LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

As I was already on New York on family business, I decided to swing by the World Maker Faire at the New York State Hall of Science in Queens on Sunday. It was fun! Lots of corporate booths and lots of small start-ups were present. One nice thing about it was that there was a lot for all ages of kids to do. There was a construction area for very young children and lots of small venues for talks, which weren't going on when I was there. The corporate presence was very heavy: Google, Intel, Microsoft, Little Bits, Lego Mindstorm and a host of 3D printer companies all had big tents. The funny thing is, I feel that we have already done a bunch of the stuff the World Maker Faire was touting: learning to solder, exploring Arduino, building with cardboard, making marble shoots and slides... we'll continue to do these things here in Duxbury, but I'm just as happy that we focused on attending the Cape Cod Maker Faire each year as opposed to making the huge investment of time ...

Well, we went to the Cape Cod Mini Maker Faire last Saturday and had a blast. Our project table of soldering, 3D designing and 3Doodling was constantly busy and we had to force people to give us a lunch break! Paul Harhen, our Duxbury engineering friend/inventor, showed up in his homemade car that he drove down on the highway. Wow! Much of the fun was connecting with the other folks at the fair - Chris Connors and his Martha's Vineyard teens, the gentle folks from the Truro and Centerville libraries, and folks who had made their very own 3D printers. Getting out to non-library events is a must, we feel, to keep up with all the new things coming down the pike.