A Morning Full of STEAM at Albany Village Library

After lots of planning and preparation, our team, the KORU STEM club, finally managed to put together an engaging workshop, targeting younger children, at Albany Village Library. We all had such a blast and the children who participated were remarkably receptive to the intricate challenge and performed exceptionally!

The Idea

The idea had started to form when we realized how many creative workshops had stopped occurring in the library during the summer break, so we thought, "Why don't we infuse a touch of STEAM magic into the minds of young children while giving them a creative project to do?" Initially, we were unsure of where we would hold this activity and how we would get permission to do it. However, this worry was quickly dismissed when we reached out to Albany Village Library, and they kindly informed us that they would reserve an area for us, which we were extremely grateful for.

Preparation

Once the idea had been confirmed, it was time for us to plan what we were going to do at the workshop. As a team, we decided to continue with the idea of creating cards to give to loved ones, friends, and family! Using LED lights, we prepared many different types of cards utilizing a different number of lights, ranging from 1-6! We even designed the cover of the card, giving it different themes so that the card could be given at specific special events like Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. Because of the limited time for the child to complete their card, we decided to keep it simple and have already made the template for them. Their job was to carefully construct the paths of the conductive tape to ensure that their card could light up. Once they were done with that, they decorated their card with as many stickers as their heart desired!

The Big Day

At 9 am, our team arrived at the steps of the Library, excited to see our project materialized. There, we met up with our amazing manager, Lana Gaevski, and she gave us a brief overview of how everything was going to go. She was extremely kind and had even volunteered to help guide kids and their parents to our craft area! And hence, our workshop had commenced. Slowly, many kids joined in, growing from one kid to 15! Even the adults made their own cards, joining in with the holiday spirit. It was heartwarming seeing the faces of little kids light up just like their card as soon as we added a battery to fuel the LEDs.

Pack-Up

Once the clock hit twelve, our workshop was officially over. It had been such a successful workshop that all of the templates we had prepared were used! We thanked the children and their parents for coming, and many took beautiful photos of their ingenious designs! Several parents had even approached us, asking for more information about our club and the projects we hold, hoping to participate again. Surprisingly, we were even asked to hold more programmes like this at the library throughout the year, and suddenly, our hopeful idea had turned into a regular activity that will hopefully continue to grow in the future!

Thank You

As a team, we would love to thank the amazing RLIANZA Senior Librarian Children and Youth , Lana Gaevski! Thank you for giving us an opportunity to give young minds an introduction to the future of STEM. We couldn't have done this activity without you, and you had supported us in many ways. From giving us an area to hold the activity to encouraging more children to join, everything you did allowed our workshop to be as successful as it was. We are extremely grateful for your help and hope we will continue to work together throughout the year!

Reflections

As a team, we too got lots out of this workshop!

• You must always be prepared for anything that might happen to the extent where over-preparing may not be a bad thing or a waste of time.

• You must always be available to help anyone in need, but don't try to juggle too many people at a time as you won't be able to do much help.

• Never try to do everything yourself; you must work as a team and believe that others will be able to do their part.

• People, especially kids, can be shy. Therefore, we cannot be shy in order to allow others to open up and feel comfortable working with us.

One goal we have for the next time we do a project like this is to give the participants a bit more free will when it comes to the arts side of the project. An example of this could be we could let them color the cover of the card rather than having it fully prepared for them. The reason we did this before was to save time, but we have realized from this programme that if the time allocated is longer than an hour, then more free will can be given.

Conclusion

Overall, we had a very successful project that allowed many children and their parents to gain deeper insight into STEAM that will be a very big part of our future soon. We are excited to see how our club will grow and develop in the future and hope we will achieve remarkable milestones.