The Maker Lab is offering instrument building workshops for $20 on certain Saturdays this year.

The first workshop will be Saturday, Nov. 10 from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the Maker Lab. The Strum Stick workshop will be the first in a series of instrumental workshops offered.

Darren Wilson, director of the Maker Lab, said the first workshop had a limit of ten applicants and has already reached capacity.

“The goal is for everyone to finish it in that day and we think everyone will be able to finish,” Wilson said. “We are trying to keep the price low enough to where ACU students can afford it. So they can go home with something nice and the price isn’t going to keep anyone for participating.”

Students who attend the Strum Stick workshop will learn how to design the parts of the instrument in Adobe Illustrator before cutting out the parts with a laser cutter and CNC router. They will then glue the parts together and assemble the strings and frets, being taught how to tune the instrument before they take it home.

Wilson said the idea for the workshop came from a recent partnership with Chai Green, digital design specialist for the library.

“He’s a woodworker and an inventor,” Wilson said. “He and I bounced ideas together. We came up with the idea because he’s always wanting to build stuff and we’ve got a lot of people that have expressed interest in doing some one-day workshops.”

The Maker Lab will host more instrument building workshops, continuing the series in the spring. Wilson said they are planning on other instruments such as wooden Native American flutes and small, stringed banjos. However, the workshops will be set at a very limited enrollment.

“It’s just one-day builds,” Wilson said. “So it’s something that somebody can come in, can start at 9 a.m. and by the time they leave in the afternoon they’ll have a completed instrument they’ve made.”