By Ken Stone ‘72,

Director of the
Hobby Shop (1991 to present)

 In the 1937-38 academic year, Vannevar Bush, then Vice President of MIT, granted a group of 16 MIT students permission to use a room in the basement of building 2. With equipment they found around the Institute they set up a wood and metal shop in the 16-foot by 22-foot area. The club members chose the name “Hobby Shop” based on their belief in the philosophy that the well rounded individual pursued interests outside their profession - hobbies. 

For MIT students, hobbies involved making things, and with their imaginations and talents, a well equipped shop opened up limitless possibilities. The original Hobby Shop constitution stated that the shop was only to be used by students for non-academic work. The shop operated as a club with a student foreman and members starting as apprentices and progressing to journeymen and finally master craftsmen.

During World War II a staff shop master was hired to instruct students and maintain the machinery. The first shop master, Joe Macalister, worked only until the end of the war when Bob McCadden took over. Starting in his early twenties, Bob remained shop master until he retired in 1972. During this time the shop expanded several times and finally moved to its current location in the basement of W31, formerly a World War I armory, on the corner of Vassar Street and
Massachusetts Avenue.

Membership was expanded to
faculty, staff, alumni and their spouses. While wood and metal remained, many other hobbies were added, later spinning off as separate clubs - electronics, photography, printing, and throwing pots to name a few.

By the time I arrived at MIT
as a student in 1968, the formal club aspects had been lost. There was no student shop foreman or member classifications given, but the shop was still busy. The printing press had been given to APO, potting was now in Student Art, but there was still a black and white darkroom along with the wood and metal shop. George Pishenin, a technician in Material Science Department and long time shop member, took over in 1972 as Director. Eventually, the darkroom was removed for space and because Student Art had a better facility.

In 1991, Pishenin retired
and I took over as only the fourth shop master and the first who was also a MIT graduate. During my time as director, the Hobby Shop has expanded its mission to meet the needs of a new generation of students. MIT had many shops when I was a student at MIT, including student shops in all engineering and many science departments. Most of these shops had been closed by
1990 and the ones that remained focused on work for specific classes. At the same time, secondary schools were closing shops and sending fewer students to MIT with hands-on experience.

Today, the Hobby Shop
provides a place for any MIT student, regardless of major or experience, to work with a wide range of well maintained machines and tools and to receive instruction, as well as practical design and building advice.

Projects can be academic or
personal, serious or just for fun. The Hobby Shop now offers its own classes and collaborates with the faculty in many departments to provide their students with shop facilities and instruction for building projects. In 2006, the program expanded with the addition of another full-time instructor, Hayami
Arakawa.