November 2019 Experiential Learning Roundup!

Girls Who Code 6-week program wrapped up in Battle Ground on 11/4. 7 of the original 
9 girls completed all six weeks of the program and were excited for another round of 
programming. 
The weekly projects for Girls Who Code were determined using feedback submitted by 
the girls at each meeting. BG’s program completed the following projects:

Week 1: GIF and website build using Made with Code (language: blockly) and 
Trinket.io (language: HTML)

Week 2: Video Game Design using Make Code (language: Blockly)

Week 3: Video Game Design using Make Code (language: Blockly, Javascript)

Week 4: Video Game Round Robin Testing

Week 5:Game Design in Unity (language: C#)

Week 6: celebrate with friends and family 

BG’s project website: https://gwcclub-wa18616-2019.weebly.com/

We also have 2 adults interested in assisting at the next Girls Who Code in BG.

STEM @ Green Mountain 11/15 I arranged with the community library to host a quarterly 
STEM project at Green Mountain Elementary. November's project: Crappy Robotics for 4th and 
5th graders!

   

Vancouver Community Library's Crappy Robotics Tournament 
11/19  I hosted the 3rd Annual Crappy Robotics Tournament at Vancouver Community 
Library. 45 people attended this program, including one participant who has attended all 
3 years’ of this program at VA. Participant age ranged from 3-45 and we saw a lot of families 
working together, and some siblings working against each other, to build the crappiest robot.
Finding enough chassis for everyone has proven difficult and I am looking into 
creating a simple battery-operated chassis for 2020. The final battle came down to 
Destructo Kitty and the Baconator: 

Stevenson STEM Wednesday 11/13 This month, the 2nd and 4th Wednesday focused on 
using the Edison robots. We incorporated coding the robots for older participants. 
Everyone enjoyed building with LEGOs and having the robots interact with each other and 
people.

11/25 STEM @ Clark County Juvenile Detention Center 
November’s project focused on exploring with Cubelets. We offered 2 sessions, with 15 
students. Their teacher commented that she appreciates how this project was simple enough 
for all students to have success, and complicated enough to provide a unique challenge to 
the more advanced students. The teacher commented that one of the JDC students generally 
doesn’t interact during class, but he was very engaged with today’s activity and she really 
appreciated seeing him open up.

District Partnerships

VR @ Adult Services Training Day. I demonstrated the Oculus Rift and Go during Adult 
Services Training Day. My colleague shared his experience taking the Gos to Outreach 
at an assisted living facility. Several attendees indicated interest in trying out this program.  
The 2 Oculus Gos owned by Program Services have been made into a kit for the branches 
to borrow.

Covered La Center’s 3D Design 11/7 and 3D Printer Certification 11/14. We had a full 
room for 3D Design  (11 people) and Certification (10 people). Ages varied from 12 to 
senior with one group of 3 generations (grandson, daughter, grandpa) certifying together to 
use the printer. 

Fixed Vancouver Community Library’s 3D printer. The glass plate chipped on the corner 
and metal bed mount damaged. I replaced plate with duplicate from dead 3D printer and 
inserted a longer screw to hold the calibration washer in place.

Covered Stevenson’s STEM Wednesday 
11/27. We had 6 people attend this program to play with Edison robots. One 4 year old cried 
when her mother told her they had to leave.

February 2020 Leap Into Science Storytime arranged at all 12 branches.  
A group of us received Leap Into Science last Spring and have arranged to host programs 
at all the branches, taking over a normal storytime during National Leap Into Science 
Week (2/24-29).

Community Partnerships

11/9 Girls in STEM @ Heritage High School (Evergreen School District). 
This is our 2nd year participating in this event. We hosted two 50-minute sessions and 
a project table during lunch. Our 50-minute project focused on building a marble maze
 using the game engine Unity. I built the base assets and scripts for this project ahead 
of time and students focused on working with the tools to get used to the build environment. 
We had a very positive response to this project. 36 students opted in for our session.  We
created custom icons using perler beads in honor of Susan Kare. 250 Girls, boys, 
non-binary individuals, and their parents attended this event, including 3 students from my 
Girls Who Code clubs (Cascade Park and Battle Ground). A colleague from 
Vancouver Community Library and a superstar volunteer assisted.

