whether it’s digital tools or a bedazzler, “we’re always adding stuff,” laughed Erik Winkler ’25, The Hatchery’s communications coordinator, “there's so much gadgetry here, it's crazy.” This past year, the makerspace has also ramped up its event calendar, offering workshops and open houses for students who want to learn a new skill or just take a creative study break. Not everyone has the time or desire to build an instrument from scratch, Winkler reasoned, but who wouldn’t enjoy the occasional evening with friends making stained glass art, or laser cutting stamps for custom stationery?
“As a student it can be hard to find time to do things that you're passionate about outside of academics,” said Winkler, “but I think it would be a shame for someone to leave BC without ever walking in here. There are so many resources, so much knowledge—and all you have to do is ask for it.”