Make at Home Projects: Earth Day!

I finished up week 5 still working 1/2 from home and 1/2 at our library district operations center, printing Mask Strap Extenders for local healthcare workers in cooperation with our local Repair Cafe group.

While most of my projects focus on using recycled supplies, I challenged myself this week to try and use the same supplies several times. By the end of the week, I worked with the tiniest cardboard scraps, but I think it might be my favorite project! 

I have started creating the rough draft of my project in the video, then spending some time finishing it after the video, to have something a little more appealing to take a picture of to promote the project/video. While I have mixed feelings about providing a finished example because it sets expectations on the participant that may end up frustrating them, I'm navigating new waters with providing digital content and not relying on my amazing personality to get people excited to try a project. My observation from other videos definitely shows a pattern of having the "idealized" version of a project to entice people to keep watching. I have no ambition of creating the best craft, but I have been spending a little extra time on the project.  

Tiny Projector
This project came from a suggestion by one of my coworkers (Hi, Gen!). Toilet paper roll, plastic wrap (I used repurposed plastic from a box that had a cut-out window), cardboard and a bit of tape. I was kind of surprised that I didn't have a flashlight at home to use with the toilet paper projector, but my phone worked ok.

Toilet Paper Roll Flowers
I've always loved how this project looked, but hadn't tried it for myself.   I think I prefer the paper towel roll (more cardboard pieces to work with).

Display Box
I'm trying to think of useful things for my primary audience, kids ages 6-10. When I was a kid, and when I interact with kids at the library, they most often have some sort of little toy or knickknack in their pocket. I figured a nice place to store and display their little figures would be a fun re-use of some cardboard. The un-edited video for this project was over an hour. I really struggled to get this one right. My first attempt even involved a ruler and didn't fit my figure, even with the exact measurements. I'm kind of sad I couldn't keep all that failure content in there, but YouTube has a 15-minute limit. Maybe some day I'll make a bloopers reel...

 Abstract Art Faces
This project was suggested by my coworker (hi, Bonnie!). In the original post on Facebook, they used simple shapes and colored cardboard. I thought it would make a fun project to just use some of the colored cardboard. Another new project for me, but pretty cool!

Scrappy Garden
This project was inspired by the teeny tiny shards of cardboard left over from this week's project. It was really fun and freeing to just fill a piece of paper with random cardboard scraps!

Make at Home Projects: Week 4

Our library district has extended our closure through early May. We are forming work groups to try and work out what summer learning, ongoing programming and connecting digitally may look like. There are so many unknowns at this point, that I get overwhelmed. I appreciate having the Make at Home project to practice creating digital content, and to start thinking about how the content I've already created can be expanded and enhanced for a more interactive experience with our communities.

The entire Make at Home Playlist is available on my Youtube Account

4/6: Pixel Art, Part 1: Pen and Paper
My husband recommended this project to me. During Winter 2020 Girls Who Code @ Vancouver, one of my club member's presented on the pixel art she had created throughout the 4 years she has been involved with FVRL's Girls Who Code. It was quite touching. I'm also acutely aware of the digital divide in our community, so I wanted to create an alternative pixel art project, that only required pencil and paper. I/ve done this project as part of a 2-hour Unplugged Coding workshop, but I usually cheat and use Excel to create a grid and print it out. I usually extend this project with Perler Beads, but not knowing if that's something kids have at home, I focused more on the math of measuring out and creating your own grid on paper. It was quite satisfying, but I love measuring things. :D

4/7: Pixel Art 2: Digital using Piskel
Piskel is a really fun and easy-to-learn software. It's free, cloud-based, and pretty powerful for a free online pixel editor. I know people who have created game sprites in Piskel and then use them in their video game builds. Pretty cool.

4/8: Pop-Up Cards
I recently made pop-up cards with the students at the Juvenile Detention Center. I don't know why I had never done a pop-up card before, the basic design is really simple. I can tell this will be one of my go-to projects.

