Attending Teen Programs
—December 2011—
The December Teen Corp meeting consisted of surveys, chocolate, pizza, chocolate, blankets…and chocolate! At the annual holiday celebration, we discussed our favorite events of the library in 2011 as well as our favorite books and movies. Along with the fondue and dessert, we found time to make blankets for Project Linus, a non-profit organization that donates blankets to kids who may need comfort during difficult times. This is always one of the best meetings of the year, but every Teen Corp meeting is exciting so be sure to come to the February meeting!
Happy new year,
Avni
—July 19—
Going on a scavenger hunt while being blasted by water guns is one of the most fun things you can do in the middle of summer! The only thing that could make it better is adding ice cream sundaes to the mix, and that’s exactly what the Road Rally is all about. A couple weeks ago, I attended this program for the third or fourth time. It’s one of my favorites, because really, who doesn’t love competing against other friendly teams in a search for treasure, with the promise of ice cream and candy at the end? It was a great night, walking all around the library plaza and even inside the library to search for the answers that we needed to complete the hunt. My team learned all kinds of interesting stuff about the different places that surround the library, and even discovered some new stores and businesses that we hadn’t ever seen before! We stopped by Caribou Coffee, Bonefish Grill, Dominick’s, and the Trickster Gallery, among other places. After finding all of our answers, we hurried back to the library to get our time marked down. The best thing about this night was that, even though there were prizes for things like getting the most amount of answers right and completing the hunt in the least amount of time, everyone was a winner because we all got sundaes! Several generous scoops of chocolate or vanilla ice cream, with caramel sauce and chocolate sauce and marshmallow fluff, cherries and sprinkles, M&Ms, Oreo bits, wafers, gummy worms…well, you get the idea. Definitely a great teen event, and I’d highly recommend coming to this one or any of our other great summer activities.
Also, on the same note, the Battle of the Bands is tonight, July 19. So if you’re in for a fun, free night of music, definitely swing by the library to watch the performances!
-Meran
—December 28—
Think of your favorite cartoon character. That character is probably energetic, funny, crazy, full of attitude or cute. But, what if you could create your own character and have it move on a computer screen? That is what computer animation is about. I’ve always been interested in it, but never had time to take a class. Finally I did at STDL and it was so much fun!!!
One of the first things the instructor, Shugo, taught us was how objects show movement. A tennis ball flattens out when it hits the ground, while a chair would stay rigid. Anticipation is used with objects or characters to make the movement appear more interesting. There is sometimes secondary motion for a character. An example would be a horse running. The secondary motion would be the way the horse’s mane and tail move.
To grasp the idea of motion in an animation, Shugo made the class create an animation of a bouncing ball. First, we drew a reference line to show the path of the ball. Then Frame by frame, everyone would draw circles to represent the ball. In almost an hour, the class had finished and mastered the animation of the bouncing ball. For most computer animation classes, it took the whole time to create the balancing ball image, but the class I was in finished with an hour left to spare.
During the leftover hour, I created an animation of a walking dog. Others made fish jump out of water at the beach or created a tsunami out of rain. These animations took a long time mostly because one has to be patient with each frame. Otherwise, impatience can completely ruin the effect of the animation.
Shugo showed us some of his creations. Some of them took as much as ten hours! If you want to see some, then you can visit his website at http://www.cibesworld.zoomshare.com/
The class was fun for everyone, but no one was able to save their animations. But during the summer, there will a computer animation class that will be over the course of four weeks with one class per week. Don’t miss out! These classes will teach how to create more animations, and some with sound. Memory cards may be provided and the library may use Adobe depending on the funds. But, sign up for the summer session before it’s too late, because slots fill up fast.
———————————————————————————
Happy November, everyone!!
Lots of exciting stuff has been going on at the library recently. On October 20th, I had a great time at the October Teen Corps meeting, where we had some pizza and let out our Halloween spirit by making haunted gingerbread houses in the Youth Services classroom. We started with Pop-Tarts boxes, mini-cereal boxes, and other cardboard cartons to provide a stable structure. Then, we used frosting and graham crackers to cover the boxes and create the “walls” of our gingerbread houses. Finally, we used lots of candy and creativity to make our own unique, spooky masterpieces! A couple rounds of Ghost, or Halloween-themed Bingo, completed the fun-filled hour-one of the prizes was a brand-new, signed copy of Mockingjay, from the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins! It was a great conclusion to a fantastic night.
Being part of the Teen Corps is awesome because we get a lot of opportunities to help out the community while having fun with friends. One of our long-term goals this year has been to complete a collective total of 1000 volunteer hours, and we’re well on our way to achieving it! An interesting way that teens have been helping out is by learning how to knit scarves, blankets, and hats for charities. It’s a cool and creative craft to learn, and if you’re interested, you should definitely go and check out the Teen Center on Mondays from 7-9 PM. That’s when fellow knitters will be working on their own knitting projects. I’m currently working on a hat myself, and though it takes a lot of patience to learn to knit at first, it’s a fun and productive hobby. So if you have some spare time and hands that are itching to do something, come join us at the library for this and for other terrific programs!
-Meran
On Monday October 25th, I attended the teen services program of Horrific Halloween tie-dye. Teens arrived earlier than the 7p start time because they were excited to get going on the project. There was over twenty-four teens that showed up to participate.
I learned many different techniques to tie-dying. To do a spiral, you pick a spot on the shirt and twist the whole shirt around that point. Making a striped pattern either involved accordion folds of the tee-shirts or rolling the entire shirt up like a newspaper. For a random and scattered effect, you could fold and tie up your shirt anyway you wanted to get a fun surprise.
Orange, purple, and black were the three types of colors to choose from in spirit of the Halloween season. However, other colors like brown would have appeared if colors were mixed from all the excitement. Some people choose to do one color, while others tried to incorporate all three. Things did get messy on the table with all the colors dripping from the shirts and out of the bottles…at least on my table. Others were much neater with their work.
Tie-dying was a lot of fun. I did a spiral pattern using all three colors, and my shirt came out looking awesome. I can’t wait for it to dry so I can wear it to school and be in the Halloween mode. I encourage others to try tie-dying or some of the artsy programs that the library has to offer. It’s a great chance to unlock your inner artist.
From,
Dana Lindquist
Loading ...
