• 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.

With this new weekly feature, Ten Dollar Tuesdays, we will be tackling the budget question with programs you can run at your library for under $10. We’ll also address 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!

Take It Apart

Cost: $0

Age range: tweens & teens

Group size: Up to 20, depending on materials

Staff amounts: 1

• Give kids an opportunity to explore how things work, how they’re put together, and what happens if they they take them apart.
• Ask for donations of broken appliances (no tube TVs or microwaves) and computers, supply tools, and let kids explore.
• Disassembling a PC is a great learning opportunity, and you don’t necessarily need to know a lot about computer hardware. I supplied printed diagrams for kids to match up the components, and I learned a lot from YouTube videos. You may need special screwdrivers for some of the screws on the computer case; our IT department was happy to let us borrow those, and a staff member even helped at the program
• Taking things apart can very exciting, so caution your tweens and teens not to get carried away and get scrapes or cuts on sharp parts
• Ask kids what similarities they saw, what surprised them, what parts they already knew about, and what they would like to learn more about
• After the program, you may be able to salvage some parts for a future craft program (another Ten Dollar Tuesday!), or check with your local recycling facility to see what they can accept.

Have you done a Take it Apart program? Share your experience with us!