What we did:

• Set up stations for various hands-on activities. I provided a menu of what tech tools were available for tinkering.
• Allowed for all ages, so families could come together.
• Made it a drop-in event over two hours so families could come when it was convenient for them.
• Had back up staff available in case of crowds or technology trouble shooting needs.

Successes: 

• The menu and the stations worked really well. We had tools that would appeal to a wide variety of ages: Bee-Bots and the Osmo for the younger set – Sphero and Lego WeDo for older kids. Kids were able to check out what they were interested in and we had enough stuff for there never to be long lines (except for Sphero).
• Having the event be for all ages worked wonderfully. That way families could attend the event with all their kids. I’ve found that parents and caregivers are very curious about anything STEAM related. This lets the parents try the tools with their kids and do a little tinkering themselves.

Challenges:

• The Spero! Our library Sphero is having trouble holding it’s charge. Luckily we had a back up, which worked great, for an hour. But our program was two hours! Those who came at the end really didn’t get to try out the Sphero and well, that is just a bummer.
• Staffing this type of even can be difficult. Luckily we had staff who was ready and willing to lend a hand. But if you are solo on your own, two hours of eight hands on activities might be a little overwhelming.

Overall this was a great event, and I’m really glad it went well. We also made sure to promote the Make Your Break activities to the schools and through our other outlets. This was key! Patrons who attended appreciated the opportunity to tinker and many asked if the materials would be circulating soon. Circulating STEAM and maker kits is the next step at my library and I can’t wait to get started on the project!

What went wrong

Things started going wrong in the days leading up to the program as I received the supplies and tried to make a sample project. The motors we had were too big, and the dollar store toothbrushes could not support them. In trying different methods to attach the batteries to the motors, I ended up draining some of the batteries and needed to go to the store to buy more.

At the time of the program, I still wasn’t happy with the project. I made the best of it by telling program attendees the problems with the design, and presenting it as a challenge to design a way to make it work. The closest we came to success was by fastening two toothbrush heads with adhesive foam strips, but we only got the tiniest of scoots before the batteries died or it tipped over. It wasn’t devastating, but it was disappointing.

Look at this sad thing:

What I learned

Having the right supplies is pretty important. We purchased the smallest motors we could find locally, but we should have gone online and perhaps bought these or these. By the time I realized the motors we had were too big it was too late to have smaller ones shipped. The whole thing was a learning experience for me, and after almost two years I will be attempting DIY robots again this summer. I’ll let you know how it goes!

What about you?

At Robot Test Kitchen we believe that learning is at its best when you are ready to fail forward. Do you have a program failure you’d be willing to share with Robot Test Kitchen readers? Contact us and tell us about it.

Ann Carpenter is the Youth Services Librarian at the Brooks Free Library in Harwch, MA. Among many other programs, she runs a monthly Engineering Challenge for school aged children.

• Program:

Engineering Challenge: Marble Runs

• Age range:

Around 15-20 school aged kids can participate. More can be accommodated if you have them work in groups. Each group should have at least two pieces of foam.

• Cost:

10 6 foot pipe foam pieces at $1 a piece. You will also need marbles and masking tape, but those are things I had around the library anyway.

• Activity:

We talked about momentum demonstrating that a marble rolled along a mostly flat track will stop, but a marble rolled down an inclined track will keep going, and that marble rolled down a very steep track can build up enough momentum to keep going even uphill. Once they had the general idea, I gave them the first challenge: to build a roller coaster that allowed the marble to go up and over a hill. I purposefully make my first level of challenge relatively simple so that every child participating will have at least one success by the end of the program.

To accomplish their challenge the children were given pipe foam that I had cut in half lengthwise, forming a channeled track. The pipe foam was perfect for our purposes: very flexible for young hands to manipulate and very cheap at about $1 for a 6 ft tube, which provided 2 channels. I also gave them access to lots of tape. Our second level of challenge was to create a loop-the-loop. I told the children who completed the second challenge that they could either do a free design, or they could try for two loop-the-loops. Most chose to try for two loops.

• Difficulties and challenges:

One thing I noticed during this program was that it was not enough for the children to accomplish the task: they needed me to be a witness to their success. This meant running around the room quite a bit so that I could personally watch marbles rolling around the tracks. The looks of delight were definitely worth it. Emphasize that engineering is a process, and they may need to try out their design, then go back and make adjustments based on results.

The district asked the library if we were willing to provide a maker space for the conference.  With very short notice, we  decided to create a play space for participants to try different technology.  (Maker space? Play space?  Are they the same thing?  I guess I’m not 100% sure of that. They were definitely creating things.)

Given two work days to make this happen, I was able to recruit two co-workers and my husband to spend time with me for four hours on a Saturday afternoon.  I also recruited one of the kids from my Robot Test Kitchen sessions last summer.  

