Maker Stations at the Westlake Porter Public Library #makereducation
Thanks so much to Matt Weaver for writing in and sharing some pictures of the maker stations at his local library! The idea of a maker station is an awesome alternative for those who do not have ample space to develop a completely autonomous makespace.
Matt writes:
The objective for the stations is to provide a place where people can learn by playing, and to support the activities of our fledgling Maker Club run by our STEAM Librarian. Their use will evolve over time. I am a huge believer in the need to support and encourage tech education, and that libraries need to become places where anyone can get hands-on experience with new technologies.
Do you remember our old self-check machines? Maybe not so fondly? Two of them are coming back, but in a good way! When the library added the new self-check machines, there was a question about what to do with the old ones. We tried selling them, but no one wanted them.
I had an idea. Last summer, we had a lot of interest in Raspberry Pi at our maker event. What if we turned the two free-standing units into stations where people could come and play with the RPi?
Building Services refinished the desktops — they look fantastic, btw. I gutted all of the self-checks for parts to be used in the library or for future Maker Club projects.
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