LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

I just read about cognitive load theory, developed by John Sweller, a professor at New South Wales Australia.  It's the notion that people can only hold seven pieces of information in their heads at one time. According to SLJ's "The Cognitive Connection," May 2015, recent research claims that we might be holding less, maybe 2 or 4 things (pg. 25).  With that in mind, I recently tried to recreate a "talking skull" with the Sparkfun Arduino kit that I made last Halloween (with hands on help from our local maker at the time). It was much easier said than done. I thought I had taken detailed pictures of the breadboard layout but upon recreation, I was flummoxed. I completely forgot how to do this! I should have taken the shots from above and clearly labeled the wires. I also should have taken a photo of the entire thing. I had a few white wires, one from the PR motion sensor, another from the servo. Which was which? So I shot a video, surely I shot...

We finally had our Grand Reveal for our Arduino Garden Wall last Thursday and it was fun seeing the reaction from youth and adults alike. Some found the Garden Wall perplexing, "What is this doing here?" Some found it delightful, "You had youth, an artist, and an engineer working together on this?" Bringing over our Ultimaker2 and having it running a loop of bracelet-making was also a big hit. Because the artwork is on a rolling partition, bringing it up to the Reference floor was not a huge problem. We had made sure there were no delicate wires dragging and no reason why we couldn't fold it up fairly close to get it into the elevator. Because it is so colorful and the visuals Sally Dean created are so delightful, it can hold up to being turned off most of the time and still be a visually pleasant addition to the surroundings. We will keep it in its current location for a few weeks and then move it back against a wall near to the Digital Media Lab where ...

Yesterday, as we wrapped up our last Arduino Interactive Wall building sessions, Lily showed me the Simon Says exercise she finished. This led us to discuss, "What next?"  We decided, together, that we'll take a little hiatus, have our big Grand Reveal of the wall in a display setting where people can come by, ask us questions, take photos, get some good press for the library, and then we'll use our Tinkering Tuesdays to really dig deeper into C coding language and 3D printing to learn how to write our own code and light up a diorama of 3D printed replicas of famous (and not so famous) places around the world... Having the group make the decisions is a way to get buy-in and create a sense of continuity from project to project....

Here's one of our Arduino interactive mural installation elements. The challenge for us is to find the balance between getting our Maker-in-Residence to install a few elements to give us a sense of what is possible and "jump-start" the installation but not doing the whole thing for us. We want our young patrons to build and explore the artistic and technological possibilities and learn the building blocks of 3D printing and programming for microprocessors. We have our work cut out for us and there may be some post-session mopping up to do, but that's okay.

We are starting to paint our garden, designed and facilitated by Duxbury artist, Sally Dean, on the plastic blue partition wall. The garden elements are being 3D printed by the kids and teens and today we will begin learning from Kevin Osborn, how to write Arduino code to make the servos that power the interactivity work! This is a big, on-going project, which is just the kind of thing we feel sparks creativity and BIG thinking in a Makerspace. Tools and equipment: Portable Partition from Minnesota company Acrylic paints , brushes, drop clothes, etc. Gridding out the garden design with a wax pencil Arduino kits from Sparkfun Lots of extra sensors and stuff from Adafruit Riley thought to glue gun details on that she had 3Doodled.

The next step in engaging girls into coding could be jewelbots. Jewelbots are friendship bracelets that will allow girls to communicate with each other while Bluetooth syncing with their iPhone and friend's bracelets. They remind me of a girl's hair elastic they are so thin (which might be a design flaw). The bracelets are not available just yet but you can get on the email list.  These bracelets will allow girls to send messages between synced bracelets or get message updates about social media or texts from their phone. So how do girls learn code? The program is Arduino open source based and the website alludes to being able to program a multitude of different commands into the bracelet. Boston.com reports girls will be able to send messages through Morse code in the bracelets. Another merging of old technology and new!

Last week, when we demoed our 3D printers, one mother asked me, "Why is this at the library?" I think projects like our summer interactive wall will be the answer to her question. Thanks to the help of local artist Sally Dean Mello ,"maker in residence" Kevin Osborn and students from our Tuesday Tinkering Lab, we've begun working on an interactive wall that can be wheeled around the library. Our goal was to have a painted mural wall that patrons can touch with 3D moving aspects. We started by buying a plastic screened wall which Sally designed and outlined a garden scene. We decided upon this wall because we could move it around the library, or maybe even take it on the road, rather than using one of our permanent walls. For the past 2 weeks, students have been coloring it in with acrylic paint during our Tinkering Lab. We invited art students from the high school to come over and now we have a few newcomers to the Lab.  While this has been going on, we ha...

This week as part of a Mass. Library Association Youth Services Section Workshop at the Turner Free Library, I took our popular STEM toys, Arduinos, littleBits, and Makey Makeys to offer local librarians hands on time with these products and to share my programming experiences. Noelle Boc from Tewksbury Public Library presented on her popular Hexbugs parties . We also talked about iPad implementation and new marketing strategies. A link to all our handouts and presentations can be found soon on the YSS wiki.  With the new emphasis on STEM programming, there aren't many opportunities to try before you buy with so many new businesses coming from Kickstarter and other start up internet based only companies. (Although a special announcement that littleBits will now be offered at select Radioshacks around the country.)    So librarians out there, be thinking about the toys that you have to share with your local librarian community to support and enhance their professio...

