LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

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.

Introducing the PHILS to the coding tutorial for the December "Hour of Code" was fun and, just when we thought we'd have to string them along for a while, the organizers came up with the whole series of tutorials on their web site!                  http://csedweek.org/learn2 We needed the practice run to figure out how much we can rely on using the library wireless connection with our new iPads or do we need to stick to the wired desktops in the Reference and Children's areas. Lucky for us, Denise had arrange for a new wireless router to be installed today in the lower level so now the whole building should have a strong signal all day long. Yay, Denise! We're hoping that will give us adequate connectivity to handle all the old and young Coders we hope will participate in the week long, "HOUR OF CODE" from Dec. 9 - Dec. 14th. Then, later in the week, we had our first "Wearable Electronics" workshop as a way to gain the interest of gi...

 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...

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...