Do you know the manufacturing facility, “WASEDA Monodukuri Kobo” located on the first floor of Building No. 61 at the Nishi-WASEDA Campus? It has a sewing machine to stitch images to be imported into a PC and a power drill, offering an environment for manufacturing, regardless of whether students study the humanities or science. An electric pottery furnace that can be used indoors has also been recently installed. Usually, students of the Mechanical Engineering Department produce robots, while female students sew clothes.

I serve as the student representative of the Monodukuri Kobo Utilization Promotion Project and plan events so that many students can use the facility. We have so far sponsored events to create “Tsuru Seijin” made of paper cranes and “Habura-mushi,” a running toothbrush head with an electric motor. In addition to such hands-on events, we hosted an exhibition called, “Monodukuri Geijutsusai” (Manufacturing Art Festival) involving pottery, manual arts, and railway study clubs, and going forward, we plan to develop projects to approach manufacturing from diverse perspectives including lecture meetings with artisans.

I am personally participating in the “WASEDA Monodukuri Program,” jointly sponsored by Monodukuri Kobo and ROHM Co., Ltd. and am in the process of producing an “aroma watch” combining an aroma diffuser and alarm clock. I’m majoring in electricity at the department and didn’t have any chance to disassemble machines or build electronic pieces. When I actually do it, it turns out to be very interesting because I can gain knowledge about electricity I learned theoretically. With little knowledge of manufacturing, office workers and seniors at Monodukuri Kobo will give you detailed and attentive instructions.

Monodukuri Kobo is a stimulating place where you can materialize your own ideas and get acquainted with people from different backgrounds. You can make anything from paper cranes to robots. Why not join us?