CHS librarian making space for makerspacers
‘Basically it’s a place for students to create and innovate and tinker.’
CUMBERLAND — When Cumberland High School librarian Joyce Polucha attended the School Librarians of Rhode Island conference on March 10, she was inspired by the talk of “makerspaces” and “makerculture.”
One session at the conference, per its summary, let attendees explore new STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) products that would help students' skills with problem-solving, creativity and coding skills. Others talked about how makerspaces are being implemented in elementary and secondary school libraries.
“Basically it's a place for students to create and innovate and tinker,” Polucha said of the term.
Thanks to a quickly-funded campaign on Donors
Choose, a nonprofit crowdfunding site for public school teachers, Polucha is building out a makerspace in the library next week. It will include a small 3D printer and kits with electronic pieces.
Cumberland High School has 3D printers in the computer-aided drafting lab and in robotics, Polucha said, but those are limited to students in those classes.
When she went to the SLRI conference, she was uncertain about how to create a makerspace, especially considering money is tight in the Cumberland School Department.
“I was anxious about it, not knowing if I could get it off the ground, and I was encouraged by so many people,” Polucha said. Their advice was, “Don't wait to have a thousand dollars or whatever it is to make the perfect lab.”
She lucked out and won the door prize, a basket that included a $100 Amazon gift card. She bought a set of two Ozobots, tiny programmable robots that can follow paths drawn in black, red, green and blue with a special set of markers.
Polucha explained, “If you draw patterns, the Ozobot will follow it, and some patterns if you alternate colors will make it go faster or slower.” She also plans to use the app OzoBlockly, which allows for programming.
This past Tuesday, Donors Choose announced that donations on all projects would be matched on Wednesday, so Polucha put up a page requesting donations to buy makerspace items. She had planned on starting small, but when she heard donations would be matched, she added the 3D printer to her list.
The XYZprinting da Vinci Jr. is small, making it less expensive than many 3D printers at a cost of $205.97. The second item on Polucha's page was a little Bits Electronics base kit, which allows for the creation of eight inventions with 10 bits that snap together with magnets.
The Donors Choose campaign also allowed Polucha to get a Snap Circuits Lights Electronics Discovery Kit.
Her $472 project, titled “Maker Magic In The Media Center,” was fully funded on Wednesday.
A Donors Choose staff member on Wednesday purchased the technology and notified the school of delivery, which is coming via Amazon Business.
Polucha said on Thursday she expects the 3D printer to arrive next week, and instructional technology coach Dean Palmer will help her set it up.
Polucha said she has read that 3D printing will become commonplace in manufacturing in the near future, and she feels this is a good avenue for students to explore.
Talk is often that “every student will go to college, which of course can't happen,” she said, “and not everybody wants to, and the technological field is just opening up.”
While the high school doesn't have study halls, Polucha hopes that students will drop in to tinker at the makerspace before and after school, and that some teachers will bring their classes.
Before she goes further in expanding the makerspace, Polucha wants to send out a survey to see what students are interested in, so she doesn't get things they don't like. Through research, she made a master list of potential topics and projects, such as stop-motion animation, recycled art with books and photo editing.