Friday, April 19, 2013

Internship Week 12 (by the school calendar)

I realized where the disconnect was in my scheduling! I forgot to skip the week of spring break in my counting. So this is only Week 12. I am on what may be my last project for the CPL internship, and it's a doozy.

I'm looking at child-friendly makerspaces -- learning environments where students can tinker with mechanics and engineering, design and build, solve problems, and in general interact with real-world experiments.

Here are some examples that I have explored so far:
Westport Public Library
Detroit Public Library
Fayetteville Free Library
San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation
Maker Faire
TechShop
The Crucible
ThinkeringSpace
USC Annenberg Innovation Lab

Questions I'm considering:
Will this be an open creative space (like, say, the Children's Discovery Museum that I enjoyed as a kid), or more focused on events and scheduled workshops?
Are there particular emphases? Mechanical engineering, electronics, and coding? Crafts and costuming? A mixture? (The summer program theme is STEAM, so there's a start.) Could CPL be persuaded to offer practical arts like sewing, personal finance, and home repair? Or are those subjects already available at CPL branch programs?
How old should children be to participate? Westport divides minor into teens and children (under 13), and requests that the younger class be supervised by adults. There are teen-directed events on the calendar as well as standard adult workshops that teens could attend. What are subjects that would appeal to a range of ages in families?
What kind of waivers are necessary and desirable?
Will there be a 3D printer?
How can we make the space accessible to novices (of any age)? Special considerations for marketing to segments based on gender, class, age, experience?

I've been given direction to get deep into this subject and develop a detailed report, so I might complete my hours on this project and then use the last week of the term for administrative work (my final report for LIBR 294, asking more questions about library work, nailing down what work of mine I can share publicly).

Current total hours: 110 / 135 (plus whatever I add this weekend)



1 comment:

  1. Sorry - that week off for spring break was confusing. Not everyone stops when working at an internship. The makerspaces project sounds like a good way to complete your internship.

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