Sidney codes the blinking light array with her dad while Bill Johnson shows them his Arduino sensors. We finally invited adults to come discover the wonders and power of Arduino microprocessing kits. With his real life application story of using Arduinos in an industrial diagnostic setting, Bill Johnson added an urgency and interest level for the adults to consider. Getting familiar with Arduino and code is a ticket to an innovative job, he says. Jess showed us her clever Halloween applications and then the teens went to work showing their parents just how the bread boards, code, and micro-processors work together. They ran through the blinking lights exercises pretty fast and moved directly into coding messages in their LCD panels. Whew! Lily shows her dad how to change the message on the LCD screen through re-coding. Jacob shows his dad how the Arduino works. Julia works next to Sandra and digs out the potentiometer for her project. ...

Arduino Halloween from Duxbury Free Library on Vimeo . It wasn't easy but we were able to accomplish our 2 Halloween projects: an LED pumpkin and a talking motion sensor skull.  I'll go over each and things that we learned (aka what they sometimes to forget to tell you in the directions). Special thanks to Kevin Osborn for coming down to provide his expertise for the skull.  Also worth noting, Lynda.com also has great tutorials for beginner Arduino. This subscription is offered free of charge in our library and also if you are a librarian through the MBLC. We started with the hardest one first, THE TALKING SKULL (Advanced) *If you are just starting out I suggest doing the entire SIK CODE GUIDE book (comes with the Sparkfun Inventor's Kit) and if you're not ready to throw it out the window then try the Pumpkin* Items required: PIR Motion Sensor    $9.95 Sparkfun Inventors Kit   $99.95 Sparkfun MP3 Shield   $39.95 microsd card and micro SD ...

Working with the Arduino microprocessor platform is challenging. It teaches many lessons to teens and adults alike that are worth listening to.  Precision matters. Reading the fine print and following directions pays off. Learning how things work and how to diagnose an error takes time and can be boring anf frustrating. It helps to collaborate and ask others what they think. We're learning to take the code and run with it. If the piezo buzzer is playing Monster Mash, what else can it play? How do we change its tune? If the LCD screen says, "Hello world," how can we change that to say a different message? How do we adjust the code to do what we want it to do? Adding sound and sensory shields to our Arduinos is a big step and we are still working out the details and complications of them. But we are not stopping at the introductory stages. We are pushing ourselves to learn more about how things work and why. We are constantly surprised by how patient our teens are and h...

In the YA & Children's department, we are gearing up for Halloween using Arduino and littleBits. How cool would it be to do homemade Halloween interactive props? Every year we say that we want to do a Haunted House and this is our first step in the right direction. littleBits just released some Halloween inspired projects: creepy picture frames , pumpkins, & EL wire wearables using the Deluxe kits. We will be using these as a baseline for ideas in our Tinkering Thursday Halloween projects on October 16th. My hope is that they could be put on display until Halloween (if they aren't too scary). As an advanced project for the middle school DIY Club, we are going to be using the Sparkfun Arduino Inventors Kit to go through the manual for 2 weeks practicing breadboard circuitry and preset Arduino programming. They have a great easy to understand manual with detailed pictures for beginners. From there, we have researched Halloween based projects for further explorati...

Carol plays with code changes.  Taking the time to set up our computers before our Arduino  group gathers really paid off. We were ready jump right in and  work through the excellent little Sparkfun Inventor's Kit booklet  one project at a time. Chris Connors supervised, gave advice, and  encouraged us to explore the options in the code once we set up a  project.  We played with LED light sequences, sound sequences,  and blinking speed.  Joining us were Jed Phillips, from the Ames Library in Easton,  and Melissa McCleary, from the Pemborke Public Library. David Murphy's blinking light circuit.  We are now thinking, "What can we build with this?"  Halloween  comes to mind and our Halloween maven, Carol Segar, is already  thinking about setting up some spooky rooms here at the library  powered by Arduino. For me, the lesson is: don't be put off by the unfamiliar. Give a new medium a chance to reveal its...

We had the privilege of attending a Makerspace in Public Libraries session recently sponsored by the ITS sub-committee of NELA in the beautiful Portsmouth, New Hampshire Public Library. The highlight of it was hearing Bill Derry, the Assistant Director of Innovation and User Experience, talk about how Westport, CT Public Library "does" Makerspace. Here is Bill's  resource page . Download his PPT from this page for use in your library. It's really comprehensive. Major take-aways were: The library is THE place in the community to get people started making.  You don't have to do everything: be the conduit into the Maker World by connecting folks with other Makers and grassroots Makerspaces in your area. Make your programs as intergenerational as possible. Don't assume that just because the schools are getting new equipment (e.g. 3D printers) that the public will have any access to them. Schools have to be very cautious and buttoned down. Libraries are ...

With the DFL Children's Room recent purchase of ten Sparkfun Inventor's Kits , a number of us boldly went where no DFL librarian had gone before: into the fascinating but brain-cramping world of Arduino: Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It's an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board. Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects , taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can communicate with software running on your computer . Luckily, we had as our guide, Kevin Osborn , engineer and Arduino enthusiast. He led our merry band of librarians, trustees, patrons, and teachers, through the jungle of code, into the swamp of breadboards, out ont...