LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

With a collaborative grant writing effort from community members and library staff, we are proud to announce that we won 2 Cube 3D Printers from the Maker Lab Club in collaboration with the American Library Association, American Makes, and the Association of Science and Technology Centers. We cannot believe how easy these were to set up.  The first one took some extra time as we had to navigate around the new website to find the software, activate the printers, and calibrate it but we were able to figure it out in an hour. The 2nd printer took about 15 minutes! With the 25 free designs already preset for the Cube, we printed a chess piece Rook. It took an hour and a half to print. It even had a staircase inside, what great detail! The Cube has it's own software and design file name (not the standard .stl) so files designed elsewhere will have to go through their software before printing. Once it is ready, file transfer is done over a flash drive that is plugged in directly t...

What I love about Lego WeDo kits as opposed to Lego Mindstorms is how "out of the box ready" they are.  Keep in mind LegoWeDos are geared for lower elementary school students but they can still serve as an introductory lesson for middle school students. In February, we are conducting a 4 week, 1 hour Lego Robotics program for the Middle School DIY Club. We decided for the first lesson, we would introduce the concept of Lego Robotics with the WeDo kits. Even before we turned on the computers, they were off and running. Once the software was installed, it was literally plug and play. A note about software: if you do not have Apple laptops with CD/DVD drivers, it takes a bit of computer know-how to trick the mac into thinking the CD is there (our windows laptops were no problem!). WeDo projects can be made in under an hour, unlike the Mindstorms Gyro robot I've spent about 6 hours building only to find out that I must have missed a step somewhere and need to ta...

In honor of our science theme this summer, we hold Mad Science Mondays here in the children's room on Mondays from 2-5pm.  This is very similar to our Makerspace Mondays held last summer with an additional preschool "science" lab, where our program room is transformed into a separate science lab for the younger set to explore with their parents. This is a drop in program that we provide with the emphasis that we will provide the materials but the parents/family members must work together to complete the weekly science projects with little supervision from the librarians on the desk. Our first week's focus was on building. In the main room for Gr. K and up we hosted building challenges. Challenge #1: Building the tallest structure you could out of paper and solo cups.  We bought this great tape that sticks to the wall with inch measurements on it so kids could record how high their structure was but we had no idea one would almost touch the ceiling. What a cheap ...

 Bringing a group of antsy middle school boys to the Cape Cod Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, really brought home the principles of Do It Yourself in a big way. We set up a table for folks to solder a little Maker badge: 2 LEDs, a cell battery holder and a tie tack to hold it on. At the last minute, I threw in a MaKey MaKey kit and the 3 Doodler. Turns out, our table was busier than we could handle and we ran out of material around 1 p.m.! I wish I had brought three times as many badge kits and 3Doodler plastic as I did. Granted, it was another rainy Saturday in a never-ending cold and clammy Spring that hasn't really happened and I think folks are tired of the same old winter routines. The Maker Faire was free, open to everyone and in a great space on the campus of Cape Cod Community College. There was a wide range of exhibitors: 3-D printers, Martha's Vineyard High School's dump-diving go carts, Barnstable High School's great mapping application, Truro...

I had one of those eureka moments at a meeting a few weeks ago, when a fellow staff member was talking about her writing group and the importance of having open ended free writing components. I thought, "Hey that's tinkering too!" I think if we all look hard enough we can find lots of examples of tinkering that we do in our everyday lives or in already established library groups that doesn't have to involve electronics. I've always been a "don't read directions first" kind of person, which was tough during my schooling years but that's the beginning of my tinkering. Can I figure it out without looking at the directions? We all develop educational and life strategies based in part by our personalities. For me, this tinkering led me to always jump head first into technology. I was never afraid of "breaking it." I'm the kind of person that purchases Adobe Photoshop and just begins by pressing all the buttons before I crack open a tu...

One of the challenges of using a multi-purpose room is that we have to clean up after 1 1/2 hours. Either we disassemble things to store away or we try to choose projects that are quickly finished. But we still want to challenge folks in new ways and not give them busy work. Smaller projects like the following ones are opportunities to learn a new skill that might lead a youth or adult to explore further on their own. Bristle Bots   Solo cup w/ DC motor Solder a Maker Badge Franken-Elmo Take Apart Programming with Scratch or Hopscotch Skyping with an expert Soldering a Drawdio Take Apart Table Wearable electronics - sparkle bow Knitting squares to make a blanket Building with Keva planks Stop motion with iPad and iStopMotion Resources include: Make Magazine littleBits Keva planks Adafruit kits Duxbury Transfer Station MaKey MaKey Instructables DIY.org ...

