Dougherty Station Library and San Ramon Arts Foundation Open 3D-Printing and Laser-Cutter Makerspace in Bollinger Canyon

Librarians with the Contra Costa County Library and board members from the City of San Ramon Parks and Community Services Department inaugurated a 1,100-square-foot Community Fabrication and Digital Makerspace on Saturday evening inside the Dougherty Station Library at 17011 Bollinger Canyon Road in San Ramon. Located adjacent to the Dougherty Station Community Arts Center and Diablo Valley College's San Ramon campus, the glass-walled studio provides cardholders aged twelve and older with free hands-on access to rapid-prototyping tools previously available only in university engineering labs.

Inside the ventilated fabrication bay, library technology specialists commissioned six enclosed Prusa Core One filament 3D printers, two 60-watt CO2 desktop laser cutters with three-stage HEPA and activated-carbon fume extractors, and four programmable Brother digital embroidery and vinyl-cutting stations. High school FIRST Robotics mentors and retired Valley engineers staff the room on Tuesday evenings and Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM to verify CAD file tolerances and supervise machine safety orientations.

Alongside the mechanical fabrication tools, two electronics workbenches offer digital oscilloscopes, hot-air soldering stations, and Arduino and Raspberry Pi microcontroller starter kits for middle and high school science fair projects. Cardholders pay only at-cost fees of five cents per gram for biodegradable PLA filament or birch plywood blanks.

The $175,000 studio buildout was funded jointly through the San Ramon Library Foundation, Contra Costa County Library Innovation grants, and corporate STEM donations. Residents can book a thirty-minute equipment orientation badge session or reserve a 3D printer slot online through the Contra Costa County Library Dougherty Station Portal.