On Wednesday, Bowdoin’s Maker Space partnered with the Dining Service to transform 3D-printed creations into edible treats. From a scarf-wearing polar bear to a snail, students rolled, cut and decorated cookies to be served in Thorne Hall.

The event was the culmination of the Maker Space’s first cookie cutter design competition, bringing together two seldom-connected corners of campus and inviting students to engage with the people and processes behind both.

David Israel, who runs the Maker Space, conceived the competition after hosting the Dining Service employees at the Maker Space and discovering software that converts drawings into printable cookie cutters.

“We’re always looking for new things to do with the technology and the Maker Space,” Israel said. “There’s a lot of new software out there that just turns drawings into cookie cutters.”

Israel collaborated with the Dining Service to bring student designs from Jewett Hall into Thorne Hall’s kitchen, allowing participants to see their work take shape beyond the printer.

“You can see yourself going from nothing to … something that you can feel with your hands,” Israel said.

For student instructor Arlette Mutabazi ’29, the competition also challenged perceptions of the Maker Space as an exclusively technical environment.

“I feel like there could be some sense of, ‘Oh, the Maker Space is so technical,’” Mutabazi said. “But I feel like … whether you like technology, whether you are a visual arts type of person, whether you like fashion, there is always something that you can do and make in this space.”

Dabin Kim ’30 designed a cutter depicting President Safa Zaki’s face with help from student instructor Rachel Li ’29, following a suggestion from friends.

“I was walking out of Thorne, passed the Maker Space, and wanted to design a cookie cutter,” Kim said. “My friends were like, ‘You should make Safa Zaki’s face,’ [and] I thought, ‘That’s a great idea.’ So, I went in there and spent 15 minutes making the cookie cutter.”

At Thorne, the designs encountered the practical demands of baking. Head Baker Sarah Coppola welcomed students into the upstairs bake shop, where some designs proved more difficult to translate into dough than others.

“Some of the designs, [in terms of] pressing them into the cookie dough, weren’t thought out, because it’s not something you normally use a 3D printer for,” Coppola said. “It cut off some of the shoulders on some of them, like Safa Zaki’s, but that’s something we know to fix going forward.”

For Israel, this reflected an essential part of experimentation.

“One of the things that’s important and exciting about a Maker Space is that you make a lot of mistakes,” Israel said. “It’s a place where you can fail.”

Valentina Urquizo Rodriguez ’30, who chose to attend after seeing a poster, appreciated the community found through baking.

“It was so much better because I [didn’t] know anyone,” Urquizo Rodriguez said. “It’s been so friendly … I felt like part of the dining hall.”

The collaboration also introduced students to the people and spaces behind the meals they eat every day in the dining hall.

“A lot of students don’t actually realize that the Bake Shop exists on the second floor,” Coppola said. “They come upstairs, [and they’re] like, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is where my muffins are made! I had no idea this is up here.’”

Ryan Miller, executive director of dining and retail services, and Robert St. Laurent, Thorne Hall’s culinary manager, saw the partnership as an opportunity to highlight a less visible campus resource.

“Many other departments on campus, like the Maker Space, are much smaller and don’t see the same foot traffic that Dining does,” Miller and St. Laurent wrote in a joint email to the Orient. “This collaboration allows us to shine a light on their work as well as the creativity of our students.”

The competition builds on the Maker Space’s expanded programming this semester, including themed crafting nights.

The finished cookies made their way from Thorne Hall’s Bake Shop to the dining hall below on Wednesday, bringing the creativity of student designers and dining staff to the Bowdoin community.