Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub to build ‘mobile makerspace’ for students

Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, a Little Rock-based nonprofit aimed at helping startup companies, will soon open a “mobile makerspace” to provide hands-on technical education to K-12 students throughout the state.

With the help of a $50,000 grant from the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation, the Hub will convert a trailer into a traveling workshop for STEM-related education, according to an email newsletter from the Hub.

The vehicle will mostly travel to schools, community centers and libraries within underserved areas across the state, in an effort to better prepare the students for post-secondary education and the workforce, according to the newsletter.

“The King Foundation’s generous support will allow us to bring our tools, technology and programs to rural communities through our Mobile Makerspace project,” State Rep. Warwick Sabin (D-Little Rock), executive director of the Hub, said in the newsletter. “This will exponentially increase our impact and the number of people we can serve.”

The Hub opened a 20,000-square-foot facility in Little Rock earlier this year.

Aimed at serving the entrepreneurial community, the facility contains equipment for a wide array of disciplines, including nine Mac computers, 25 HP laptops, eight 3-D printers, lasers, computers, flat screen TVs, soldering equipment and prototype materials, in addition to saws, routers, drills, ceramics equipment, easels and inking tables.