11/12 PDX Makerspace Coalition meeting @ OMSI 
+ tour of new teen maker lab. The newly formed PDX Makerspace Coalition met for the first 
time. This group is organized by the Portland Youth Builders Organization and is focused 
on sharing maker skills and knowledge with one another and the community. In
 attendance, representatives from MultCoLib and BeavertonLib. I spoke to one of the 
Beaverton librarians in September at OMSI Maker Faire. She indicated she attended my 
OLA/WLA conference session “Make Easy” last April and was inspired to join the 
makerspace workgroup formed at Beaverton library. They hope to open their makerspace 
in January 2020.  The next meeting for this group is February 2020.

We also had the opportunity to tour OMSI’s new teen maker space (partially funded by 
Best Buy). 
This area is free for teens to use, but has limited open hours (mostly after school). 
The space is located on the 2nd floor in the interactive play space. Their 
makerspace features:

Tinker table with passive activities (perler beads, button maker)

Sewing/knitting/crafting supply closet

10 computers loaded with Adobe Creative Suite

Large drawing tablet

3 iMacs (1 for 3D modeling + Ultimaker printer, 2 sound station) 

Green screen

Instruments and Digital Audio Workstations

1 sound booth

11/16 FVRL hosted Washington State Library’s “Makerspace Your School Library” at 
Vancouver Community Library.. 20 teacher librarians attended to learn more about how to 
integrate maker activities and maker spaces into their schools. Hillary Marshall from 
Washougal School District and Craig Seasholes from Dearborn Elementary (Seattle) 
conducted the training. I met Hillary Marshall through the Washougal Community Library
 in 2016. Hillary was just starting out in makerspace activities and I helped her plan  
and conduct activities until Hillary was comfortable leading programs. :). 
In general, most teacher librarians find themselves suddenly in charge of maker tools 
and spaces with little knowledge or training in these tools. Attendees discussed how maker
 tools in schools can help students engage in learning even if they struggle with traditional 
educational structures. Attendees mentioned struggling with giving up some “control” 
over the space and taking a step back from educating to guiding. 
They shared their curated list of maker activities aligned with school standards:
 https://padlet.com/mlarsen4/4chwf5g963hv 

Washougal high school sees ~125 students in their makerspace over lunch breaks.

The attendees discussed the desire to try out STEM tools before committing to them for their 
school. Some places to access STEM tools: 4H/WSU has STEM tubs you can check out. 
Also host summer camps. R. David OMSI and California State Parks has a Skype option 
for classrooms. Microsoft hosts Skype calls with authors in February.  We also discussed 
that FVRL has access to a lot of these tools and could partner with schools to host the
equipment at their school.

We also discussed the option of partnering with the school district to host a ½ day Maker 
Day during teacher professional development days.

I learned about the Hummingbird Kit and think this might be a valuable addition to FVRL’s 
MicroBit set. 

I also learned about the Apple Store Teacher Tuesdays https://www.apple.com/today/pioneerplace/

3rd Annual Crappy Robotics Tournament: 2019 Hebocon

I was a little worried with my new position in Program Services at my library district's Operation Center that I wouldn't have time to host Hebocon this year. Turns out, I hosted not one, but TWO programs! I adapted this program for a STEM project at a local elementary school.

Hebocon is my favorite program, and I love all my programs! If you're looking for something innovative, fun, and bursting with creative engineering and imagination, Hebocon is the program for you!  My Library's Program Description:

"The 3rd Annual Crappy Robotics Tournament Returns!

Don't think you can build a robot? Hebocon is a robot sumo-wrestling tournament for those who don't have the technical skills to actually make robots.

All ages are welcome to participate and all supplies provided. Robot build starts at 5 pm. Tournament begins promptly at 6 pm." 

Hebocon Cheat Sheet
Hebocon Entry Form
Hebocon Audience Choice Vote Slips
Hebocon 2019 Master Roster

There are several modifications to this program that I implement due to the nature of my work with the public and for the sake of providing equal access to building materials and resources:

1. All robots are built from the same base/chassis <-- didn't happen this year :(
2. The Library provides all building supplies
3. All build takes place on-site
4. Build starts at 5 pm. Tournament begins promptly at 6 pm. Participants are welcome to come in any time before 6 pm, but no building (other than minor repairs) take place once the tournament begins.

At the 2nd Hebocon, I used the DREAM chassis, a stripped-down Dollar Store battery-powered car.

I dug out the leftovers from 2019 and realized why they were leftovers: the dang wires came loose! Did a quick solder job on them and they were ready to rock and roll again...unfortunately, there were only 9 of them. I thought about forcing participants work in groups, but part of the fun is watching families compete against each other. 2019 was going to be another experimental year (when is Hebocon not an experiment?)

