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.

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.

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/

2019 Winter Girls Coding Club

The four girls who attended Fall 2018's Girls Who Code club were very enthusiastic and excited to come back in January. At the end of the Club, I 3D modeled and printed keychains for the girls and they were so excited by the idea of learning how to use the 3D printer that I decided for our next coding club we would work that in somehow.

Thinking more about the girls' diverse talents and interests, I thought we'd stray a little from the Girls Who Code model and provide a wider variety of STEM experiences. I am also aware that this club is a social interaction for the girls as well. 1.5-2 hours staring at a computer, trying to finish a project, was really difficult for this group who liked each other and only had this club to talk to each other IRL. I also knew I'd be working on several projects with the impending 3D printer distribution around the district, so I decided to tighten up the schedule a little bit.

I planned the Winter 2019 Girls Coding Club as a 6-week, 2-hour program, with the following topics:

Week 1: introduction, learn to solder (as per my SLA's recommendation)
Week 2: Art --> PencilCode & Processing
Week 3: 3D Modeling and Printing
Week 4:Web --> HTML + CSS & JavaScript
Week 5: Music --> Python
Week 6: Soft Circuits --> LilyTiny

When club started up again, our 4 girls returned, plus a friend who attended in Winter 2018, but missed Fall 2018, and a new member, Serenity. I heard from several of the returning parents that their girls (who met in club) had been texting each other since the last club ended, ready to start up again. SLA Taylor, and children's librarian Maggie joined me in this endeavor.

The first week was chaotic. The girls were high energy, excited to see each other again, and, as teens do, often spoke their own language. I think it was a bit intimidating for the people assisting. We spent the first part of the session having them talk about languages they have tried out, languages they would like to learn, and other ice-breaker-y type questions.
We then had them set up to solder. They settled right in to the task at hand, and we only had one badge that couldn't get finished. Pretty successful. :)

The second week, we did pretty well with PencilCode. Processing was more of a challenge for the girls and I lost a couple of them to Youtube/memes.

In Week 3, they were all very excited to learn about 3D printing and modeling. Some of them made successful models...some of them not so successful. But, I printed all of their objects and promised them glittery purple Rocktopodes if they finished their models. All came through :)

Week 4 was supposed to be HTML/CSS, but the girls didn't express much interestin this topic and/or already had experience with this. So, instead, I brought in the VR equipment on loan from the State Library and let the girls configure and work with the technology. They loved it (and I got some great experience for when I lead an intro session for adults a couple of weeks later).

Week 5 was supposed to be Earsketch, but the girls let me know they spent the first few weeks of the Winter 2018 Club working in Earsketch, so we decided to get started with our soft circuits. I brought in LilyTiny, battery holders, and LEDs and had the girls prototype circuits. I then had them practice stitching with conductive thread on fabric and an embroidery hoop. We also added a new member, Leilani.

Week 6: Instead of a party to celebrate a project they worked on over the past several weeks, we did our best to get a soft circuit project finished. I asked the girls what type of wearable item they wanted to work on for our final week and they indicated a hat. I found black hats for a decent price at the craft store and followed this Instructable on sewing them into a hat. We ultimately left out the Lilytiny and worked directly from the battery holder to the LEDs. It was actually pretty successful, but we left an insane mess to clean up in the morning.

This program is a lot of work, but so rewarding. Feedback from participants indicates that if VA does not offer another Girls Coding Club in Fall 2019, they will form their own club. Creating a welcoming and casual environment for these girls to meet, interact, and learn new skills has been a resounding success. The girls let me know they have been able to apply their soldering, printing, and coding skills in their classes.