It began with a simple problem: our Repair Cafés fix things. That’s the whole point, bring in a broken toaster, a busted lamp, a laptop that won’t boot, and our volunteer fixers do their best to bring it back to life. But every so often, something comes through the door that’s truly beyond saving. So what do you do with a toaster that’s had it? You hand it to a seven-year-old with a screwdriver, obviously.
That’s how the Smash Lab: Gadget Guts Workshop was born, a “tear-apart table” set up alongside our regular Repair Café events, where kids get to safely take apart anything beyond repair and discover what’s actually inside. No pressure to fix it. No wrong way to do it. Just curiosity, a screwdriver, and the deeply satisfying click of a casing finally popping open.
The first pilot ran in May 2026 at Victoria Square Mall, and it didn’t take long to see we were onto something. Kids who wandered over “just to look” ended up elbow-deep in old toaster ovens and vacuum cleaners, working out how motors spin, how circuit boards connect, and how the everyday objects around them actually work. Parents lingered. Volunteers grinned. Nobody wanted to leave until every last gadget had been reduced to its component parts.
By the second Smash Lab on June 20, interest had outgrown expectations, and it’s kept growing since. We’re now regularly running low on “donor” appliances, because our Repair Café volunteers are simply too good at their jobs, and there isn’t enough broken-beyond-repair stock left over for the kids’ table. The Salvation Army Thrift Store stepped in as our newest partner, with Retail District Manager Barclay Elles and North Central Store Manager Candace Snow supplying household appliances that are past saving, so Smash Lab always has material to work with.
What started as a fun add-on to Repair Café is turning into something bigger. A few Regina organizations focused on youth programming have reached out about bringing a stand-alone Smash Lab to their own locations. Demand has grown enough that, starting with our September Repair Café, we’re asking parents to book a Smash Lab spot for their kids in advance.
Apparently, we may have created a monster. A pretty fun one.
If you know a kid who’d love to take something apart just to see how it works, keep an eye out for Smash Lab at an upcoming Repair Café, or reach out if your organization would like to host one.