At the Denton mini-maker faire, I noticed Trey of Denton Public Library was teaching young children to solder! I was so excited about this empowering activity, I asked if he’d collaborate with me and come teach my high school students to solder during one of our makerspace lunch events.

So for two days last week, Trey brought 10 soldering stations, some Makey badges, and a whole lot of knowledge.  I loved how Trey told the students, “It’s a tool, don’t be afraid of it, just respect it.”

Together, we taught 60 students how to solder. One girl told another, “I’m so glad you made me come do this. It was so fun!”

Naomi Bates and friends came to visit and asked us bunches of questions about being makerspace librarians. At one point, Trey and I realized we’ve actually been collaborating on makerspace stuff for over two years now.  I love that we can compare making in public libraries and making in school libraries. Plus, it’s so awesome that we can share projects together and even collaborate like this! (See post where I taught at the DPL this summer.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One student came back the second day and just made a sculpture out of everyone’s leftover LED pieces.  Then our ITS suggested he take pictures of his “Solder Sculpture’s Adventures.”

Here’s one of the many adventures of the Ryan Library Solder Sculpture:

So many of our kids from the first day came back during the second makerspace day and asked if there was an advanced soldering workshop they could attend. Now Trey and I are looking at writing a small grant to get supplies so students can learn to make their own Elenco FM Radio. (It’s what they chose out of the 20 projects we showed them.)