In Fall 2017, our IT department approached me about expanding the district's 3D printing offerings to other branches. Throughout Spring 2018, I worked with IT, Program Services, and another branch to troubleshoot setup and maintenance of the machines at branches.
This past Fall, the printers were suddenly at the branches! The branches contacted me for training and best practices, so I scraped together a 4-hour hands-on training for 1-2 staff members per branch so they could get up and going with the technology.
I thought 4-hours might be overkill, but it seemed just about perfect to give the staff enough information to get going,without getting bogged down in the minutiae of what can go wrong with this technology (especially when working with the public).
Our branches all have Lulzbot Mini v. 1. This greatly simplified training. Now that the v.1 has been retired, we may run into a snag if we continue to expand our 3D printing services and throw a Mini v. 2 into the mix.
Training Overview:
1st hour: 3D Printing: an Ode. Your new printer! Your first prints!
2nd hour: Continue printing stuff! District Policy and You!
3rd hour: 3D Designs by You and Other Library Programs!
4th hour: Machine Maintenance and You! Also, next steps!
Here is my 99 slide presentation (for funsies):
I plan to follow up with our branches in 3-6 months to see how they're getting along (make sure they're printing things and trying new things) with the goal of having all the printers out for certified users by summer 2019.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Saturday, December 1, 2018
November 2018 Experiential Learning RoundUp!
Programming
SLA led the monthly Make a Better World program. We are looking into focusing on a larger project for spring 2019 around Little Free Libraries and the empty phone booths around downtown Vancouver.
SLA led the monthly 3D Design workshop and SLA led the 3D Printing Open Lab. This workshop continues to fill to classroom capacity. We certified 10 more users to work on 3D printing independently. Our public 3D printer is in use at least 3 days a week by certified users. We are beginning to run into users waiting for another user to finish.
SLAs led the monthly Sewing workshop. They reached workshop capacity and had to turn two patrons away. There continues to be strong interest in making a sewing machine available to the public for independent use.
Our volunteer facilitator fell ill in late October, so I facilitated the last four sessions of the Fall 2018 Girls Who Code club. This semester, the girls learned Python and how to create self-scoring quizzes within a chatbot framework. The girls will present their chatbots to their families on 11/28. Friends of Vancouver Community Library is providing food! The girls had an awesome time making buttons from the GWC logos.
We will be modifying our girls coding club for January 2019 to include more project variety. The new club is tentatively named G.Code. I am creating a custom curriculum.
Our all-ages inclusive Learn2Code series has developed a core set of return attendees. We currently have a group of 6 women, early 20s-30s, who have attended 2 or more classes and express interest in continuing to learn more. Our November L2C project involved the Raspberry Pi computer/controller. The workshop went well, but we learned we need a few more peripherals to continue working with the RPi. I hope to purchase these items in the 2019 budget cycle.
We hosted the 2nd Annual Hebocon: Crappy Robotics Tournament. We had participants of all ages work together to build crappy robots and then sumo-wrestle them. This is an open-ended program where participants are given very little instructions on how to build their robots. The creativity and ingenuity is inspiring!
We are hosting a Tech Summit on 11/27 with our SLAs who teach tech workshops to make a plan on tech programming for 2019.
Community Connections
Fort Vancouver Libraries participated in Evergreen School District CTE Department’s Girls in STEM event on Saturday, 11/10. We hosted two workshops teaching girls in grades 5-8 how to solder. We also hosted an interactive table where the girls and their families made clothespin switch circuits. We interacted with over 150 girls at this event. VA, Program Services, and CP staff assisted with this outreach event. Girls in STEM full report.
Lacey Faught, Digital Marketing Educator for Vancouver-based Marketing Company Spry requested a meeting after seeing some of Vancouver Community Library’s Instagram photos. She was impressed by the caliber of the content the VA Social Media Team is creating. She was interested in partnering with us on a campaign, so I forwarded her along to our Communications and Marketing Department. She most enjoyed our SLA's take on women laughing while eating salad with librarians laughing while reading books about salad:
Boys and Girls Club invited us out to their new Teen Space at 409 NE Anderson St to demonstrate our 3D printer. I met them during the Water Resource Outreach event this summer. BGC is very interested in partnering with us on more programming. Their new teen space boasts 2 classrooms as well as a computer lab.
Professional Development
I attended a full day workshop on creating filament led by local filament manufacturer, Proto Pasta. Proto-Pasta full report.
SLA led the monthly Make a Better World program. We are looking into focusing on a larger project for spring 2019 around Little Free Libraries and the empty phone booths around downtown Vancouver.
SLA led the monthly 3D Design workshop and SLA led the 3D Printing Open Lab. This workshop continues to fill to classroom capacity. We certified 10 more users to work on 3D printing independently. Our public 3D printer is in use at least 3 days a week by certified users. We are beginning to run into users waiting for another user to finish.
SLAs led the monthly Sewing workshop. They reached workshop capacity and had to turn two patrons away. There continues to be strong interest in making a sewing machine available to the public for independent use.
Our volunteer facilitator fell ill in late October, so I facilitated the last four sessions of the Fall 2018 Girls Who Code club. This semester, the girls learned Python and how to create self-scoring quizzes within a chatbot framework. The girls will present their chatbots to their families on 11/28. Friends of Vancouver Community Library is providing food! The girls had an awesome time making buttons from the GWC logos.
We will be modifying our girls coding club for January 2019 to include more project variety. The new club is tentatively named G.Code. I am creating a custom curriculum.
Our all-ages inclusive Learn2Code series has developed a core set of return attendees. We currently have a group of 6 women, early 20s-30s, who have attended 2 or more classes and express interest in continuing to learn more. Our November L2C project involved the Raspberry Pi computer/controller. The workshop went well, but we learned we need a few more peripherals to continue working with the RPi. I hope to purchase these items in the 2019 budget cycle.
We hosted the 2nd Annual Hebocon: Crappy Robotics Tournament. We had participants of all ages work together to build crappy robots and then sumo-wrestle them. This is an open-ended program where participants are given very little instructions on how to build their robots. The creativity and ingenuity is inspiring!
We are hosting a Tech Summit on 11/27 with our SLAs who teach tech workshops to make a plan on tech programming for 2019.
Community Connections
Fort Vancouver Libraries participated in Evergreen School District CTE Department’s Girls in STEM event on Saturday, 11/10. We hosted two workshops teaching girls in grades 5-8 how to solder. We also hosted an interactive table where the girls and their families made clothespin switch circuits. We interacted with over 150 girls at this event. VA, Program Services, and CP staff assisted with this outreach event. Girls in STEM full report.
Lacey Faught, Digital Marketing Educator for Vancouver-based Marketing Company Spry requested a meeting after seeing some of Vancouver Community Library’s Instagram photos. She was impressed by the caliber of the content the VA Social Media Team is creating. She was interested in partnering with us on a campaign, so I forwarded her along to our Communications and Marketing Department. She most enjoyed our SLA's take on women laughing while eating salad with librarians laughing while reading books about salad:
Boys and Girls Club invited us out to their new Teen Space at 409 NE Anderson St to demonstrate our 3D printer. I met them during the Water Resource Outreach event this summer. BGC is very interested in partnering with us on more programming. Their new teen space boasts 2 classrooms as well as a computer lab.
Professional Development
I attended a full day workshop on creating filament led by local filament manufacturer, Proto Pasta. Proto-Pasta full report.
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