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!

3D Printing During Pandemic

My library district owns 7 Lulzbot Minis. Initially, we had plans to create a centralized makerspace in our large downtown branch. When that didn't seem feasible, several other branches received 3D printers. We then set about coordinating our efforts to create a consistent process for getting the technology into the hands of our patrons.

My library district has been closed since March 15th. I've been keeping an eye on the maker initiatives growing out the of the need to support local healthcare agencies with Personal Protective Equipment and other items. I had a lot of concerns about the initial enthusiasm for creating PPE. My biggest concern was over makers creating these items without any oversight from healthcare agencies or an  actual ask by healthcare agencies.

The NIH website has provided a lot of guidance during this process.

We were fortunate to be able to partner with our local Repair Cafe group, Repair Clark County. They started sewing cloth masks, and quickly expanded into other areas. We responded to their request for surgical mask extenders.

We're following safety best practices created by the Prusa 3D printing company. Wiping down the machines with disinfectant, wearing masks and gloves.

Our facilities crew has been keeping an eye on our branches, and they kindly rounded up all the printers and brought them to the Operations Center. I worked on getting them cleaned, calibrated and printing.

Feedback we received from the first batch of mask extenders was they were a bit short. I created an optimized version for the Lulzbot Mini, squeezing almost an extra inch out of the design by printing without build adhesion (no skirt).

I also created files for printing 7" and 8" extenders. We'll see what feedback we receive from the next batch. I uploaded all 3 of my resized files to Thingiverse.

 Original size (left). 8 inch size (right)

Original size (left). Optimized Mini print (right).

We've only been printing a few days, but have already printed over 100 and I think I've got a system figured out to print faster. It takes about 20 minutes to print an extender on our Minis.  Here is a timelapse of several hours' worth of printing compressed to 30 seconds:

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/

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

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.