4/9-4/114: Tiny Diorama
I love tiny things! I wanted to do an Altoids tin diorama, but I guessed not everyone hoards tins the way I do, so I found a couple of good alternative boxes to turn into tiny dioramas, and even how to make your own. Due to Youtube's 15-minute limit, I broke this project into 3 sections.

Make at Home Projects: Week 3

I continue creating videos at home. I'm getting better at editing and adding in more information on what the finished product will look like early in the video. I'm loading them to the Youtube account linked to my work email.

3/30: Shadow Theater
Inspired by the puppet theater and a request from a coworker to do a shadow theater program a few years ago. I still haven't been able to do this as a public program, but it was a super fun project.

3/31: Resist Tape Art
Another recommendation from a coworker. I did this project during Maker Camp a few years ago.  My Sharpies are starting to wear out.

4/1: Luminary
Another Maker Camp project from a few years ago. We used copper tape and LEDs to make our own light source. Knowing those items aren't likely to be something people at home made this more challenging.

4/2: Triangle Art
A re-use for my building squares. It reminds me of tessellation's. I may try to do a more involved tessellation's project...

4/3: Constellations
An oldie, but a goodie. This was one of the first STEM projects I did during my time as a high school student working at a summer STEM camp.

Make at Home Projects: Week 2

Our library closure has been extended until April 6. I am back at making videos from home. I'm doing my best to reuse supplies to keep waste down. It's been a fun additional challenge. I think I've figured out a good work flow to keep myself from getting overwhelmed. My partner is also working from home right now and our Internet is super slow (I think because a lot of people are working from home right now). It takes forever to download content, get it edited, and then get it posted to YouTube. I record several videos at a time, then work on editing them throughout the week. I love that YouTube allows you to schedule videos, so I can upload a bunch of them during off-hours (like 10 pm) and they will post throughout the week. I'm loading them to the Youtube account linked to my work email.

3/23: Board Game
 I've actually never done this project, but I was inspired by a gift of a blank board game kit. I love the idea of being totally in control of the play, environment, and rules. I actually want to make a full-fledged board game now.

3/24: Offline Coding
A coworker recently replicated an offline coding program we did together a few years ago. One of the activities included building a life-size grid on the floor, printing out basic directions (turn left, turn right, forward, stop, pick up) and then having the kids program each other to retrieve objects on the grid (we used story time puppets). It ended upping a great activity. While working on the board game, I thought about that activity and realized I could scale it down to fit on a piece of cardboard.

3/25: Building Squares
I find myself making these cardboard squares a lot. I first did this project while working at my library in Idaho and then created some for my friend's 4-year-old while visiting a couple of years ago.

3/26: Puppet Theater
A coworker and I created this project for Maker Camp a few years ago. We used miniature pizza boxes, but a soda box worked really well for this project.

3/27: Cardboard Automata
We had a training on cardboard automata at a Staff Day a few years ago, but I'd been too scared to try and make one. After creating the puppet theater, I decided it was time to give it a go. Fun fact, I initially tried to build cams from pop bottle caps, but they did not work for me. Thank goodness these videos aren't live...or maybe it would be good to see me struggle more...

I have plans to continue repurposing my puppet theater design next week!

Girls Who Code Washougal 2020

Today I went to my 2nd...and last...Girls Who Code meeting at our Washougal branch. The library district has decided to cancel all public programs through the end of the month due to the spread of COVID-19 in our state. Hopefully we'll be back at the beginning of April, but who knows.

Two best friends dropped in today and asked if we'll be doing things every week. It was heartbreaking to tell them we're on break until April.
















