JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
Libraries can act as portals to a far-off world for kids with their wall lined and shelves bulging with novels, tales and fables.
But books aren’t the only way to get there.
For a group of youngsters who attended a Traveling Lego MakerSpace event June 27 at the Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Library, the iconic brick-shaped toy formed the foundation for imaginary world-building. Heather Brown, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston library technician, oversaw the gathering.
Armed with three blue tubs filled to the brim with multi-colored bricks, wheels and figurines, Brown encouraged the kids to dig in. Each kid took an individual foundation plate that allowed room to experiment and then unleashed their ideas on the mounds of bricks.
“I just love seeing what they build and their creativity come to life,” said Brown, who helps the JBSA library system put on MakerSpaces once a month. “Children love the Legos because they absolutely love being able to come in and build whatever they want.”
That’s not to say that each MakerSpace lacks structure – Brown provides a loose theme for each building session and encourages the kids to focus their creativity. June’s theme was “Olympic Sports,” in honor of the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. Attendees followed this guideline – to an extent.
Alisha Kim, 8, started out building a soccer field – complete with small red-and-blue goals and walls while her brother, Joshua, 9, created a golf course by stacking flags on top of small, funneled holes. On the other hand, Ruth Gales, 6, started building a makeshift stadium as others built small vehicles and stands.
Sports that aren’t in the Olympics – or even in the real world – were also well represented, as one participant fashioned a small Quidditch arena from the Harry Potter franchise.
The creative rule-bending is typical at Brown’s MakerSpaces, where kids under her watch have built surprisingly well-planned creations ranging from small cars to large buildings and robots. There’s always a good balance of girls and boys who show up – and each brings something unique to the building experience, she said.
“One time, there was someone assembling, what looked like, a building,” Brown recalled. “There was a little guy in there with a control panel and a helmet on. I looked closer and asked the kid, ‘What is this?’”
“He told me it was a bunker,” Brown laughed. “It was just so oddly specific – that’s the great part.”
The tandem of creative freedom and constructive structure can work wonders for developing minds, Brown continued.
“I think it’s important for kids to play in a constructive Brown said of the themed approach to free-building.
“Instead of just random building, they focus on constructing something specific while still choosing (specifically) what they want to assemble.”
MakerSpaces doesn’t stop just at Legos. The program also alternates between simple circuit robotics and Kebo Magnetic Construction Sticks.
“These Makerspaces are a little bit of programming, a little bit of music and a little bit of physical spatial stuff,” Brown added. “The robotics building sessions usually start off with just a couple of kids who are brave enough to start tinkering. Then they build something that gets the other kids interested. By the end of it, you have 20 kids all trying to build stuff – it’s contagious.”
JBSA runs one MakerSpace each month, alternating sites between JBSA-Randolph, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston and JBSA-Lackland.
As attendees grow older, these free-builds will prove useful because major players in the manufacturing, programming, and hardware fields have started encouraging their adult engineers to engage in similar tabletop tinkering activities, Brown said.
Makerspaces represent the democratization of design, engineering, fabrication and education. They are a fairly new phenomenon, but are beginning to produce projects with significant national impacts, according to their website, http://spaces.makerspace.com/.
Even at JBSA-Lackland’s Lego MakerSpace, that “democratization” is immediately apparent.
Kids might be building separate projects, but people won’t see any squabbling over loose pieces when there are this many to go around – and that’s the point, Brown said.
A tabletop setting enables community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone, according to the MakerSpace website.
For Brown, Legos aren’t just a way to exercise the parts of the brain necessary for science, technology, engineering and math.
Toys like these also engage kids on an artistic and emotional level, she said
“I still have all my Legos from when I was a kid, so I enjoy getting to see all the young ones freak out, saying, ‘Look what I built!’” Brown chuckled. “That just reminds me when I did that as kid.’”
To look up future JBSA libraries’ events, visit at http://www.jbsalibraries.org. To contact the JBSA libraries for more details, call 671-2678 for JBSA-Lackland, 221-4387 for JBSA-Fort Sam Houston and 652-2617 for JBSA-Randolph.