LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

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...

Today we started with a Makerspace initiative teaching basic soldering to our Middle school rapscallions, the PHILS, with the super "newbie-friendly" Maker badge. Suzanne and I felt pretty confident based on our previous tinkering... We were able to refresh our own soldering know-how while giving our antsy Middle Schoolers the training they needed while they had their after-school snacks. Thank goodness for youtube video tutorials. Here's the one we watched: http://makezine.com/2007/01/05/soldering-tutorial-make-v/ Lo and behold, the guys dove right in without hesitation and, after a few false starts (be sure to buy a couple extra kits), they all got their badges to light up! Then, in the evening, we shifted gears and hosted Kerrie Capraro and her awesome family of Suburban Homesteaders as they presented, Raising Chickens in the Suburbs ! Wow. They really made their case for this exciting family project - so many wonderful experiences that enrich family life...

Many of you know that Jessica and I are trying things out on our Middle School group, the PHILS, on Tuesday afternoons, with the objective being to gauge activity flow, supervision requirements, etc. in preparation for a more robust on-going Tuesday program for a more diverse age group. One of the interesting things we have found is that it's good to have a couple of options to choose from on any given day. Gathering first to explain and perhaps grab a teachable moment, then allow some free flow between activities. Some kids really like to dig into one thing, others like to try a few things out. This feels important to me because if we want this program to be on-going and a bit self-sustaining, we can't be constantly coming up with unique activities every week, but I don't feel that that's necessary! The Take-Apart Table is ALWAYS interesting. I learned that limiting the number of things to take apart is better. Yesterday, someone took apart an old keyboard. Ins...

Today, Kevin Osborn, Maker Extraordinaire, and his trusty 15 year old side kick, Max Tepermeister, came to explain the history and practical uses for 3D printers. In true Duxbury fashion, we had an audience who feels we should jump right into this technology and make it available to the patrons of the library, tout suite! With two printers cranking out layers of melted filament, Kevin and Max gave us an inside look at the uses and creativity that 3D printing can inspire. The uses range from replacement human jaws to replacement parts in old cars and machinery to unique artistic creations in plastic, metal and ceramic. Who knew you could create in all these media in the 3D printing world? Max MADE his 3D printer from scratch and tweaked it all summer long (did I mention that he's 15 and in the 10th grade?) and he was cranking out the pieces to this really cool interlocking spiral gear that looked kinda like the cross-section of an ammonite.... but I digress.... Patrons the...

Cardboard kitties do cool stuff with Little Bits I just borrowed a set of Little Bits from the Children's Room tonight to try them out in the hope that we can get some quick traction in electronics without relying on an "expert" or a ringer. Success! Check out the wonderful TED talk by Little Bits creator, MIT Media Lab alum, Canadian of Lebanese Arab background,   Ayah Bdeir ,  (she got a B.A. from the American University of Beirut before she got her M.A. at the MIT Media Lab). This is a quintessential example of the global brain trust. Plus, she doesn't quite look like the stereotypical engineer... Ayah Bdeir Little bits are pre-assembled circuits, held together by magnets, color-coded to make the relationship between Power, Input, Wire, Output. It's that simple, but that's what gives it so much power. It teaches the relationship between components from the get-go. I'm excited to challenge the teens tomorrow with some building schematics....

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...

We're starting off the Fall season with a bang! Technology updates and adult soldering lessons.  Saturday, Sept. 21 10:30 - Noon                    Merry Meeting Room 3-D Printing Lecture / Demo Find out what all the fuss is about from engineer, Kevin Osborn, director of research and commercial development for the advanced instruments group at Radiation Monitoring Devices. Kevin will bring in his 3-D printer and another one built by a young hacker friend. He will review the history, bringing us up to the present in terms of current and future applications and you will get to see actual 3-D production at work. Sign ups begin on Sept. 7th on the Meeting Room Calendar:   www.duxburyfreelibrary.org Saturday, Sept. 21 1- 3 p.m.                            Setter Room Electrify Your Halloween Do you love Halloween? Want to...