We brought with us items familiar to anyone who normally reads this blog: Little Bits, Makey Makey, The Finch, Bee-bots, Snap Circuits, Cubelets, the 3Doodler, and Circuit Scribes.  (My husband is writing a guest post on the Circuit Scribes…) Armed with five Chromebooks, lots of extra batteries, and a MacBook for The Finch.  I rearranged the desks to create as close to tables as possible.

Much to our delight, kids decided they wanted to come to our session.  According to the site, the conference was open to kids in 3rd through 12th grades.  I would say we saw a majority of kids that were 3rd – 9th grade.  And they were all engaged and excited about our program.

On when it was time to switch sessions:

I don’t want to go to my next session, can I stay?

Yep!  And many came back too.

Here’s a play by play of what we did with things.  (I documented the day’s events on Vine and for longer videos YouTube.)

Makey Makey: this is where I sat my kid volunteer.  He needed prompting to stop playing the games and actually assist kids in using the Makey Makey.  A few of our alligator clips broke.  One Makey Makey board wouldn’t respond, so we went down to three and kept on playing.  Here are two girls laying down a bongo beat:

https://vine.co/v/OQbOAUg7xmb/embed/simple

Little Bits: We have several kits and the staff member working on this site knew his way around Little Bits.  It was always busy.  Investing in Little Bits was a great idea.

The 3Doodler: a 3D pen.  It’s not easy to use, but it was an excellent hands-on activity.  Kids could see that you have to build up on a structure to make it work.  This timelapse video is a taste of trying the 3Doodler for the first time:

https://vine.co/v/OQq3KL1I0AQ/embed/simple

I love this picture. She looks so focused on getting the robot working the way she wants it to.

Snap Circuits: We have four small Snap Circuit kits. The big ones are great, but they only come with one snap board. There was a lot of trying to get the whirligigs to fly.  I overheard one teacher having a really neat interaction with a participant, trying to figure out how to make the circuit complete.  That’s the thing about teachers, they ask the right questions.  Here are two whirligigs flying away! https://vine.co/v/OQbhLYWd1DQ/embed/simple

Bee-Bots:
The Bee-bots were sort of hidden in the corner on the ground. I had to direct people to them…but once I did, they were popular.  My two favorite memories were when a third grade girl looked at it and said,

Oh.  It’s coding.

Yes indeed.  My second favorite thing of the whole day was when I discovered three middle school boys on the ground with the Bee-bots.  You know, that bees have that special synchronized dance they do…

the Finch:
The Finch and I haven’t always had the best relationship. When it was my turn to test it last summer, I sort of failed completely and didn’t write about it. In part, because I had the hardest time loading the software onto our computer. This time around I had a better experience. No software problems. While I only know how to make the Finch walk 1000 repetitions, I imagined someone at this conference would have a better understanding of the situation. And indeed they did.

I captured this.  I tried taking a picture of the Snap screen.  He was able to make Finch do his bidding, going forward, backward, left and right.  Smart kids.

https://vine.co/v/OQbBimFdabh/embed/simple

Circuit Scribe: The Robot Test Kitchen review is forthcoming. I bought these last summer. Circuit Scribe was a Kickstarter. Basically, it’s electronic ink and you can draw your own circuits. There were lots of hits and misses. This was my favorite moment. My husband (who’s an excellent teacher, btw, although he’s not an educator), guiding this young girl (8th or 9th grade). He described it as doing it with finesse. She wrote out “Brightly Shine” and the circuit did just that. https://vine.co/v/OQqTgHj0Udr/embed/simple

It was an excellent conference.  We had about 115 students, parents, and teachers pop in to our session. It was fun to watch teachers leave the sessions they were babysitting to come see what the library had to offer.

Supplies: Paper, masking tape, paper clips, scissors

1. Discuss the forces of flight: Lift, Weight, Thrust, and Drag. You’ll just want to provide a very basic understanding of these concepts.

2. Discuss how the forces of flight work on paper airplanes, such as how the large or heavy paper stock will have more weight, and how careful folding can result in less drag.

3. Provide books and templates to make a variety of paper airplanes, and use masking tape to mark a practice range to test them. Paper clips and tape can be used to experiment the effect of adding weight to different parts of the plane.

4. At the end of the program, have the participants compete for the farthest flight. I’ll give them three throws for their best-flying plane with the opportunity to make adjustments to the plane between throws.

• Because my coding experience is limited and my workplace encourages cross-departmental collaboration, I co-planned it with a librarian from adult services who has more of an IT background.
• At the beginning of the program, I told the participants that it was coding club, not coding class, and that they were encouraged to contribute and teach others.
• We had a plan for what we would demonstrate, but had plenty of flexibility within this plan depending on our attendees’ interests.

