Written by Sarah, the Community Ambassador at the Champaign Public Library
One thing that I particularly like about Champaign is how willing the kids are to teach what they’ve learned. This is something that happens on a very regular basis, but on Friday one of the librarians said I should absolutely make sure to talk about it on the grant side of things.
The Silhouettes have been a hit with both the kids and the librarians. Two of the librarians actually got Silhouettes over the holiday break after seeing them in TeenSpace, and another is regularly asked about the metallic snowflake sticker one girl made for her ID badge. In workshops we would have three Silhouettes running, and on normal days in TeenSpace we would balance one Silhouette on the cart, and connect it to a laptop on top of another cart (yes, strange setup, and it did look interesting to see three or four kids huddled around a laptop at shoulder height). Now we have a larger, lower cart. The table-like top has been much better for them to group around.
The kids have shown great interest in learning more than just the basics, perhaps because they’ve seen that this can lead to more complex and better products. They go beyond simply taking an image from the internet and turning it into a sticker or traced sketch. They’ve worked at editing traces, drawing new lines, erasing unneeded ones, and figuring out how to make the most manageable cutout or sticker. We often stand there discussing threshold, scale, different modes of outlines and traces, whether we need extra lines to ensure it will cut properly, how long it will take to cut/sketch, why over half of the sketch pens refuse to work properly (theories for this abound), and what ultimately will work best for the situation at hand.
On Friday, one of the librarians who is trying to learn how to use her Silhouette was working in TeenSpace. She is interested in going to the Fab Lab to learn more or attend some programming (and also wants to know what brand our tweezers are). She asked for some lessons, and one of the kids was eager to show her. He gave her the entire rundown on what we are currently able to do with the Silhouette (we are still interested on what exactly the “rhinestone” pattern setting is), how to trace an image, what works better or doesn’t work, and did an example with the logo from the Fab Lab’s website. She was very impressed with this, and said it should definitely be mentioned that the kids are teaching the adults, as she thinks it is beneficial for them to be able to teach and be the experts. Two of the kids went on to teach a few other kids that afternoon, and helped them make stickers (and even saved the stickers when they had to leave early).
So now not only are the Silhouettes very popular with everyone, but we have a few new potential attendees. Inexplicably, there is a sudden surge in interest in 3D printing from both the regulars and the new kids, and they have expressed explicit interest in: A. Using a design program to make something, and B. Those new pens that use the same sort of filament and allow you to draw in 3 dimensions (I had at least 3 kids mention those pens Friday). Although perhaps the new focus on those pens got them more interested in 3D printing in general. A few weeks back, after our holiday party, I showed one of the game design regulars a few of the basics of SketchUp while waiting for the Silhouette to finish tracing a 45 minute sketch. She took to it immediately, and started making a Yahtzee cup. Nobody has yet mentioned Thingiverse. They’ve only talked about wanting to design something to print. Things certainly look exciting.
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