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Keith Valley Middle School Library: Makerspace

Start your assignments in your school library with these great resources!

KV Library's 4-C-Able Makerspace

Students create and design in the KV library's makerspace utilizing a LEGO design wall, K’Nex engineering, LittleBits circuitry, textile-based designing and sewing, EV3 coding, Glowforge laser cutting, and both 3D and vinyl designing and printing/cutting.

How To Use the Library's Makerspace

A makerspace session consists of 10 school lunch periods. Once you have successfully joined a session through the Canvas signup screen in the KV Library course announcement, Ms. Quinn will email you to say when the first session meeting is. Announcements will be made on KVTV and through Canvas to let everyone know when each session's signup link will be live. 

On each day of your session, you will bring your lunch to the library. You will spend the first few minutes eating your lunch and cleaning your space. The rest of the lunch period is yours to self-select a project that you will create over the course of the ten lunch periods.

Ms. Quinn provides basic starter supplies for each makerspace station, but you are welcome to bring in your own materials from home for your personal use.

All creations must be your own original design and school appropriate.

3D Printing

Use Tinkercad.com to create an original design to be printed on one of the 3D printers. Design work may be done from anywhere and at any time. You will need to create a Tinkercad account at home (requires parent’s email/approval).

Be sure to check with Ms. Quinn or Mrs. Salters to find out the current filament colors available for you to use!

Print requests must be school-appropriate, and to be approved for printing, your design may need to be re-scaled (made smaller).

  1. Set up an account on Tinkercad.com
  2. Create your design

Make sure that your Tinkercad design has a FLAT base.  It needs to build in layers from bottom to top.  Picture an evergreen tree (Christmas tree): it is largest at the bottom, and every layer builds.  This is correct!  Now, picture a capital letter T.  The sides of the T hang over, and will not 3D print correctly because they don’t have support.  This is incorrect.

  1. Export .STL file (your design is now in your Downloads folder)
  2. Open Outlook (email)
  3. New Email
  4. Click the To button
  5. Type QUINN – select Quinn, Lisa
  6. Click To button
  7. Click OK button
  8. Attach File
  9. Go to Browse This PC
  10. Downloads
  11. Select the .STL file
  12. Click Insert
  13. In the Subject line of the email, type the color filament you want for your design.
  14. Send

Cricut Design

Brainstorm a project and do some pre-searching online for .SVG files. (There are some free .SVG files available in the Cricut software, too.)

Beginner project ideas include water bottle decals (stickers), designs to go on accent pillows, or greeting cards. Talk with Mrs. Salters about your design idea.

Installing Cricut Design Space Software

  1. Open a Google search browser.
  2. Type “Cricut Design Space” into the search bar.
  3. Click on “Download Software” from the Google Search.
  4. Click on the little box below the download button to agree to the Terms of Use.
  5. Click on the download button.
  6. Run/Install the download from the download folder on the computer.
  7. Once the software is installed, open the Cricut software and select the “Create a New User” tab.
  8. Use your school email address and any password that you will remember for your log in. 
  9. Fill out any other information the page requests and continue.
  10. Cricut will open a box to set up a Cricut Machine. Select the “Skip for now” option.
  11. In the top right of the software box you will find a green button that says “+ New Project”. Click on this to open the design screen.
  12. Once you are there you may begin working on your design using the tools on the left side of the screen. When looking for images or different fonts remember to use the filter and select the ‘free’ option.
  13. Don’t forget to save your project before you close the software. The save button can be found up at the top right of the design screen.
     

Glowforge Design & Laser Cutting

Use Google Drawings to create a design to be made on the laser cutter. You will need to create a Google account at home (requires parent’s email/approval).

Each student will follow 2 YouTube videos to create a keychain no larger than 4 in2 as a first project. Each student is limited to 144 in2 of material for a second project of their choosing.

When you have created the file on your laptop, email it to Ms. Quinn following these steps:

  1. Open Outlook (email)
  2. New Email
  3. Click the To button
  4. Type QUINN – select Quinn, Lisa
  5. Click To button
  6. Click OK button
  7. Attach File
  8. Go to Browse This PC
  9. Downloads
  10. Select the file you have created
  11. Click Insert
  12. Send

 

Makerspace Rules

The 4 Cs

The "4 Cs" are the skills that you will need to be most successful in life, and they are the skills that we emphasize in your learning opportunities.

They are creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Each station in the KV Library's makerspace has been carefully designed to promote your growth in each of these areas.

Lego Wall or Lego Challenges

Take a challenge from the library or create your own!

K'Nex Challenges

Take a challenge from the library or create your own!

LittleBits

Follow the steps in the booklet to learn what the different bits do and create machines.

Lego Mindstorms Coding

This requires some background knowledge/experience to use. You may work with a partner to learn it!

Sewing

Plan a project that you can successfully make within a week.

A good beginner project is a pillow (12x12 in).

We have books with lots of sewing project ideas and directions for inspiration!