How do you plan Teen Tech Week activities for a population that may or may not participate in those activities?
I found myself faced with this question and was struggling to come up with ideas. I have worked in libraries before where the high school was a stone’s throw from the library and getting teens in the building was not something that needed encouragement. At my current library, teens attend a few programs, but due to location and lack of transportation, it is difficult to count on their attendance. With this in mind, I started to mull over ideas for what we could do for Teen Tech Week. For Teen Reads Week, we hosted a passive “guess the shredded book contest” and each participant received a book for entering, on top of prizes for winners. I only had a handful of participants. Based off of this experience, I knew I did not want to commit too much time in prep work for a program. I began to think about possible challenges I could give them involving technology. I am the 3D printing expert at my library, so having a 3D design challenge/program is something I am very comfortable with. The next foreseeable problem was what can teens design that would be quick to print? My colleague Ashley and I thought this over and she said “why not have them create a pencil topper?” With that question asked, my first challenge was created. I had previously printed a Super Mario star pencil topper to the delight of my kids and teens as well as a skull and several other samples (photo attached). The scale for such an item is small enough that any pencil topper design will print quickly enough ( an hour or less).
But I also wanted to create a challenge for my teens that have not attended one of my 3D printing workshops. This led to the idea of having teens use their graphic design skills to create a bookmark. The teens can use any graphic design program; my only requirement is that the bookmark either be around 2X6” or 2x7”. I posted my e-mail, so that the teens can e-mail me their photo or .stl (3D design) files, if they are not working on the project in the library. The last problem I resolved to fix was the availability of time to participate in these challenges at the library. If I did not actually give teens time in the library to work on these challenges, I doubt I would receive a single e-mail. With that in mind, I held an hour and a half Open Lab on the Saturday of Teen Tech Week with computers available to participate in both challenges.
After Program:
I printed the bookmarks on cardstock and laminated them (photo attached). I printed all pencil toppers within two days after the program (photo attached).
Type: Self-directed
Age: High school
Optimal size: 6-10
Estimated cost: $1 - $25
Planning time: <1 hour
Frequency: One-time
Learning outcomes
- Apply spatial skills while designing or editing a 3D object
- Use problem solving skills during the creation process of a 3D object
- Learn about 3D printing repositories like Thingiverse
- Learn about 3D design programs like Tinkercad
- Demonstrate an effective transference of ideas from the creative thought process to the digital screen
- Learn about copyright use if using images combined with graphic design
- Understand tools and technology in the creation of visual messages and pictures
Instructions
Graphic Design Challenge
Have Paint or any graphic design program open on the computer. Have the teens either make their work space into a rectangle or draw a rectangle on their screen to fill in. Let them design and create however they want. Save to a flashdrive. Crop the rectangle as needed and copy to a Microsoft Word document. If the rectangle is around 2x7 inches, you should be able to fit 4 on one page. You may need to add a border to the bookmarks. Print onto cardstock. Laminate the cardstock and use a paper cutter to cut out the bookmarks. They are good to go!
3D Design Challenge
In an open lab setting encourage students to take a look at the search results for "pencil topper" in Thingiverse to get ideas of what they would like to create. Also suggest searching characters or names of their favorite books, movies, games, and television shows to give them more ideas. They may choose to free design or edit a pre-existing .stl file. Have your computers already logged into Tinkercad accounts, so that they can start designing a new item or import a downloaded file from Thingiverse. Once scaled to about 60 x 60 x 60 mm (~ 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 inches) in size (although the height dimension could be larger), make sure to add a cylinder hole of about .8mm (.3 inches) in diameter and 15mm (.6 inches) in length, for the pencil to fit into the object. Download the .stl file for printing and print away!
Evaluation
Success of this program can be determined by:
- Number of participants
- Engagement in the two challenges
- What the participants learned while completing these challenges
- Continued interest in similar programs (I had a teen ask me when she could come in and work on free design next)