I also rounded up some regular push cars from the Dollar Tree

...and found these tiny friction cars at my local Michael's Craft Store (4 for $1)

The friction cars are tiny, and I thought they would be my last resort, but people made some pretty great robots with these as the base!

Our program started at 5 pm. It's always a gamble with public programs how many people will show up. I was pleasantly surprised with the turnout right at 5 pm. Half a dozen families came together to work on robots, as well as a few curious adults, and two teens whose robot, Baconator, ended up being the one to beat.  I gave them a quick overview of Hebocon with this slides presentation:


I then left the presentation running throughout the build time for people to refer to. Several more people showed up throughout the build time.  By tournament time, we had 50 people building lots of different things. Some people decided not to enter their robot into the tournament, so our tournament roster featured 17 robots total.

Initially, I thought I'd offer extra points to participants who use a chassis without a motor. Ultimately, most built without a motor, so I paired the cars based on chassis type and then had the two winners from the motorized and un-motorized categories face off for the final match. It worked out better than expected because the motorized car's motor stopped working it was something I soldered, after all), so technically they both competed without a motor.

Destructo Kitty won 2 awards: Audience Choice and Tournament Champ

Insert Name Here won Most Destroyed. This builder has participated all three years and now has a trophy from each tournament: 2019 Most Destroyed, 2018 Tournament Champion, 2017 Audience Favorite.

Tournament Footage!

My plans for 2020:
1. Build my own (cheap) motorized chassis. I think the motorized cars are just more fun to use.
2. Failing the building my own option ^^, I'll find more friction cars.
2. Use the scoring system. I like how it worked out during my Outreach program at Green Mountain Elementary School. 

School Outreach: Crappy Robotics

Proto-Tournament during Outreach
In this midst of planning for 2019 Hebocon, I was asked to provide a STEM program at a rural elementary school in our library district. I decided to host a mini-Hebocon Tournament for the 4th and 5th grade classes in their gym (roughly 30 kids).  The school is 20 minutes from our community library and I can't find it myself, so I took a time-lapse video while the community librarian drove:

Such a beautiful drive through some of the best country roads in Washington!

The students did not know the topic of that day's project, just that they were going to do something STEM-related. They were so excited to learn that we were holding a crappy robotics tournament. I feel like the word "crappy" is really what sold it for them. Due to time restraints, our 4th and 5th graders worked in groups of 2-3 to design their robot. We followed these modified rules to facilitate the competition. The key changes from how I regularly hold Hebocon:

1. Only 30 minutes to build
2. Work in teams
3. Everyone used a Dollar Tree push car base
4. We gave out one trophy for the team with the highest total points:
  1 point=meets entry requirements
  1 point= match win
  5 points = most destroyed
  5 points = Audience Vote

Sample Roster/Score Sheet

Our Mini-Hebocon robots:

The teachers commented on how excited and engaged the students were throughout this project. When the students first heard it was going to be a robot competition, they were very concerned with how to win the tournament. After I explained the point of Hebocon, many of them focused their efforts on creating a robot that would totally fall apart (thus gaining the 5 points for most destroyed) or to make the most attractive car (thus gaining the 5 points for audience choice).

Mini-Hebocon results:
All robots met the build requirements and received 1 point.
The Stick Man in His Car by Team the Blue Group won the most matches (4 points)
Bob by Team Joe was the most destroyed (5 points)
Willy by Team Asame received the audience vote (5 points).  Willy also won 2 matches, making it the overall winner of Hebocon.

The icing on the cake is these two students are 4th graders. Their class was so proud to beat out the 5th graders on the competition. :D

Soldering Saves Lives...

While prepping for the 3rd Annual Hebocon Tournament, I ran into a snag finding my favorite chassis, the Dollar Store battery-powered car. In 2018, we stripped down these cars and used them as a platform for our crappy robots.

 They were amazing! And so fun!  And are now impossible to find!  I knew I had a few left over from 2018 Hebocon, so I dug them out...and remembered why I hadn't used them last year...they all had some sort of electrical problem I couldn't fix during the program. Now that I had some time, I pulled out my soldering iron and reattached all the pieces.

Soldering is a skill I learned specifically for a library program. When I first started at Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, there was a dream of maker activities in a dedicated space, but the reality turned into what can I scavenge and/or inherit from others around the District and where is there a free space I can take over for a couple of hours. One of the maker tools I inherited was a soldering iron and some Make soldering badges. So we bought some more irons to make a program set.

