In the past month, I had taken my 7-year old son to the ideaX event at the Bellevue main library. At this event there are an array of things to play with – blocks, lego mindstorms, 3D printer pens, line tracing robots, liteBricks, paper planes, etc. Besides kids, even adults were enjoying the event. This is a fantastic idea pioneered by Bellevue Library and King County Library System. I spoke with the friendly library staff as well. They were welcoming of ideas and suggestions for future events. Here are a few ones.
1. ideaX is awesome .. inviting more parents (and hence kids) can be valuable to expand hands on enrichment activities provided by the library system.
2. Adding some international items can help with broader audience. ex: Origami, duct-tape art, kolam (Kolam comes from my native place in South India)
3. Having a list of books or suggested additional resources. After being exposed to the Lego Mindstorms for the first time, I went out and checked out a related book from the library.
4. Small tutorial sheets for people to learn information about. I recommend laminated or vinyl-sheet covered papers to conserve printed paper which gets crumpled.
5. Cardboard Arcade a la Cain’es (see http://cainesarcade.com/)
6. Construction Toy kits (ex: Brain flakes , Tube Locks, Fort Boards). Fort Boards is a local Seattle company too; and I am hoping the founder might be interested in visiting / sponsoring a session or two.
7. Invite in volunteer helpers to lead and assist in sessions. I am happy to volunteer time on Kolams and can plan help with Brain Flakes, Fort Board, cardboard arcade thing.
Regarding 1 and 7, there is a strong possibility to get volunteers to contribute time (and hence in some cases the companies match their time as donation to the KCLS foundation too).
Again, ideaX is awesome. Please keep continuing the program.
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