LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

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....

Moving library programming from passive to active modes has attracted and revealed many people's dual strengths. We love it when the artistic side of people's personalities meets up with their nerdy, techie side. Regular, reliable times when teens can come in to tinker has opened up programs to many busy teens who may have thought they couldn't possible squeeze in another activity. Cases in point: Lauren Matthews, a poet, fan fiction writer, and excellent conversationalist, is also keenly interested in creating sculptures and objects with our 3D printers. She is also a whiz at Garageband and photo editing tools, a useful skill when creating our Radiofaces podcasts. Ted Wahle is a big, big, music fan. He hosts one of our music-themed podcasts and has become an expert on designing for the 3D printer. He likes to pursue his artistic as well as his techie side. He's hoping to do some live streaming interviews for us at the Levitate music festival this summer! At t...

Radiofaces groups reading through script in teen lounge Our teen podcasting group, the Radiofaces, has been re-constituted from a few years ago, and now meets weekly or bi-weekly, depending on the high school drama department schedule, all school year. Lately we have enjoyed reading short folk tales adapted by Aaron Shepard , in his excellent book, Folktales on Stage: Scripts for Reader's Theater . Set-up for podcasting The teens are making these their own by adopting kind of crazy accents and affectations that they find goofy. The only reservation I have for this is that the result has to be intelligible! What do we use for recording? Why, the Blue Yeti multi-directional mic, of course! This powerhouse of a mic can be adjusted to mono-directional, bi-directional, and omnidirectional. We use it plugged into one of our Mac laptops running Garageband . This makes it super easy to edit, add opening and closing music, save to iTunes and send it off to our podcasting...

Sometimes people need an incentive to try something new or dig deeper into a familiar creative tool. That's what we hope will happen when we announce the 2015 Creative Graphics Challenge this winter. We challenge our teen and adult patrons to come up with a marketing package for the Duxbury Free Library's event during April, National Poetry Month. We are looking for original graphics: a brochure, a flyer, a web page mock up, some art that we can use on bookmarks, signs, etc. Use our Adobe Creative Cloud Suite in our new Digital Media Lab and let your imagination go wild! The deadline is February 28, 2015 so we can judge and start using the resulting winning graphics for our Poetry Campaign this winter!  What do you get?  You get the opportunity to put this competitive contest on your college brag sheet or work-related resumé. So start your creative juices flowing! Interested? Sign up at the Reference Desk of the Duxbury Free Library. You can download the in...

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. ...

As national Teen Tech Week approaches, it seems smart and energy-saving to survey my teens and ask them, "What can you provide the library during Teen Tech Week that will be a value-added service to our loyal patrons?" That's what I plan to be asking my incredibly tech savvy teen friends in the up-coming weeks as national Teen Tech Week is March 9 - 15, 2014.  I know we're gonna be doing some awesome stuff....!

Great things are happening in Duxbury regarding tinkering and engineering. On Saturday, Jess and I trooped over to the Duxbury High School to see the final result of the robotics teams efforts.  Duxbury senior, Evan Nudd explains it all. Competitions on March 21 and 28th. Go Dragons! Duxbury High School robot explanation from Duxbury Free Library on Vimeo . Here's a link to the team's blog: http://duxburyrobotics.wordpress.com/

 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...

Even under the best and safest of circumstances, accidents can happen. That's why we have put together a Release Form which we cribbed from the Makerspace Manual and personalized it for use here at our library:               For a MSWord copy of this form, click here

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...