I’m also thinking about these Minecraft Circuits In Real Life kits, and trying to figure out if any soldering is actually involved despite them being listed on a site called Soldering Sunday, which is kind of like how some folks probably find themselves here in the Robot Test Kitchen and wonder what’s robotic about paper airplanes and marshmallow towers. I have a lot on my mind.

I tell my husband I need to figure out more things to do with the Raspberry Pis that piqued my initial monitor musing. I’m worried that my coding club needs more ideas, maybe a project to bring them back together again since they’ve grown in number and mostly paired up and are working on individual projects. “Are they networked yet? I found these cool soundcards for cheap. What about moisture and heat sensors? There’s so much cool stuff you can do with them! ” he says. I tell him what the ten kids (ten! TEN! This time last year I was happy when I had three!) did last Thursday and how no, they’re not networked and one of the three isn’t working, and we’ve only gotten Minecraft Pi loaded on one.

He reminds me how far I’ve come before asking, “You do realize how much you’re punching above your weight here, right?” Boy, do I. Every day I’m reminded of that.

I’m energized by the enthusiasm of the middle schoolers who come to my coding club every other week, who ask why can’t we do it every week, and who excitedly show me the JavaScript games they’re building together outside of club too. But yes, I know I am punching above my weight, every time they ask me a question and I reply with, “Well, what have you already tried? At which point did you get stuck?” and then ask if anyone in the room has had experience with that problem, and can they come and help this guy over here work through it because that’s the only answer I have.

I’m reminded of it when I read the components lists for simple project kits and need to Google several of the pieces and then only gain a surface level understanding of them.

I’m reminded of it whenever I read about what much bigger libraries (and only a little bit bigger libraries) are doing with makerspaces and technology with their youth and am paralyzed when I think about how I would go about implementing similar projects.

As my friends in tech often say, and as I often feel even in the library world, “there’s a legion of people out there who know more than you and they’re coming fast and furious.” The struggle is to see this not as a threat, but as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to collaborate, to keep on punching. None of us needs to be the best, we just need to keep going.

I am punching above my weight. But I’m punching. I’m thinking about it on Sunday morning when I wake up. I’m looking for answers from colleagues and peers and strangers. I feel like I’m cheating when I ask my tech-field husband’s advice because really, shouldn’t I be able to figure this out on my own? What kind of example am I setting if I’m relying on my husband‘s knowledge to do my job?

On better days, I remind myself that the example I’m setting is the one the Maker movement wants set: I’m setting an example of trial and error, of collaboration, of shared workspaces and cocreation. I’m trying. I’m failing. I’m thinking. I’m learning. Maybe not as fast as I want to be learning, but it’s happening. Like Michelle reminded us, our one-year-ago selves would probably be impressed with where we are. And I need to check myself – constantly – and pull myself back to the present, where it’s about those ten (ten! TEN!) tweens & teens in my meeting room every other week who are doing their own thing, doing things that they couldn’t do a year ago, and not about me one bit.

I’m a big believer in the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets and every time I read through them, I feel better. Coding Club – even as thrown together and chaotic as mine sometimes feels – is giving these kids the opportunity to add to their asset lists. What we’re doing matters, and it’s working, and by perservering when it’s hard, I’m modeling exactly what I hope they get out of it. I’m not in this to help teens become excellent coders, Maker extraordinaires, or jumpstart their app creation businesses. I’m in it for the long haul.

I’m in it to be a part of their community of caring adults who believes in them, supports them, provides a safe space where they are valued, and the skills they need to persevere, and encourages them to keep it up, keep punching above their weight. In coding club, in everything.

My daughter’s self portrait at 4: “This is a Flower-suck-in-up-inator. It sucks up all the flowers and gives them to sick kids.”

I know a lot of little girls. Way more little girls than little boys. I am the mother of two daughters, the aunt to two nieces, and as my circle of friends started having all girl babies, we wondered if there was something in the water.

I love seeing them grow and change. I love that they can share hand-me-downs and I’ve got plenty of commiseration about the timing of ear piercing or the best ways to mitigate that phase-shifting shriek that crops up when they’re together and super excited. I love seeing the activities they’re engaged with – there’s ice skating and martial arts and dance and art and mushroom hunting and scouting and baseball. And I love the opportunity I have to model something important.  That “something” is not an affinity for technology or an expertise in coding.

I came of age to the tune of “We girls / can do anything / right Barbie?” My youth wasn’t void of strong women doing amazing things, but I never saw them struggle with their work. It all looked easy, practiced, natural. But being anything you want is not as easy as donning a new outfit and having the right accessories, and I happily abandoned the hobbies and tasks that didn’t come naturally to me. I was good at a lot of things, and I stuck with them, to good success. I’m doing this to set an example of effort, of struggle, of failure and learning.

Great strides have been made in the realm of equalizing educational outcomes for girls and boys with regard to STEM fields. Girls today are fortunate to have more examples* of successful women in STEM, and more exposure to technology and making than we did as kids. (Enough that, when asked to draw a self portrait at preschool, my daughter drew an invention instead, and it made sense to us.) But as someone who was naturally drawn to the liberal arts, my goal is not to show girls that STEM is the right choice for everyone. It’s not. We need artists and social workers and shopkeepers and welders and grant writers and librarians too.

