First month of Makerspace

We’re now three weeks into our Makerspace program at the library, and we’ve had modest success. Our first session (maskmaking) and our third (bottle cap art) were lightly but enthusiastically attended. I’ve already learned a few things about hosting programs her on campus.

To advertise, we plastered the campus with the following flier:

Unfortunately, it turns out that every organization plasters campus with fliers, so the fliers didn’t get the attention we were hoping for. Also, since we put the fliers out on Wednesday, many of ours were taken down when the buildings were cleaned at the end of the week and didn’t get the weekend exposure I would have liked.

What seems to work best for our students is a reminder email blast sent out about 2 hours before the program starts. Since we’re fully boarding, almost all the students are close enough to come to the library, and a two hour warning gives them time to plan around brunch and study hours.

The email blast this week looked like this:

Now our only real competition is time. Our students are so busy, Sundays are prime study/catchup time (for example, this weekend was our Homecoming-equivalent and lots of kids were out of town at the game), and sleeping in is always more attractive than gluing things to other things.

But our attendees have been enthusiastic! All four girls have made multiple items (not a problem, since I tend to overbuy in the craft supply department), and have said they liked having the chance to take a short break from working. Several of them are jazzed about the upcoming Soldering Bootcamp – even more so when I told them they could earn a Maker Badge for it – and the LED Sewables session is generating a lot of interest.

So we’ll keep plugging along. Stay tuned – we have some really interesting new maker-related books coming that I’ll be reviewing, and I’ll be attending several maker-webinars over the erst of the school year.

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