Blackstone Library TeenSpace

Maker Mondays are so much fun. We delved into #Tinkercad yesterday, everyone learned how to make their own 3D files.

Join us tomorrow at 4 to see a demo of our new 3D printer and learn how to find and make your own creations! Register by calling or click here: http://is.gd/eWxgEy

Our last Learning Lab of the summer featured an anything-goes Duck Tape craft! With a donation from the Duck Tape company, we were able to offer an array of different colors and prints of tape. We set out different project ideas, plus let people find crafts they wanted to online... everyone was encouraged to find something they liked, or just make something up. It was a lot of fun - you can see a chess board in the making in the above photo. We plan on continuing these maker-style programs into the fall and winter... stay tuned! Have an idea for a program? Let us know! 

This week's Learning Labs were all about programming and coding. We set up a mini-computer-lab and let the kids explore various tutorials.  There are all kinds of FREE online tutorials and games that are designed to get you comfortable with coding. If you're interested, we encourage you to try some out yourself! Hour of Code: http://code.org/learn Scratch, from MIT: http://scratch.mit.edu/ CodeAcademy: http://www.codecademy.com/ KhanAcademy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/cs

"Hello Kitty (with a very aggressive weapon) vs Robot Monkey (with his hands up)"  -- This stop motion video was made in our LEARNING LABS - 2014 07 30... fantastic!

"Super Sleepover" Stop-motion video made in the Learning Labs on our library iPads.  

Making stop motion videos in yesterday's Learning Lab... it was so much fun!

Have a career interest? It's never too early to start talking to people 'in the biz'. Find someone you look up to, and write them an email, a letter, or give them a call. It doesn't hurt to ask for help, and you never know where it can lead! 

Racing BrushBots 

SnapCircuits project: build a flying fan. Completed!

Our first week of Learning Labs was great - BrushBots were built, raced and battled and circuitry projects were explored with SnapCircuits kits. So much fun!

Book trailer for CHANGERS Book One: Drew. Just finished this novel about walking in someone else's shoes for a year. Or rather, four others' shoes for four years. It's sci-fi, but gives a great look into what it's like to think you know who you are, only to find out you can be someone totally different... and that's all OK. Check out the book trailer, then take a look at the website www.wearechangers.org - related to the book, it explores empathy from lots of different angles. Pretty cool!