Author: Heather Booth

Ten Dollar Tuesday: Call for posts

Ten Dollar Tuesdays

Everyone needs program ideas that stretch our thin library dimes. That’s why our Ten Dollar Tuesday series needs you! How are you doing STEAM programs in your library on a tight (or nonexistent) budget? Drop us a line and tell us about engineering with toothpicks and marshmallows, chromatography with drugstore supplies, stargazing, making the most of free tutorials online, paper crafting, Freecycled and re-purposed tech and more!

Let us know about your great idea and we’ll feature your program on an upcoming Tuesday. Here’s what we’ll need:

  • Your name & your library’s
  • Your suggestion for the best age range and size for the group
  • The total cost of the program, with a shopping list
  • Your tips and tricks and a rundown of how it all works
  • Difficulties and challenges you encountered (with the materials, unexpected costs, participation, fun… anything really) and how you handled or learned from them*
  • Any suggestions or ideas for adapting the program
  • We love pictures, too! Send ’em in if you’ve got ’em!

robottestkitchen at gmail

@robottestkitchn

*This is sometimes the hardest part to write, but it’s so important to helping other librarians know what to expect, and know that we’re not alone in our challenges.

Ten Dollar Tuesdays: Build a Better Speaker

Programs, Ten Dollar Tuesdays

In the Robot Test Kitchen, we talk about five main barriers that we typically face in conducting technology programming in our libraries: time, budget, skill, interest, and support. It’s our belief that most of these are not impossible barriers, but sometimes it’s hard to see how. Especially when things like your time and budget are already stretched paper thin.

On Tuesdays, we’re tackling the budget question with programs you can run at your library for under $10. We’re also addressing the interest and support questions by asking you to share your inexpensive STEM programs in the comments, and to let us know what kinds of feedback you’ve gotten when you’ve tried these or similar programs in your buildings! This week: Build a Better Speaker

paper tube & cup iphone speaker

One of our inspirations in the Robot Test Kitchen is another ILEAD team, the librarians behind Make It At Your Library. Their site, partnered with Instructables, has a wealth of ideas and ready-to-go programing fodder. Today, I’m highlighting something I found on their site and is an ideal match for a technology exploration club, a musical themed summer reading or Teen Read Week program, or just a one-off teen or tween program.

As you can see from the image above, this is a simple project: paper towel tubes, paper cups, and a craft knife or scissors are all you’ll need to do it. The RTK spin here is in challenging your teens to improve upon this basic design to yield the best results possible. Assemble your supplies based on the questions you’re going to ask. Some suggested questions are…

  • What happens if you use plastic cups instead of paper? What about styrofoam?
  • How long should the paper tube be for the best sound?
  • At what volume should the iPod or phone be set to hit that sweet spot between distortion and amplification?
  • Does lining the tube with tin foil make a difference?
  • Where in the room should the speaker be placed? How high? On what kind of surface?
  • Does changing the shape of the tube or the direction of the cups make a difference?

Once your participants have created their best version, have a proving ground. Test the sound on each speaker with the same song set at the same volume, and use another device to measure the decibels.

Age:

tween – teen (watch the young ones with the craft knives though)

Cost:

$0 – $10 (assuming you have access to at least two smartphones or mp3 playing devices)

Supplies:

  • A variety of disposable cups
  • Paper towel and toilet paper tubes (plan ahead and collect from staff!)
  • sharp scissor or craft knives
  • foil
  • tape
  • other craft supplies you have on hand to embellish or improve the speaker

Time:

Give yourself a couple hours prep time to make some demos and gather all of your supplies. Add some extra time if you need to hit the grocery store for additional materials. Running the program itself can be done in under an hour.

Ten Dollar Tuesdays: Coding Club

Programs, Ten Dollar Tuesdays

In the Robot Test Kitchen, we talk about five main barriers that we typically face in conducting technology programming in our libraries: time, budget, skill, interest, and support. It’s our belief that most of these are not impossible barriers, but sometimes it’s hard to see how. Especially when things like your time and budget are already stretched paper thin.

On Tuesdays, we’re tackling the budget question with programs you can run at your library for under $10. We’re also addressing the interest and support questions by asking you to share your inexpensive STEM programs in the comments, and to let us know what kinds of feedback you’ve gotten when you’ve tried these or similar programs in your buildings! This week: Coding Club

Cost: $0*

Age range: elementary – teens

Difficulty: simple to set up, requires perseverance to maintain

There are some really great FREE coding sites out there ready to use. Some of us have used Code.org, Kahn Academy, or Code Academy (which has a free After school Programming toolkit) to work alongside teens and tweens as they learn javascript and other computer languages. You don’t need to know how to code to run a coding club, but you need to be willing to work with your patrons to figure things out together.

Those of us in RTK that have used this approach to run coding clubs have had different experiences. At best, it’s a jumping off point for teens to explore their own coding interests. At worst, the freeform, youth led nature of this approach can be frustrating. It’s crucial to communicate with your group about what they want to get out of the club and what you can offer them. Sometimes all you can offer them is popcorn, free wifi, a time and place to meet, and the promise that you’ll be there to help them work through problems and questions together. Sometimes it will be a lot more. Working with your youth is essential here. It’s a different approach than most of our traditional library programs use, and can take some getting used to.

My coding club began working with Codecademy to learn Javascript. After a few months, it became clear that the kids wanted something that offered more immediate visual feedback and we shifted gears. They played around designing platforming games online that they could share with each other, and ended up planning and executing a Minecraft hangout night for tweens as a summer reading kickoff event. This year, they wanted something more hands-on, so we have invested in three Raspberry Pis for the club. I want to make it clear that the library didn’t spend any more than $10 on Coding Club for an entire year (popcorn!) until it had proven to be a draw. I don’t think that it has to work this way — I think it’s totally reasonable to spend some of your programming budget on new or innovative technology programming – but I want to point out that it is possible to start a multi-year technology focused group for almost no money.

*This assumes that your patrons have access to computers in your library. My library does not have a computer lab, but all students in 5th-8th grade in the public schools have Chromebooks. For those attendees who came from private schools, we have a few Chromebooks that we check out for in-library use that I would pull into the meeting room.