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!

Staff Training on Maker Tools

With a generous community donation, VA has acquired several new pieces of equipment to enhance our experiential learning opportunities for the public. Several staff members have requested training on the different equipment we offer to the public. I sent out a survey in July to gauge interest from staff.

Through the month of August, we conducted the following trainings on the most-requested equipment:

3D printer: 25 staff trained ( I made a lot of keychains this month...)

Side note: I am in love with Polymaker Polylite PLA. We just bought a 3K spool and we're respooling it onto all the empty 1K spools.

Cricut: 17 staff trained (we named our Cricut to help staff remember how to pronounce "cricut" correctly)

Soldering: 6 staff trained

STEM Toys: 12 staff trained

Sewing: 8 staff trained

Following training, staff have been more enthusiastic about asking questions and using the equipment. They speak confidently to visitors and patrons about the equipment and what they are currently working on. Having a better working knowledge of the new experiences we provide the public helps us better market our experiential learning opportunities to the public.  Several of the projects completed after training will be marketed at the libraries’ booth at Rose City Comic Con in September and Maker Faire at OMSI.

2018 August Experiential Learning RoundUp!

Programming:
Most experiential maker programming took a break in August to focus on staff training on the new VA equipment. (see staff development).

SLA reported that the Make a Better World attendees wanted to continue to meet through August. They met informally throughout August and continued to work on plastic mats. We are planning on continuing MaBW into the fall and hope to keep the enthusiasm and momentum currently held by this group.

SLA continues to lead the weekly Craft Connections adult crafting program.

Youth SLAs continued weekly story time programs and summer reading programming, finishing with BubbleFest the weekend of August 11. All story time and children’s programming are on break until Sept 4. Youth Services staff are working on their fall/winter programs and supply inventory after another successful summer reading program.

Community Connections:
I met with 5 librarians from Multnomah County Library District: They are all relatively new in position at MultCo and are working on expanding the makerspace offerings to a wider age range. We visited the Teen Room as well as the many places we hold maker programming throughout VA. We discussed wider collaboration and idea sharing moving forward with a quarterly maker meetup for librarians in our area.  I explained our challenges and how we successfully integrate all-ages programming into our various spaces.  We also discussed staff training and utilization of staff based on skills and interest.  MultCo was very interested in learning how we decide which programs we offer. I told them the most valuable feedback comes from direct interaction with our patrons during other maker programs and listening to their questions and ideas.  MultCo asked about my training and I told them I am largely self-trained. I ask patrons what they want to learn, and then I learn enough to help patrons get started. MultCo was impressed with my attitude and have co-opted my motto as their own for 2019: “What do you want to learn? We can learn all this crap.”

District Collaboration:
I attended orientation for OMSI PDX Mini-Maker Faire in September. I have coordinated district-wide staff to represent our libraries during the event. 11 staff members will all assist during the 2-day event with a hands-on interactive booth and will also have the opportunity to attend the Faire and meet other makers in the area.

We invited IT and Program Services to attend our staff trainings on 3D printing. Aaron from IT and Janet from Marketing joined us. Aaron indicated he enjoyed learning more about how we train and work with the public on 3D printing projects.

I went out to WA to assist with 3D printer setup and demonstration. SLA and I created a short how-to video on unboxing the 3D printer that anyone in the district can view, should they need help getting the equipment set up.



Professional Development:
I attended a virtual tour of the Boise State University makerspace within Albertsons’ Library. It was a treat to see this makerspace currently moving into a new 4,000 square foot space as I originally met with their Emerging Technologies and Experiential Learning Librarian, Amy Vecchione, in 2014 when they first started down this path with a reprap 3D printer on an A/V cart.

Both of my proposals will be included in the ALA publication 50 Coding Libraries for Libraries. My proposals focus on projects developed for VA’s Learn2Code program.

Outreach with a 3D Printer

A public library having a 3D printer for free use to the public still wows our community.

I had the opportunity to show off TWO of our Lulzbot Minis! During a recent Tool Library Meeting, I reconnected with the Neighborhood Liaison for City of Vancouver.  He connected me with a member of the Watershed Monitoring Network, who is working with the City of Vancouver Water Resource Center for Second Saturday. They were very interested in having the library at their July Second Satruday: Design Zone Day -- Engineer Your Creativity. Event description:

Explore your creativity with the Water Resources Education Center’s new exhibition – Design Zone! July’s Second Saturday event will become ‘Design Zone Day,’ and allow inquisitive minds to engineer and explore their own creativity. Design Zone is a highly interactive, hands-on exhibition where visitors can explore concepts highlighting the importance of science and mathematical thinking in areas critical to building creativity and innovation, especially in art, music and engineering. The expanded Second Saturday event, from 1 to 4 p.m., offers time to explore the Design Zone exhibit and also participate in design challenges, demonstrations and hands-on science-based learning.

Design Zone is presented at the Water Center with partner, JACOBS, and will be on display through the end of August. The Water Center is free to the public with general hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. The creation of Design Zone was made possible by the generous support of the National Science Foundation. The exhibition was produced and is toured by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).

