Hagley Museum Launches FIRST Spark Lab Robotics Maker Space With Marian Mechanics

WILMINGTON, Del. — Hagley Museum and Library is deepening its role as a hub for hands-on innovation with the launch of a new FIRST Spark Lab-style maker space and partnership with local robotics team, The Marian Mechanics, offering students in grades 1–12 a place to design, build, and test robots on Hagley’s historic grounds.

Located in the museum’s 19th-century Power Plant building, the FIRST Spark Lab at Hagley invites young people from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to explore robotics, coding and engineering through cooperative, competition-based challenges known as “coopertition.” The program is part of Hagley’s broader push to put STEAM learning front and center and builds on its “Nation of Inventors” exhibition, which showcases hundreds of historic patent models and celebrates American ingenuity.

The Marian Mechanics, part of the nationwide FIRST® Tech Challenge network, lead the new lab and weekly sessions at Hagley. Their mission is to make high-quality STEM experiences accessible to students from all backgrounds.

“The FIRST Spark Lab was created to provide free and low-cost access to quality STEM materials and programs,” the team explains. “We bring together students from all walks of life to create, build and inspire.”

This season, participants will work on “DECODE,” an archaeology-themed challenge in which robots must sequence unearthed artifacts — a fitting match for a site where students can literally compare their modern machines with the industrial innovations that once powered the du Pont powder yards.

Demonstration on Saturday, November 8th

Hagley will formally introduce the partnership during a “Robotics Roundup” Science Saturday on Nov. 8 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visitors can meet six local robotics teams, watch live demonstrations, and tour the FIRST Spark Lab open house inside the Power Plant, where team members will showcase robot promotion, coding, construction, and driving, including both autonomous and remote-controlled tasks. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. in front of the Power Plant.

The new lab complements Hagley’s existing Science Saturday programs, offered twice a month from March through December, which challenge children to solve real-world science and engineering problems. Museum officials say the partnership with The Marian Mechanics strengthens their effort to connect Hagley’s historic collections with today’s innovators.

“We are so excited to host The FIRST Spark Lab at Hagley,” said Tanya Looney, Hagley’s education and interpretation program manager. “Their goal to broaden the accessibility of STEM experiences to underserved communities aligns with Hagley’s mission to inspire all people to be innovative in their own lives.”

Looney noted that the Power Plant building — once home to a steam engine and dynamos that powered Hagley’s mills — now offers a powerful contrast between 19th-century technology and 21st-century engineering.

“Through the FIRST Spark Lab experience at Hagley, students will have the opportunity to connect with our museum,” she said, “comparing the technologies of our industrial past with the ingenuities of today’s world.”

With the maker space, Hagley’s FIRST Spark Lab-style experience gives students a creative launchpad inspired by Hagley’s own history of manufacturing and invention. It’s designed to keep young inventors coming back — and to show them that innovation is not just something preserved in cases, but something they can practice with their own hands.