Espaço Plasma, headquarters of the Spontaneous Student Projects Program (PE²), was inaugurated this Friday (20). The building has coworking environments, a recording studio and a maker space with equipment to enable the development of ideas and creations by Unicamp students. Operation, while the health restrictions imposed by the pandemic remain, allows access to the coworking space, where there is good quality internet, adequate ventilation and all protocols to ensure security.
Professor Gabriela Celani, advisor to the rectory, explains that Plasma is designed to enrich students' academic training. “It contributes to the training of people who will be able to get their hands dirty and helps to train people who take more risks in doing things”, she says. In the building, she assesses, students will also be able to develop ideas outside the classroom. Furthermore, by enabling the meeting of students from different areas, the environment will encourage interdisciplinary and collaborative integration around projects.
Innovative space
During the inauguration ceremony, the rector of Unicamp, Marcelo Knobel, recalled the collective effort of the Plasma coordinator and the students involved in building the space. The desire, according to the rector, is for the place to be completely managed and organized by students and to be able to operate 24 hours a day, every day of the week and to be so successful that it can be replicated in other places inside and outside Unicamp.
“As someone who has visited many universities, I can say that I have never seen a space like this. It is innovative and different and will, I am sure, be a national and international reference,” he stated.
Operation according to Safe Coexistence
Due to limitations due to the new coronavirus pandemic, for now only the coworking space will be open, from Monday to Friday, from 7am to 19pm. “For the Unicamp community, it is a new space option with good ventilation, good lighting, good internet and as students begin to return to campus they have a place where they can work, avoiding crowds. We give people an additional option”, says Gabriela.
The Plasma Space is located in the former Plasma Laboratory of the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (Avenida Albert Einstein, 851). The place was renovated following accessibility standards and has the capacity to accommodate 200 people. In this first phase of opening, due to security protocols, up to 52 people will be allowed, distributed between the external coworking space and pantry. The maker space, with printing3D machines, laser cutting machines, CNC milling machines and other equipment are not yet approved for use.
Spontaneous projects
Plasma is part of the Spontaneous Student Projects Program (PE²), which was created by the University Council in 2019 to foster innovation and autonomy among students. "The spontaneous projects program is to have this space for students where students from different courses can work on projects. The idea is to bring together students from different areas and bring innovation, contributing to differentiated training”, explains the professor at the Institute of Computing and PE² coordinator, Juliana Borin.
The PE² team is also made up of student committees, which are open to the participation ofundergraduate and postgraduate students. If you are interested in collaborating, access the form. In addition to having its headquarters at Espaço Plasma, PE² intends for new maker spaces to emerge within Unicamp in the future.
Find out more about the history of Space in Felipe Mateus’ report:
