The Innisfail Public Library is being honoured with a 2014 Minister's Award for Innovation for its Beginner Robotics Program in Jasper this last weekend.
Laurie Hodges Humble, library manager, and Melinda Mercer, youth and adult programmer, travelled to Jasper on April 25 for the annual library conference and received the award on behalf of the Innisfail Public Library and presented a session on creating youth programs for smaller libraries for their peers.
“Our library board met last fall and decided to nominate our beginner robotics program to the province's minister's award after it had met with so much success after we introduced it to our youth,” said Hodges. “Melinda put the program together for the youth and it is very popular.”
Mercer noted her robotics program was designed for youths aged 10 to 17 and limited registration to eight individuals.
“Eight seemed to be the right number of kids as we only have eight laptop computers and any more it is difficult to mange the space and material we need to do our projects,” said Mercer. “The program is supposed to run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. but I have a tough time getting them out by 8 p.m. They want to finish what they are working on in one night.”
The designers/roboteers use household materials, circuit boards, gears, solar panels and motors to build their robots.
“We have found over the eight months that we have reached kids who fall through the cracks,” added Mercer. “They learn to socialize, their literacy skills have improved dramatically, they have learned to work as a team to help each other complete their ‘bots', and they have fun every time we meet. Every participant wins.”
Mercer said the program started in September of 2013 and the current robotics group will run for 10 months, with a shorter version of the program running in the summer as well. “It has been remarkably successful,” she said.
She added she believes this may be the only robotics library program in Alberta.
The library also runs manga, anime, PC gaming evenings, writing and drawing groups for Innisfail and area youth.
“We are very excited about winning this award,” said Hodges Humble. “Libraries from Fox Creek, Calgary and Edmonton are other winners so we are in very prestigious company.”
The beginner robotics program runs every third Thursday of the month from 6 to 7:30 p.m. through June 2014 at the Innisfail Public Library. More information on youth programs is available at ipl.prl.ab.ca/.
