Rosemary Chesney, Campus Carrier arts and living editor

The Creative Technology (CRT) department opened a new Hackberry lab building last March. This lab is not only open to creative technology students but also to any student for academic or personal use. While the old building is still in use, the new building doubled the size of Hackberry labs, providing a variety of new opportunities for students. 

One major benefit of the new lab building is that it allows students to claim a personalized workspace and leave projects there overnight, rather than having to take them back to their dorms. The lab, which is located behind Morgan and Deerfield, has open lab hours between 6 pm to 12 am Monday through Friday. Zayn Cochran is the director of Hackberry lab and teaches various courses in the old building. 

“Hackberry lab is unique in that it’s the one lab on campus where anyone is welcome, both creative technology majors and people who know very little about technology,” Cochran said. “We just want a space where people feel comfortable to be creative and learn.”

Along with a personalized workspace for students, the new lab building provides various new technologies. The old building primarily functions as classroom space, faculty offices, an electronic workspace and crafting workspace. According to student lab director senior Aiden Paul, the new lab building provides an expanded wood workshop, metal workshop and a space to work on automotives.

“Hackberry lab is really beneficial in helping students turn an idea into a reality,” Paul said. “There are a lot of tools, and we can help students build pretty much anything.”

Another advantage of the new lab is that it provides more opportunities to host events for the Berry student body. A few weeks ago, Hackberry lab hosted Rave Berry as a cool way for students to dance and socialize. Later this semester at a date to be determined there will be another Rave Berry, hosted by a CRT class as a class assignment.

Hackberry also hosts Hackthons, which are monthly building competitions. Students who enter these competitions get four hours to build and present an invention to a panel of judges. According to Professor John Grout, who works alongside Cochran in the CRT department, these events would not be available without the new lab building. Cochran, Grout and Christopher Whitmire all teach classes at Hackberry.

“The new lab has given us a great big space to do all kinds of amazing things,” Grout said. “Students like to spread out and clearly enjoy the personal ownership of a spot. I think they really connect with the place.” 

According to Cochran, the atmosphere at Hackberry labs is meant to de-stress students. The lab is filled with bean bag chairs, LED lights and other stuffed animals. There are always at least two lab assistants available, who can be distinguished by their pink shirts. 

“Working on projects can be stressful because our students are literally inventing things that the world has never seen before,” Cochran said. “Therefore, I think the chillness of the lab counteracts some of the stress as the students are inventing the future.”

Cochran described the new Hackberry lab building as a prototype, with adjustments to the space always being encouraged. One challenge with the new building was deciding where to allocate the space to. Another challenge with the new building is that there is twice as much real estate to keep track of. Cochran said that overall, the community aspect is the best factor of the new Hackberry lab.

“It’s not the technology, but the people and community that makes this place valuable,” Cochran said. “Having a place where people feel comfortable sharing and bouncing new ideas off each other to solve interesting problems is really the most important thing for us.”