Today's project:

Interactive art with Makey Makey
We used graphite pencils and markers to create a conductive piece of paper, then wired it up to MakeyMakey and used the apps to interact with our art.

and

Interacting with Art using PencilCode
I think I have standardized my program utilizing PencilCode.
1. We begin with the example (the turtle makes 6 off-set squares)

2. We examine the block-based code.
3. We switch to the text-based code. My basic prompts:
   How many squares does the turtle make?
   Can we change the code so the turtle makes one square?
   Can we change the code so the turtle makes an upright square?
   Can we change the color of the pen?
4. We erase the existing code and pull out the PencilCode Reference Sheet. We try out several pieces of code together to see what they do.
5. We take turns deciding what to draw: house, flower, boat, face, tree, skull, etc

I still find PencilCode to be an effective and fun way to get the kids off block-based code and into text-based coding.

Maker Outreach: Maker Faire

Outreach: Portland Mini Maker Faire
Location: OMSI
Dates: Saturday/Sunday, 9/15-9/16, 2018
Maker Project: low-cost screen printing
Completed projects: 500 (estimated)
Participation: ~1,000
Staff: 11 staff members, 4 branches, program services, all awesome

We had a difficult time counting attendees as it was all-hands-on-deck for most of the day Saturday and Sunday. OMSI gave us a great location right next to the entrance, so there were few people who didn’t see our booth. FVRLibraries booth was also one of only a few booths who provided a hands-on activity that allowed participants to take home their finished creation. Attendees at Maker Faire included hobbyists, educators, commercial makers, and lots of parents and their children. We continue to see interest and appreciation for maker activities that allow inter-generational collaboration. Saturday we completed well over 350 prints with most prints worked on by a child and at least one parent. Sunday we finished off the last of the fabric (~120 pieces) and continued printing on paper. Special shout-out to Elsbeth who provided connectagons as an easy activity for smaller makers on Saturday as well as scratch art when we had to put the printing supply away to dry for Sunday (even though it rained Sunday).  And shout-out to Dre for picking up the leadership role on Sunday so Jamie could be in-branch.

Visitors seemed surprised and delighted to see the library doing something so hands-on, and many of them asked about how they could access the materials to re-create the project at home. We also had some conversations about other maker offerings at the library.  More than one participant mentioned that they were teachers looking for ideas they could recreate in the classroom and loved our screen printing idea.

Staffing was pretty much perfect for the set-up we had. We definitely felt a crunch when someone ducked out for their lunch break, but altogether we worked out a system. Generally, three people were able to keep up with the flow of people visiting our table, while the other two rinsed screens and stencils, hung them out to dry, dumped and fetched water, assembled screens and other materials, etc.

It would have been ideal to have more time for networking. Jamie spoke to two librarians from Multnomah County who took our What’s Happening for other Maker booths asking about our programs. Dre did have the opportunity to speak to a librarian from Hillsboro who was stationed next to us, and to touch base with Blake Swenson from Tinker Camp (who was a presenter at All Staff Day). Overall, though, we did the most important work: engaging with members of the community in an enriching way. It was messy and relentless and entirely awesome.

It was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience.  I felt the project was perfect for a wide range of ages and abilities; and the kids loved it!  I was surprised when I went to check out the other booths that not very many were like ours and made me realize why we were so popular.  One of the things that made the experience so awesome was the sheer number of folks who came to our booth!  It was exhausting but completely worth it.  I also enjoyed getting to work with my awesome co-workers in a new environment.  We definitely learned some things that would make it easier on staff for next time; knowing the high volume of participants.  I would love to do it again!  It was a great day!

Screen Printing (on the cheap)

This project happened because of a partnership with one of our talented SLAs and an equally talented Branch Supervisor. They were able to come up with a low-cost screen printing program that didn't require us to spend a lot of time setting up screens/burning images/etc. Bonus that this program is fairly easy for patrons to recreate at home!

We started planning for this program in January (more because our supplies have to be ordered so far ahead than anything else).  We will definitely offer this program again!

