Techno Tuesday II: Makerspace Inventory

This week, my group and I were tasked with creating a proposal and inventory for a Makerspace.  Since my library already has one in place, we decided to create one for the school library of one of our group members; a K-2 primary school in the suburbs that does not have a Makerspace.  We were tasked with finding and selecting items to go in the Makerspace.  The funds for the items are coming from an imaginary one-time $3,000 grant.

The biggest challenge as we created our inventory was figuring out how to allocate the imaginary “grant funds.”  Since this “money” is something that would not be available the following school year, we wanted to make sure that we invested in some pieces of equipment that are sturdy and would last for a couple of years.  We did add consumable items like gluesticks, yarn, crayons, popsicle sticks, etc. We requested those items in bulk so that we could have a stockpile that would last a year or two.

​I enjoyed this assignment because I was able to apply my experience with Makerspaces, robots, STEAM library programs, and purchase ordering.  My library owns BeeBots, Squishy Circuits, Snap Circuits, and Dash and Dot robots that can be used in programming.  I have had the opportunity to use these items in special programs.  I know that they are great for the K-2 age group, so I wanted to make sure that I added those items into our inventory.

I created a Google Doc for my group where we could input our proposal, information about the school, and the list of items we would like to purchase for our Makerspace.  I started inputting items into the inventory based on items my library owns and found additional Makerspace supply ideas from Tinkerlab.  

This is not the first time I have used Google Docs to collaborate on something.  I like to use Google Docs to plan all of my library programming because there are times when I have to work at another location and do not always have access to the files on my desktop.  I prefer to use Google Docs because of the sharing capabilities.  I love that the sharing options allow for users to contribute or just view the Document.  I have used Google Docs to plan special programs with my colleagues at our other locations.  I have also used it to share the storytime songs and rhymes that I have used in Lapsit with the caregivers that attend my Lapsit program.  With this project, we utilized the comment and chat feature so that we could communicate with each other about the items in the inventory, aspects of the assignment, and details about the school.  

I am pretty thrilled with the list of items that we came up with for this assignment. I look forward to sharing these items with my classmates and hearing about the items they have found for their Makerspaces.  The best part will be bringing back some ideas to my library for us to use in our own Makerspace!

Here is a list of the inventory items.

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