Adult and teen explore wearable electronics together. Sometimes I feel we have let our passion run amok in terms of "developmentally appropriate" sensitivity in planning programs.  Isn't it just as much fun to have excited adults join turned on teens and enthusiastic elementary students in exploring the possibilities of Little Bits electronics, sewing, soldering, cardboard construction? Why can't we have more intergenerational experiences in our Makerspaces? Do we have to segregate by age so finely? Dad and son explore the Hour of Code together...  At the Duxbury Free Library, some of the push back is going to be driven by our new effort to have more experiences available casually and not so much in a program format. Having a "Little Bits" Bar and table with Legos and other construction experiences available for the casual library visitor could be an enticement to sign up for a class or Tinkering session. We have lots of teens and childre...

Although I'm not a big home decorator, I have fallen in love with chalkboard and magnetic paints in my home.  Plain mugs, message boards or picture frames are getting a personal touch this holiday season. How does this fit into libraries? With the growing popularity of collaborative spaces between museums and children's rooms in libraries, there is a call for more interactive spaces between parents and their children with or without a librarian present. Old cork boards can be turned into over-sized refrigerator door art displays from patrons with magnetic frames and construction paper. What about making a chalk board to ask a question like what everyone is thankful for this year? and just leave out some chalk (in a well supervised area of course!). We all probably have some magnetic alphabet letters lying around. Why not re-create Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin? Just this past week I learned about taking it to a whole new level with conductive paint, which turns...

 Our next makerspace project at the DFL is using conductive thread! Who knew they made such a thing?   Want something a little different to wear this holiday season? Make a twinkling accent for your updo. Open to grades 5-adult on Saturday November 9th from 10-11:30am. This class will teach you to make a ribbon bow and simple LED circuit. One Adafruit LED Sewing Kit has enough supplies for two bows, so make this project with a friend! All we have to do is sew up the ribbon, attached the circuit and connect the tiny battery. Limit to ten people. Sign up starts on Oct.26th. Contributions to kit supply gratefully accepted but not required.($15 each)

I had the opportunity to attend the annual Teen Summit, hosted by the Massachusetts Library System and the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services in Worcester this past week.  Youth librarians from both states were invited to come together and talk shop. The theme this year was "Full STEAM Ahead", a subject that here at the DFL, is right on target. The keynote speaker was the delightful YA author, Marissa Meyer, who surprisingly spent a small amount of time talking about her wonderful science fiction fairy tale quartet "The Lunar Chronicles" and most of her presentation introducing the concept of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). Using her childhood love of Star Trek, she posed the question; When does science fiction inspire fact or visa versa? Did the Star Trek communicator inspire a flip phone? Will warp speed ever exist? Did the fashionable Geordi La Forge visors inspire tools that grant sight? These were just a f...

              Check out our video of the day Collaborating between the teen and children's departments, we had fun bringing many of our newly experienced maker projects to a wider (and younger) audience.  On Saturday, August 17th, we held a Cardboard Carnival indoors and on the adjacent tennis court. It featured Stomp Rockets, an Angry Birds Catapult, and more. A Take-Apart Room held many broken mechanical and electrical devices on tables with tools available to all who cared to gently unscrew covers, lift out hard drives, remove batteries, separate components. One of our summer friends, Linnea, who comes down from Vermont every summer and who participated in our weekly Do-It-Yourself Club, the PHILS, supervised. She's 11 years old. Another PHILS member, Stephen, with the help of our Children's Librarian, Jessica Lamarre, showed people how a Makey Makey microprocessor works with metallic tape and the human body to recreate a form of Dance ...

Check out our brochure to be handed out to all patrons:     [PDF format] Adult Events: Apps & Your Smartphone:    Bring your smartphone and your questions to informal sessions about smartphones and apps.   Got Mail?   Learn how to join groups, manage photos, use a shared calendar and other advanced email functions.   Jewelry Making:   Create one of a kind necklaces using beautiful beads, local shells, and old buttons.   Knitting Night:   If you need help seaming a sweater, would like to learn how to turn a cable, or just want to learn to knit - join us! If you already knit, are you swatching and measuring your gauge? Do you know which decrease/increase to use? This will be a fun night of social knitting with help available for beginners and intermediates.   Lynda.com:   Lynda.com is up and running on the Makerspace computer on the upper level of the library.   Learn software, creative, and...