Supplies:

• Links are to Amazon for reference only. We scavenged our supplies (as noted).
• 110 mesh (cut into 10"x10" squares)
• embroidery hoops (every time I see them at the thrift store, I snag them)
• stencil paper (we found an old box of overhead transparency sheets and cut them up) 
• X-Acto knives (or Cricut/Silhouette/other vinyl cutting machine)
• Screen Printing Inks (our biggest expense, but this stuff will last forever)
• Small cups and spoons (for inks)
• Cardboard squeegees (rectangles of cardboard cut 6"x2" <-- must fit inside embroidery hoop) 
• Painters/masking tape
• Paper/fabric/other surface to print finished design
• Extra cardboard (if printing on shirts)
• Aprons/table covers/other things to keep things clean
• Access to water (to wash out screens/hands)
• Hair dryer/heat source (to speed up ink drying process)

Preparation:

• Cut the screen into usable squares. Expect patrons to use 2-3 for this program. Screens can be reused, but have to dry in-between ink pulls/washes. 
• Cut stencils (or) have supplies on-hand for patrons to cut their own.
• We gave patrons the opportunity to draw and cut their own stencils. 
• This is time-consuming and difficult for first-time screen printers. 
• First is the challenge to reverse the image and the 2nd challenge is to cut the stencil in such a way that you don't completely cut out the image and end up with a giant blob of ink (ask me how I know this). 
• Divide the inks into smaller cups to avoid waste/potential messes.
• Cut cardboard squeegees. Expect patrons to use 2-3 for this program. Squeegees can be re-used for the same color and/or mixing colors on a project and discarded when they are no longer useful.
• Cover work surfaces.
• Prepare screens and embroidery hoops
• A finished example or two.

Process:

Dre and Sarah led this program and were fantastic!  They started  with a quick demonstration of how to set up the screen on the embroidery hoop:

The stencil (difficult to see as it is on clear paper) is then taped to the outside/right side of the mesh:

The stencil/screen is then flipped over with the stencil pressed onto the surface to be printed (Paper, for our first effort):

Patrons then run a thin line of ink just above where the stencil starts:

Using the cardboard squeegee, patrons press down firmly on the embroidery hoop and drag the ink down and across the stencil:

Carefully lift off the screen to reveal the print!

Use a hair dryer to ensure the print is dry before touching!

Wash out the screens and set out to dry. 

Tips:

• Use painters tape to block off sections of the stencil to add different colors
• Dry the print between color applications
• Shift a stencil slightly and pull a different color to create a dimensional effect
• If printing on fabric, please a piece of cardboard under the fabric to be printed to avoid ink bleed (onto the back of a shirt or your work surface).

ProjectUpdate! We replicated this project at an Outreach Event in September 2018.

Teen Program: Altered Landscapes

Our quest to provide teen programming while we work on hiring a new Teen Librarian continues. This month, I partnered with a couple of our art-minded senior assistants to offer a creative outlet for our teens. This project was inspired by the art of Kat Martin.

Supplies needed:
butcher paper
pencils, erasers
acrylic paints
paintbrushes
paint palette
landscape paintings
random assortment of fabrics and decoupage supplies

Planning:
We started gathering paintings in August. I'd find the best bargains at flea markets. In all, we spent probably $25.  The other art supplies we already had on-hand.  Originally we thought we would do this as a registration-only program to ensure we had enough supplies on-hand. Well, on the day-of our program, we only had 2 people registered, so we carried all our supplies into Teen Central and set up in their midst. We wrapped a couple of tables in butcher paper. We probably could have used plastic for the carpet, but hindsight is 20/20.

At first the teens were a little shy to participate.  I found another one of my artistic coworkers and had him start on a painting.  In 20 minutes, he painted this:

It was just what we needed to get the teens into it!

We have one large canvas left that we're currently working on as a community piece and everyone is adding an element.

Things we learned:

We scheduled this program for 2 hours. It could have used at least one extra hour if not two. 

Teens got into having art supplies out and available. We could probably host a regular drop-in art day in the Teen Room.  Once they knew the supplies were out and available, we had more artists in our midst than I had been aware of. :)