The X-Ploration Center, established in 2020, provides a dedicated space for students to engage in hands-on learning and creative discovery. Under the guidance of the center’s director, Mr. Ryan Howard, the makerspace has impacted more than 1,000 students over the past five years. Students build bottle rockets and Newton cars, design elaborate 3D models of book settings, and create news reports utilizing the center’s greenscreen technology. And these are just a few of the countless projects that come to life here.

Over the years, the X-Ploration Center has become a space where imagination and innovation flourish, where students and faculty break from traditional learning styles and embrace a more hands-on, discovery- focused approach. Its impact extends beyond academics as well; clubs such as robotics and woodworking regularly use the space and its tools. And when students bring their own creative ideas forward, they are encouraged to collaborate with Mr. Howard to turn those ideas into reality.

Take for example Namish Sapru ’26, who started creating his own guitar during the 2024-2025 school year. Namish first began conceptualizing the idea in eighth grade while visiting Xaverian during Open House. A musician himself, Namish’s attention was immediately caught by an unfinished guitar body that he saw in the X-Ploration Center during his campus tour. 

It wasn’t until his junior year that the concept began to truly take shape. An open- ended assignment in his Spanish IV class with Mr. Press gave students the freedom to choose a project that reflected their interests, which would then be presented in Spanish. For Namish, building a guitar felt like a natural extension of his passion for music. “This

project has allowed me to create a physical manifestation of my love for music and embed

my identity into something uniquely mine,” he says. “It allowed me to connect with a more tangible part of music, and to truly appreciate how far I’ve come since I first began playing in fifth grade.”

Namish had no prior woodworking experience before starting this project. Everything he needed to know, he learned along the way with help from Mr. Howard. Namish learned to use Adobe Illustrator to design the guitar body, the V-Carve and CNC machines to shape the guitar from the wood, and important but foundational shop skills like changing out drill bits. Though he credits Mr. Howard heavily for his mentorship, the guitar reflects Namish’s own persistence, creativity, and problem-solving. He hopes to use it in upcoming concerts, which he says would be a “full-circle moment.”

Namish believes that the skills acquired through this project will serve him well long after high school, whether in troubleshooting technical issues during performances or possibly continuing guitar-building as a hobby in adulthood. He is already constructing a second guitar, this one destined for auction at the Xaverian Gala on March 14, where one lucky bidder will take home his work of craftsmanship. Together, these projects stand as a testament to the X-Ploration Center’s role  in shaping not just creative endeavors, but confident, capable makers ready to leave their mark on the world.