LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

Just when I think it's time to cancel Facebook, I find an awesome group of librarians who have inspired me. The group is called Makerspaces and the Participatory Library .  I have always considered 3D printing to be something that students in upper elementary and beyond could bring their designs to fruition with the aid of Tinkercad but what about a 5 yr old? In the Facebook group, I just saw this post that any black and white silhouette image could be flat printed on a 3D printer. The steps really are that easy. Now anyone who could hold a Sharpie could make something.  The mystery of how someone could easily draw curvy lines in Tinkercad has been solved! I had always imaged that they made it in AutoCAD and it was a very involved process.This is one problem with being self taught in things like this. Sometimes you learn the hard way before the easy way. Step 1: Draw figure, try to smooth out the edges of the outline and take a picture. I free handed the drawing so it...

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 ...

We signed up to be a Makercamp site, sponsored by Google + and Make magazine, who gave us a box of goodies ("swag") in exchange for hosting STEM programming to the public. We now have a plethora of DIY/Maker books, a Makey Makey, an Arduino and breadboard, and a grab bag full of electronic goodies like LEDS, Batteries and 2 soldering irons! FOR FREE. I really hope this continues next year because YA librarians would love this.We were already doing science programming this summer for our theme so this fits in nicely. Each week of Makercamp is themed and can be done entirely online for FREE through Google +, YouTube videos, and links to daily projects. Since you need to be over 13 to have a Google + account some of the projects may need adult supervision and their recommended age is 10-18. They do suggest asking younger family members to ask their parents to log in with their Google + accounts. Every Friday is a virtual field trip with famous celebrities or highlighting n...

 Hearing Bill Derry from the Westport, CT. public library talk about transforming libraries is heady stuff, but it wasn't until I starting talking to young people myself that I realized the urgency of the mission. Bill Derry talks about moving libraries from thinking "collection development" to "connection development." What does that mean? I think it means actively seeking out the people in your community who have skills to share and people who need to learn those skills. Then providing the community with a place and resources to facilitate making things. He juxtaposes these old vs. new library polarities: Library Centric vs. Learning Centric Language Literacy vs. Multiple Literacies Answers vs. Questions Library as Grocery Store vs. Library as Kitchen Little time for Science vs. Emphasis on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) Here is how South Carolina public librarian, Melanie Florencio, explains it in a TEDX Creative Coast 7...

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 ...

 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...

Just when I thought they couldn't surprise me any more, my Middle School group did it again. We held an Electronics Open House this afternoon to show the world the kinds of projects and areas of discovery we have been exploring this year in our Makerspace. They rose to the occasion by being ambassadors of making things and seemed to have fun, too. Soldering badges, Stop Motion with our ipads and iStop Motion software, Scratch programming, MaKeyMaKey goofiness (asparagus game controllers anyone?), how to build a basic electrical motor, and the ever-present "Take Apart Table"rounded out the activities. We had parents, kids, staff members, librarian friends from other towns come to see what we were doing.  Of course we hung our club banner by the door. Now if we could only interest some girls to join us.  But I'm working on a plan......!

For a full year, we have held a weekly tech session for young teens - mostly eighth grade boys. We played with Little Bits, Legos, MaKey MaKey, soldering, construction projects, programming challenges, and more. Though we regret girls haven't participated, we have some plans to grow in a more inclusive direction. More about that in another post. What we DID accomplish by holding weekly sessions,  was an experiment in content and form. We tried a variety of skill-building sessions, physical and intellectual challenges and learned a lot about what we can and cannot do in an after school setting at the public library. Today, we did a "dress rehearsal" for the Open House we are planning for next Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. - to which we hope many kids and adults come! Learning how things work is, ultimately more important to us then magically assembling things that fly, move, interact, etc. It's super seductive to merely assemble cool stuff, but we feel it is a...

If ever there was a mecca of STEAM activities it would be the Exploratorium in SanFrancisco. For decades it has been a leading institution for people of all ages to explore the mysteries and discover the answers to "how" "why" "what" questions in the natural world. They have come out with a new book that the Duxbury Free Library now owns, The Art of Tinkering , by Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich. Here are their tenets: Merge science, art & technology : "...when you mix them together, you get a veritable tinkering trifecta in which technological tools and scientific principles let you express your own artistic vision...."  Create rather than consume : this says it all. Revisit & Iterate on Your Ideas. Use familiar materials in unfamiliar ways Express ideas via construction Prototype rapidly: "When you have a new idea, it's incredibly helpful get it out of your brain as soon as possible - to sketch a design or build a ...

Here's a conundrum:  How do you get people to build skills, take initiative, feel a sense of ownership of what they form, build, or create if all you offer are one-shot projects that can be completed quickly and have a pre-set outcome? That's where tinkering and playfulness should take over after a skill have been developed. Libraries can be the best place for tinkering simply because we are not in the grading or judging business. Allowing for open-ended playful exploration can be scary as a projector coordinator because you have to trust that something will come out the experience that can justify the use of materials, tools, and space. If you're looking for some philosophical firm ground to stand on, here are two excellent videos to have your decision-makers watch: TED Talk: Science is for Everyone - Kids included: Beau Lotto & Amy O'Toole TED Talk: Play is more than just fun: Stuart Brown

Thinking that I was taking a week off from the cutting edge of coding and electronics, I prevailed upon Nancy Denman and Jessica Lamarre to borrow their Keva blocks to let the Middle Schoolers play with simple pine planks to see what they might construct. Sure enough, stop the presses. I was caught unawares. The booklet that comes with the Keva blocks was worth a thousand words, of course, and the most thoughtful of our compadres took a moment to look at and read the simple booklet before proceeding. That was their success. Come to find out, Keva blocks teach simple but profound concepts of design and construction.  A tightly webbed inter-locking of the bricks achieves enormous stability and firmness. Check it out for yourself: In addition, we always host a Take Apart Table that encourages teens to dig under the surface and deconstruct the way electronic toys work.

The Case for Libraries as Makerspaces Although there is a big educational component to the Makerspace Movement, setting up a Makerspace in your library should not be limited to simply finding people to give one-shot lectures or courses. We've been a venue for lectures for decades. Why not just leave classes on topics of interest to the evening classes at the high school or senior center? The answer is that we are using instructional classes and drop-in help with trouble-shooting as a stepping stone towards an ultimate goal of creating a space where people have the skills, tools, resources both human and physical, and TIME to experiment, explore, and create something new. The intellectual impetus around Makerspace is the goal of unleashing people's creative juices and making something new that isn't a kit, isn't on a crib sheet, hasn't been thought of yet. Librarians are exactly the right people to cultivate this movement because we are experts at finding r...