My goal is to show them that even when we choose what is easy for us, what is right for us, the effort needed to expand and move forward is worth it. My goal is to show them that there can be fun and growth in trying something new, something hard. My goal is to show them that this is hard for me. But it’s also good for me. I want them to see that I’m still learning about myself and the world around me. I want them to know that dressing the part is the smallest part. That maybe astronaut Barbie does yoga and is learning to paint on the weekend but having trouble with facial proportions, and learned all the math she needed to learn only after she fell in love with the stories of the stars.

*More, but not enough, especially in some fields. One of my memorable Robot Test Kitchen programs began with a 6th grade girl walking in, seeing a room full of boys, throwing her arms up and shouting, “Why I am always the only girl that comes to this stuff?!”

I’ve found most of the robots to be fairly intuitive, but I haven’t had a lot of time with the Finch. Part of my preparation for the program included reading other Robot Test Kitchen reviews and it was more helpful than I could have imagined. I was able to anticipate and circumvent setup difficulties. We did reach an impasse after installing the programs and downloading the extensions for Scratch — I couldn’t get them to appear in the “More Blocks” menu. I tried to make the best of this by asking the boy, “What do you think we should do?” and he suggested we close Scratch and reopen it from a different menu — and that worked. In very little time he and soon several others were very capably commanding the Finch. They did not seem bothered that it was tethered by the cord.

I’ll risk sounding too nerdy and say that reading Robot Test Kitchen reviews helped with this program the way that using a map helped me navigate The Legend of Zelda back when I was a kid; you still have to fight the bad guys, but at least you know how to get to them. Reading about others’ experiences and challenges helped me prepare and problem-solve. Both reviewers recommended this for someone with some coding or Scratch experience, and knowing that up front helped me match it with patrons who could get the most from this experience.

TL;DR: Robot Test Kitchen reviews helped me make good use of my time and improve my patrons’ program experience.

I wanted to show them to you. Here is the info sheet I made to help people self direct their work with Cubelets.

Attached are the Cube cards that I made.  I went to the Modrobotics website and captured the image of each cube. On the back I attached a slip of paper stating the name of the cube, it’s function, and a brief explanation of what it does. This is the prototype of the intruder robot that T made during Saturday’s program.

Now, this whole process is about trying and failing and trying again.  I understand the concept of failing forward. Really, it’s what boosted my confidence to complete this project.  But at some point, you sort of need to understand the concepts in order to make things work, right?  That’s my problem.  I’m terrified that I don’t understand some of these things.  Self-discovery is a lovely thing, but don’t you have to explain some of the concepts to the kids you work with?  That’s what makes these teachable moments — bringing the discovery around to understanding.

I lack confidence in this area.

• What is it?  Makey Makey is a micro-controller. By creating a circuit, Makey Makey takes over your keyboard
  As the box says,

  Plug it in, hook it up, make stuff happen on your computer

• What’s in the Box?  A circuit board (the Makey Makey), seven alligator clips, a USB connector, and some wires.  Also, instructions and an idea sheet.
  

  What’s in the Makey Makey box?

• How much? $49.95
• Age Range?  Box says 8 to infinity.  My testers were 10 – 14
• How we acquired it:  I used the Makey Makey my library purchased.

Ideas for use:

• time involved Setting up was pretty easy.  MakeyMakey.com offers ideas on their site.  They have links to free programs.  I started by showing them the video that is on the MakeyMakey.com site. Then, we tried the bongos.  From there the piano, pac man, and other free online games.  The piano is my favorite, but without music to play it doesn’t really work.
• extension activities: Using the MakeyMakey micro-controller with Scratch programming
• one-time or recurring program:  It’s a one-time deal to learn but is open-ended; I would want to offer it open to people to explore the possibilities.
• skills you need  Users need the ability to understand what a circuit is. It’s the most important part of the Makey Makey. Having said that, the best way to demonstrate what a circuit is, would be to use a Makey Makey.  This is definitely “learning by doing.”
• other tools you need  Items that are conductive.  It would actually be a great activity… Have a box of items, a Makey Makey, and chart what materials are conductive. Predicting what is conductive is another activity.

Good stuff

At one point we tried playing Mario Brothers.  It wasn’t working and my participants were getting frustrated.  Which got me frustrated, how was I going to solve this? Then I started listening to them.  Guess what? Kids know how to problem solve.  They worked it out themselves and discovered that Mario Brothers isn’t the best game to learn Makey Makey.  We went back to Pac-man.  Each person taking a certain control (left arrow, for example).  They had to start talking to each other to decide which direction Pac-man would go.  Eventually, they decided to play the game As a single user. And they were competitive! I wasn’t expecting that. They wanted to see would could get the most points.

Frustrations

I wasn’t sure who was going to come, so I got out a second laptop.  This laptop wasn’t working. It’s a good thing that I had a small crowd, I would have needed that second one.

I think learning MakeyMakey is a great group activity. Having the ability to problem solve with your peers really helps figure out what is going on.  I could see individual use for gaming or for using with Scratch programs.

Ending Thoughts/Observations

I asked my group their general impression of Makey Makey: “great” and “fun” ruled the land.  When I do this again, I’ll have a variety of things to test conductivity.

It would be good to know how to use the back of the Makey Makey. You don’t need it to use the basic controllers, but it would be good to know in order to maximize its use

Rating

Easy Peasie Pie.  (This may not actually be an official rating of the Robot Test Kitchen, but it is for now!)