What do you know about making stickers or drawing with liquid plastic?
These days teens at YOUmedia at Harold Washington Library Center know plenty about both as they learn to use our vinyl cutters and 3D printers. The teen library's maker area is hopping with activity on a daily basis as kids learn how to create images and objects to use with our new making machines.
Whether it is creating a working salt shaker or printing your favorite video game objects like Zelda Shields and Minecraft Creepers, the high school students (and staff!) in YOUmedia are busy creating designs for the 3D printer. We are printing pre-designed objects via the website Thingiverse and using the excellent browser-based 3D design capabilities of Tinkercad to design brand-new objects.
Working with the vinyl cutter gives students a chance to learn software like Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape and then see their designs come to life in the form of stickers, temporary tattoos or even drawings. Our future projects include creating iron-on T-shirt prints and designs for laptops and cell phones.
If you are a teen who wants to start making, join our Maker Lab workshops at 4:00 p.m. every Tuesday.