While we were demonstrating a game created with Scratch, a 5th grader asked if he could show a game he had made. I was apprehensive for a moment because his behavior while in the library is frequently disruptive, but he calmly and capably stood in front of the room and demonstrated the game he had made, described how he had built it, and showed how it could be modified.

It was awesome. After so many interactions in the library where we had to remind him about his behavior, I saw this boy absolutely shine. This is what makes it worth stepping out of our comfort zone. To some extent the programs we do are not about coding, or robotics, or basket-weaving. It’s about us connecting with the community, and giving community members of all ages a chance to learn something new and share what they know.

Description:

Engineering Tower program is intended for children from 3rd to 5th graders who enjoy challenges like building towers using fun materials. Children explore new concepts of building towers using marshmallows and gumdrops and also use their creativity to build their own magnificent tower.

Materials:

Toothpick, Spaghetti, Jelly (Gum Drops), Marshmallow (in different sizes), Construction Paper (for base), Tapes, Smaller papers (to test strength)

Summary:

 I had the Engineering tower program during weekday after school hour. When children arrived for the program, I basically explained what materials are prepared for them to use to build the tower. I asked the children if they had done similar projects before, and some children said they had in school. It was good to hear that they came for similar projects they had already experienced.

I also explained that there is a strength testing station to test the strength of towers. I informed them that they can build a tower in groups or individually. They all chose to build their own tower individually. After they finished building first tower, some of children brought their work to the strength testing station. Children were happy to see their towers stay strong after the strength test. Some children asked me if I am going to have the same program in the future, and it was good to know they had fun! After the program, I displayed their work in our department for the children to come back and look at their work, and other children to look at the wonderful works.

Robots was our theme for my library’s storytime sessions this week. I thought, it would be fun to let kids play with a real robot – so I pulled out the Bee-Bots. See reviews for the Bee-Bot, here and here. I love them because they are an approachable hands on technology for any age. (And they are also adorable.) 

Why does this work in storytime?

• I am a proponent of hands on activities during storytimes. They help develop motor skill and control at a lot of ages.
• The Bee-Bot is very good at teaching sequencing and if/then relationships – which we teach with stories, flannels and rhymes – why not try a hands on way too?
• I like giving little ones autonomy. Letting kid’s pick what buttons they want to press helps them begin to explore.

 How we did it?

This is the hard part. The idea of doing something nontraditional in storytime can be scary or some might even look down on it. But my view is there are always unknowns with small children, so why is this any different? Why not explore sequencing by using the Bee-Bot instead of a flannel?

The storytimes we used Bee-Bots with were our 1,2,3 Storytimes which have kids ages 1-3 with their caregivers, and our Together Time which is kids ages 3-5 with caregivers. (Yes you can do this with Toddlers.) 

I drew a flower on a poster board. The middle of the flower was a circle just enough to fit Bee-Bot – that was his starting point for the activity. Each petal had a different color and pattern, so we could also work on colors and patterns while we did Bee-Bot.

We started the Bee-Bot activity towards the end of each storytime. Since we have two Bee-Bots and two librarians for most of our storytimes, we were able to split into two smaller groups. Each parent and child have a turn to interact with Bee-Bot. It is actually a very good circle activity and the kids worked on patience and turn taking – which is another developing skill for this age range. We explored with Bee-Bot for about ten minutes, then came back together as one group and did our ending song.

This went really well and the parents really enjoyed seeing their kids interact. Bee-Bot is such a great tool for younger kids, so why not try it in a storytime?

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

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.

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: Strawberry DNA Extraction

Cost: About $5 for strawberries and a bottle of rubbing alcohol; the other items are usually available around your home or workplace (and only needed in very small quantities)

Age Range: elementary-middle school

Difficulty: Easy to set up; explaining the procedure will take some staff preparation

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. The day before, put the bottle of rubbing alcohol in the freezer and keep it icy cold right up until you’re ready to use it.

2. Remove the stems from 2-3 strawberries, put them in a Ziploc bag and have the kids mash them up.

3. Create an “extraction buffer” with 1 cup water, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 3/4 tsp. dish soap or shampoo; add this solution to the mashed strawberry, and mash the bag well to mix it well.

4. Place the funnel over a glass, and a coffee filter into the funnel, and pour the mixture from the baggie into it; use a spoon to press as much through the filter as possible.

5. Carefully drop or pour the cold rubbing alcohol down the side of the glass. The mixture will separate into layers; the strawberry’s DNA is the white mucous-like substance on top. You can remove it with a craft stick or coffee stirrer to examine it more closely.

This activity works well in a program with a discussion about DNA in general, solubility of liquids, forensic investigations, or even gardening.

I learned about the procedure from Cool Forensic Tools by Esther Beck, 2009.