Many people involved in the digital humanities share an interest in building and making things, often using digital tools and technologies and, as often as not, developing the tools themselves. Makerspaces are ideal for supporting and generating excitement around such digital humanities projects. Bethany Nowviskie aptly describes makerspaces as "skunkworks", semi-independent, research-oriented spaces that offer "ways forward not only for the works of innovative digital scholarship, but for the technical and social frameworks necessary to support and sustain them" [1]. Using an inquiry based, constructivist learning approach, makerspaces provide a fun, accessible and informal means of building confidence and digital literacy, the key to a digital humanities education [2], as well as a means of incubating and prototyping ideas which can develop into research projects [3]. The unique contribution of makerspaces is in providing a creative and safe space to develop ideas, share materials and equipment, play and experiment [4]. In contrast to digital humanities centres, which are more formal environments supported by partnerships and formal collaborations with "specific desired outcomes or the pursuit of articulated research questions", makerspaces are "intended to be a creative, open environment in which researchers can experiment with new ideas in a communal atmosphere... the emphasis is on individual growth through praxis: the creation of new products or ideas through prototyping: and community learning." [5]

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