NL_091516

newlenoxpatriot.com life & arts
the New Lenox Patriot | September 15, 2016 | 21
Library introduces children to
coding in new Coding Club
Amanda Del Buono
Freelance Reporter
At just 11 years old, both
Alex Mosel and Dave Shaw
have aspirations to be video
game makers, likely inspired
by their shared love
of “Minecraft.”
“I want to make an advanced
version of ‘Pong,’”
Shaw said.
“What’s ‘Pong?’” Mosel
asked.
“It’s like a really old video
game,” Shaw said, as he
added beads to his piece of
yarn.
On Sunday, Sept. 3, the
two boys, along with nearly
a dozen other third- through
sixth-grade children, participated
in the New Lenox
Public Library’s newest
STEM/STEAM program
called Coding Club. That
Saturday’s Coding IRL (In
Real Life) session was the
first of three the library will
host.
“A lot of kids want to build
video games, and this gives
them an idea of what is involved
in that,” said Carolyn
Boyer, youth services assistant
at the library. “ … We’re
trying to do more STEM/
STEAM programs and kids
have been requesting coding
books and different things
on computers.”
Although Mosel and Shaw
said that coding seems harder
than they thought it would
be, neither has been deterred,
and both are excited to continue
learning about coding.
According to Boyer, the
library has been implementing
STEM programs, which
focus on science, technology,
engineering and math,
for children at the library.
The programs are designed
Grace Lustig learns how to
code her name.
Ethan Garrison listens
intently to the STEM lesson.
to help pique interest in various
areas of study, she said.
“The trend now is actually
doing STEAM, which
is science, technology, engineering,
art and math, and
we do have a really great
art program, and we started
the Mini Mad Science Lab”
Boyer said. “Last year, we
did a Tinker Lab where we
took apart computers, so
they could see the parts inside.”
During Coding Club, the
children used the binary alphabet
to create necklaces
out of yarn and beads, introducing
them to the binary
code and how computers
work. Each child spelled his
or her name in binary code
with red, white and black
beads on their necklace.
“You might come up
Erin Hunter (left), youth services librarian, and Carolyn
Boyer (right), youth services assistant, help participants
while Alex Mosel (middle) goes up to get a string so he
could make a necklace that represents his name in code.
Photos by Laurie Fanelli/22nd Century Media
Coding Club participants work on their name code
necklaces.
with a great idea for a video
game, but how do you make
it come to life?” Boyer said
to the children while they
made their necklaces. “How
do you make the computer
do it?”
Once they had completed
their necklaces, the children
participated in an activity
during which one acted as
the computer and the other
was the programmer. The
two had to work together
to complete a task with the
“programmer” telling the
“computer” how to complete
the task.
“It’s just to pique interest
and give them skills or ideas
they didn’t have before,”
Boyer said. “Kids use technology,
but do they really
know how it works.”
The Coding Club will
continue with the next session,
Makerspace Sneak
Peek, taking place Saturday,
Oct. 1. Children will be able
to test out some of the library’s
Ozobots and Cubelet
robot blocks and learn how
to program them.
The final session, Coding,
will take place Saturday,
Oct. 29.
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