Even with the equipment, I deferred to others with more experience in soldering, which kept me from really learning it myself. I really didn't know soldering was a skill I could HAVE until late 2018, when I taught it to a bunch of girls at Girls in STEM. 

Anywho, here we are now, and I love a good opportunity to solder stuff!  I even pulled out my Adafruit hookup wire and replaced some of the crappy wire on the car!

October 2019 Experiential Learning Roundup!

In October, I attended the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Creative Constructor Lab. ISTE inspires the creation of solutions and connections that improve opportunities for all learners by delivering: practical guidance, evidence-based professional learning, virtual networks, thought-provoking events and the ISTE Standards. I learned about the current and trending technologies used in K-12 classrooms and the evolving roles of educators and students interacting with technology. View my full report. 

Programming

Girls Who Code 6-week program at Cascade Park wrapped up on 10/22. 10 of the original 12 girls completed all six weeks of the program and were excited for another round of programming. The weekly projects for Girls Who Code were determined using feedback submitted by the girls at each meeting. CP’s program completed the following projects:

Week 1: GIF and website build using Made with Code (language: blockly) and Trinket.io (language: HTML)

Week 2: Generating art using Trinkiet.io (language: Python with Turtle Module)

Week 3: Custom website using Trinket.io (language: HTML/CSS)

Week 4: Creating music using Incredibox and Earsketch (language: Python). Earsketch lost the songs generated by the participants. When I contacted Earsketch they said there was an issue with their server.

Week 5:Free Design. Students worked in the environment of their choice. Several chose to complete projects within Earsketch, Incredibox, Made with Code.

Week 6: celebrate with friends and family 

Project website: https://gwcclub-wa15574-2019.weebly.com/

The coding program in Goldendale wrapped up.  The group consisted mostly of boys. Participation increased when we moved our project to the Teen Area. Anywhere from 3-8 kids participated in weekly projects. Since we didn’t have a consistent group week-to-week, I focused on one-off programs.

Week 1: GIF and website build using Made with Code (language: blockly) and Trinket.io (language: HTML)

Week 2: Chatbots using Trinket.io (language: Javascript)

Week 3: Game Design using Make Code (language: blockly, Javascript)

Week 4: Creating music using Incredibox...Internet died...we then played Uno

Week 5: Game Design using Unity (language: C#)

Week 6: Coding with Arduino and Wink Robots (language: C/C++)

BG’s Girls Who Code program wraps up the first week of November. 7 of the original 10 girls attend weekly. Our club was also featured in the local newspaper!

District Partnerships

I covered Stevenson’s STEM Wednesday program on 10/9. 25 children and their adults built circuits using Program Services’ circuit blocks. 

I covered Cascade Park’s Preschool Story time on 10/22. 42 kids and their adults participated in a monster-themed story time where we sang spooky versions of normal story time songs. I pulled out the watercolors and let the kids explore this medium to design a spooky landscape. Many adults and children commented that this was their first time exploring watercolor art and they enjoyed the activity.

I worked with Three Creeks to fix their broken 3D printer. The printer stopped randomly during prints. Elizabeth tried to hook the printer up to her laptop, but the printer continued to fail. Aaron took a look at the computer when the printer initially broke. I took VA’s staff printer and tested it on TC’s computer and the printer worked, ruling out an issue with the computer. I left VA’s printer and brought TC’s printer to program services to work on it.  I was able to fix TC’s 3D Printer by flashing the firmware through my Macbook. TC’s printer and VA’s printer have been swapped back.

I worked with several branches in Clark County to create a schedule for the digitization scanner at the branches.  One of my goals is to create some in-depth training documentation.

Community Partnerships

Clark County Juvenile Detention Center: 12 students built scribble-bots using components scavenged from a Dollar Store electric toothbrush, cardboard, and masking tape.  The initial plan to use Unity had to be changed due to the lack of a sufficient quantity of laptops and inability to set up the laptops and have them retain their settings before heading out to the center.

I attended a makerspace librarian meetup on 10/28/19. The group includes Theresa Misenti from Hillsboro, Amy Petit from Portland Community College, Nicole Alger and Sarah Vandehey from Beaverton Public Library, and Desiree WOlcott-Cushman from Multnomah County Library.  We discussed working with laptops, machine maintenance, implementing new technology, and the challenges of driving interest in a physical space.