LEGO Robotics

This was Week 3 of Robotics Club, hosted at the Gordon-Nash Library by New Hampton School students who are presently part of their school's Robotics program. Here's Ashley (and Ben in the background), explaining the parts of the robot to groups of New Hampton Community School students. 

Kids are learning to program the robot using Scratch on an iPad. NHS students set up simple challenges for them as they learned the program and the capabilities of their robots. 

Moving the robot from a start line to a finish. 

A race to the finish. 

Man-made (kid-made) tunnels to go through on the way to the finish line. 

We have four more weeks of Robotics! Stay tuned!

Sign-up Saturday!

Today, thirty-one kids of all ages signed up for the Universe of Stories Summer Reading Program! Young readers received their reading logs and folders so they can keep track of all the books they read this summer. For each book they read, they'll receive a star for our universe bulletin board.

Everyone had a piece of a beautiful "Space Cake" covered with dark-sky frosting, a rocket, and planets (and we forgot to take a photo! 😞)! Kids or families sat in front of the green screen for their photos, then chose a NASA photo to "appear" in. Completed photos were sent to parents' phones so families could save and share them.

The Project Across the Street

From the windows of the Children's Room, kids have watched in fascination at the ongoing building renovation at the New Hampton School across the street. We've been entertained by so many big trucks and so much heavy equipment! This afternoon, they had machines there laying rows and rows of sod to create an instant lawn! I was so disappointed there were no children at the library to share the excitement with that I ventured outside and across the street to record it!

The sod was delivered on the back of this big flatbed truck. See the rolls on the back? That's rolled up live grass - with dirt! Click on the picture to make it bigger and you'll see the grass sticking out of the rolls!

One by one, the rolls got attached to a machine that drove back and forth across the dirt, unrolling the grass as it moved. It was pretty impressive! Watch!

Thanks to the people at All Ways Green for letting me record them doing this awesome work!