Culture in Action

Connected Messages Maker Project at Philadelphia Libraries

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Connected Messages is a maker initiative funded by a Project:Connect grant, and developed by the Free Library of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and School of Design (eCrafting.org). It was implemented in five library locations across Philadelphia during the summer of 2013. The goal was to introduce youth to electronics and technology through the lens of art and community dialogue. We built Connected Messages on existing programming through the Maker Education Initiative, where five near-peer Maker Mentors engaged youth in daily workshops at five underserved community libraries. This amazing opportunity through Project:Connect has served as a stepping-stone in terms of how libraries can participate in the maker movement and connect technology to youth in a transformative, personal way.

With this project, we wanted to knit together all five Maker sites at the Free Library of Philadelphia this summer, both physically and digitally, and create a way to blend technology, community and literacy with the youth we reach on a daily basis. We needed a project that 1) would be easy to execute, in terms of low-cost materials 2) could be developed and completed in six weeks 3) would be relevant and interesting to youth and 4) would have an interactive component, and could also exist digitally as a way to share with a wider audience outside of the community.

There are two elements to the project: the physical mural and the web interface. Each physical mural was made out of a piece of 4 ft x 4 ft foamcore, on which we laid down a grid of copper tape. This created a DIY circuit board, which allowed for 64 individual units – these are the boxes (one can also think of them as “quilt squares”) that each youth makes individually to create the larger mural. The youth decorates the top of the box, then assembles the circuit on the bottom of the box.