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...

I have come across two products that would make cardboard/recyclable construction creations (especially for younger kids) much easier without all that scotch tape, staples, and box cutters. Strawbees Strawbees securely connect to straws to allow them to move and build crazy contraptions. After watching the video, I was sold. The opportunities are endless: bridges, masks, even a lantern fish that actually works! They come in sets ranging from $20-$80 through their store with a $15 standard flat rate shipping. I bought the $40 box which includes 368 connector pieces.  Could I have printed out my own on a 3D printer? Possibly. I'll have to see when the kit comes in. We have LOTS of straws at the library that I discovered after cleaning the craft closet.  They could be left out on a makerspace cart for students to explore on their own time or built into an already designed program. This will be used in our Tinkering Tuesday STEM programs as well as our drop in building pr...

Many of you might be struggling with patrons or staff saying, "Ok what are you REALLY going to use a 3D printer for? I don't want to print out toys."  Here's a story: A staff member's mother had broke the knob off her air conditioner. They tried gluing the knob back together to no avail so she would just have to use pliers to turn the piece of metal left that attached the knob right? Wrong! We can just design something in tinkercad to fix the error. All I needed was the broken knob in question which I measured out in mm and replicated in the design software using the round roof and cylinder shape.  My main concern was that the hole would fit securely so I made sure to measure the height and width of the hole as accurately as I could. I love that the metric system is in 10s. 10cm=1mm where cm is conveniently on most rulers opposite side of the inches.  It fit like a glove! I recommend using the strong setting in the cube software so the piece is strong enoug...

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...

  We're trying to get kids excited about learning about science and if Goldieblox has a major point it's that sometimes it's all about the marketing and packaging of the idea. Since I was going to do snow and ice during my next preschool STEM session, why not call it "Frozen" Preschool STEM and use those beloved character faces (maybe Photoshop some lab coats on them). Will more girls come? The possibilities are endless for this so here's my 2 session plan: Session 1: Making Snow What happened to the weather in Frozen after Anna leaves?  Talk about meteorologists and tools What makes a Blizzard? Making our own blizzards in a jar Materials: Glitter Paint Baby Oil Alkaseltzer Jars Water Tools: Thermometer Weathervane   Session 2: Melting Snow What did they do when Anna was Frozen? (You could also base it around what would happen to Olaf during the "in summer" song?) Talk about archeologists and tools Stages of Water Ice...

blue is negative, black is positive I was really excited to order my chibitronics set of LED stickers and effects.  Unfortunately it is not as cost effective as I had hoped ($50 for 10 kids to use 3 lights each plus 8 extra 3V batteries) but the stickers are much easier to use than actual LEDs alone and the diagram book is extremely helpful in mapping out your circuits. I've actually used their methods on other sewing projects I have previously posted. For our one hour holiday card decorating program, I gave each student 3 LEDs. I had extra binder clips, batteries, (you only get 2 of each in the kit) and copper tape on hand. Unfortunately the effects stickers, which allowed the lights to blink, I ordered only came with 4 stickers for $19.99 so I kept them for a later time. Like sewing, the circuit design is crucial. If I could go back and do this project over I wouldn't have put so much space between the positive LED branches and negative tape connecting to the slide....

It was hard at first to wrap my brain around doing a science based session of story times as a stay alone program for 10 4-5 yr olds for 30 minutes. In my 9 years of experience, I've never hosted a stay alone story time (crazy right?). How do I even begin? How messy should I get? What happens since I'm by myself trying to conduct experiments without parental help? What about food allergies? What kinds of questions do I ask? I decided that the whole session would be us pretending to be scientists, using their tools, and experimenting/observing a new theme each week. One of my main concerns was organizing the flow. I like stations but it's hard to do that without more supervision so we tried to do as much as possible as a group first and then had a few choices to play with afterwards. This was a great jumping off point for me from the Boston Children's Museum STEM Family Activity Guide & the Boston Children's Museum Sprouts. Then I went to Pinterest for t...