I loaded up my Chevy Sonic with an A/V cart and two of our minis (Freddie Prints Jr. and FRVLibraries, if you care to know) and drove them down to the Center. We had a great spot inside their air-conditioned building with the local high school robotics club, Repair Clark County, and JACOBS.

For this event, I wanted to demonstrate the practicality of 3D printing.  And I also wanted a print that would be (relatively) quick. I chose these gecko earbud holders. Our minis can print two every ~56 minutes, so I printed 50 beforehand and produced 12 more during the event.

Along with the earbuds patrons could take, I made sure to have some neat examples on-hand, including the Raptor Reloaded, spiral vase, fish fossilz, and the chessmen from the British Museum.

My conversations with the public included a discussion of how they can get access to print their own things (through Intro to 3D Design, Open Lab, and Certification) as well as the types of things other certified users have created. In addition to the many families I spoke with, I made contacts with the Boys & Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts of America, and UL to work on partnerships to create learning opportunities for their groups.

I love these types of outreach events and the second look people give the 3D printer after I tell them they can learn how to use the equipment for themselves for free.

3D Printing Museum Artifacts

While preparing for Hello, Vancouver from The Forum at the Library, I wanted to print something new that helps illustrate the practicality of 3D printers. I decided it was time to dig into museum prints.

I heard about museum scans two or three years ago, but hadn't really spent the time to see how they came off the printer. 

While searching online, I found 3D Printing resources for the British Museum, Met Museum of Art, as well as educational resources.  I don't think I'll have any shortage of useful objects to print.

For this week's presentation, I started work on the British Museum's Lewis Chessmen. The original file was a complete set of chessmen. It was also tiny, so I scaled it up. It failed once, so I printed again with a raft, but it failed again.

After poking around, I did find the individual models. I started with the queen. When I loaded the model into Cura, she was tiny, so I scaled her up 30%.  Then I noticed she was at a bit of an angle, so I rotated her around so she was standing up with a raft, and she did alright.

I printed her bro (the King) next.  He was also tiny and at a funny angle. I got him oriented to print standing up...

Little bit of a gap...

Still doing okay...

He failed.

So I rotated him onto his back and the print went a little faster. They still took ~2.5 hours a piece.

I made sure to print this information from the British Museum. I enjoy having them as a talking piece to help people realize that students may never have the opportunity to visit these items in their museum, but we can bring a little bit of the museum experience into our classrooms (and libraries)!

Hello Vancouver from the Forum at the Library

The building I work in is celebrating its 7th Birthday in July, so we hosted Hello, Vancouver as part of our series, Forum at the Library. The episode title is "How Libraries are Changing Lives and Embracing the Future." I guess I was "the Future" segment.

I had the opportunity to meet Washington State Librarian, Cindy Aden and talk to her for a bit about the Virtual Reality headsets I eagerly volunteered to demo later this year.

During my segment, we focused mostly on the 3D printers, which I had demoing during the program. I loved being a part of this and spoke to many eager community members following the program. 

OctoPrint

Earlier this summer, I was tasked with learning how OctoPrint works with our Lulzbot Minis to see if we could set up a feasible system for the rest of the district. IT really wanted to use Raspberry Pi instead of dedicated laptops for the printers. We will be rolling these out to branches who may or may not have anyone on staff with experience using the district's printer.  I wanted to make sure we provide quality training for these branches and had a clear set of instructions with how the Pi works.

The first challenge was to decide what our goal is for 3D printing at our branches. I met with my senior assistant that handles the bulk of 3D printing for the public in our branch, as well as my colleague at a nearby branch, and the district's program coordinator.  We all agreed our ultimate goal was to use the printers as a teaching tool for the public.

We worked at our branches with the Pis to see what we could and couldn't do. OctoPrint worked really well if we had straightforward prints that didn't need a lot of manipulation to print. We did quickly come upon quite a few challenges to using OctoPrint for our printer interface in addition to the Cura slicing software:

• d be nice to be able to see the object on the bed before printing (not just gcode layers)
• I can't figure out how to load multiple objects into one print (unless I slice it in Cura first)
• I can't fine tune the extruder and bed temps to fix poor print quality
• I have identified the need for 36 printer profiles to load based on filament/bed temps, 
  platform adhesion, and support structure
• I can't figure out how to send print jobs as a patron (not signed in to admin)
• I can only have 29GB loaded into OctoPrint at a time (~20 print jobs)
• Octoprint disconnects, cannot be reconnected ~45 minutes
• I can’t figure out how to resize an object
• I tried to load a file with supports and resizing, but OctoPrint froze (see IT Ticket 1610). 
  Error received: “The server at va3dprinter02.fvrl.org is taking too long to respond.”
• I can’t troubleshoot print fails in OctoPrint. I have to reslice the object in Cura and then 
  re-load the object to OctoPrint and hope for the best.
• Sometimes OctoPrint will begin printing object, but will not extrude filament; 
  manual extrusion works fine
   

At this point, we've come to the conclusion that it will be easier for staff and patrons to learn about this technology through a dedicated laptop or computer that connects directly to the printer, rather than adding an RPi to communicate with the printer. I could see use for an RPi if our libraries get to a point where we have production machines in addition to our teaching printer.