Come to the Library for Teen Tech Zone over Spring Break! Monday, March 18 through Saturday, March 23, the computer lab will be open from 1-4 for teens to use the internet and hangout, or make multimedia projects and be creative. For teens in 7th-12th grade.
We had a blast at November’s Guys Read meeting held at The Wedge and Capanna. We’re excited to get together again for a special Winter Break Guys Read this Friday, December 21st from 12-1 p.m. in Meeting Room E upstairs at ICPL for all guys in Grades 5-8. We’ll be discussing Scott Westerfeld’s amazing steampunk alternate history novel Leviathan.
We’re excited to bring in a special guest this month, we’ll be joined by local tinkerer inventor Michael Webb and his hand built 3D Printer! He’s kindly offered to show us how it works and we’ll have a chance to print off some cool Leviathan-inspired choice coins where one side will have a double-helix for the Darwinists and the other a wrench for the Clankers. If you’ve never seen what these printers can do, be sure to check out the yoda video below!
Guys Read, is a larger literacy initiative founded by children’s author Jon Scieszka, and is designed to draw attention to boys’ literacy and to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.
No reservation required but if you think you’ll come check it out then shoot me an email so I make sure to have enough food!
Questions? Email Jason at teens[at]icpl.org or call 319-887-6075.
Happy rainy Saturday!
This is just a friendly reminder that Coder Dojo is meeting TODAY from 2-4 PM in the Computer Lab on the 2nd floor of the library. We’re making webpages today, so stop by and make something cool! We’ve got everything you’ll need, but feel free to bring your laptop if you wish.
See you there! 
We’re excited to announce that the Iowa City CoderDojo has partnered with us to offer their volunteer-led coding workshops here for students in grades 5-12! Our first meeting will be on Saturday, September 22nd from 2-4 p.m. in the Computer Lab on the second floor. CoderDojo volunteers and ICPL staff will help teach you and your friends how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more with HTML and Python.
If you’re interested but unable to come to the first meeting please join us at any of the follow up sessions on the 2nd Saturday of every month from 2-4 p.m. :
October 13, 2012
November 10, 2012
December 8, 2012
January 12, 2013
February 9, 2013
March 9, 2013
April 13, 2013
May 11, 2013
If you have any questions you can ask us at teens[at]icpl.org
Science fair projects are about potato batteries and baking soda volcanos, right? Um, wrong.
The Google Science Fair invites teenagers from around the world to submit their projects digitally to compete for a grand prize; this year it was a $50,000 scholarship, a LEGO trophy, and a trip to the Galapagos Islands. Pretty sweet, right?
Well, you’ve got some strong competition: this year’s winner coded a artificial neural network that improves breast cancer detection: “[17-year-old] Wegner, who has been fascinated by Artificial Intelligence since the 7th grade, spent more than 600 hours coding her groundbreaking artificial neural network. The program, which operates from Google’s Cloud, learns from patterns and mistakes in data sets. After inputting 681 fine needle aspirate samples [the main, yet surprisingly ineffective, method of breast cancer screening], her program was able to learn the similarities and differences across the entire data set, eventually ‘teaching’ the network to detect cancerous tumors given a fine needle aspirate with near perfect accuracy.”
Check out more at The Mary Sue . And dream big! You could win a LEGO trophy. 
Looking for a new website? Look no further: Rookie is an online magazine for teenage girls, and “[features] writing, photography, illustrations, videos, and more from a lovely staff and our readers. The site features monthly ‘issues,’ each revolving around a theme. We post just three times a day – after school, after dinner, and before bed.“
Sounds like a neat way to connect with other teenage girls across the country and share a bit about what it is to be a teenage girl these days. The site encourages submissions from its readers, so if you’ve got a neat article or journal entry to share, they’re willing to give it a read!
More importantly, however: the staff is roadtripping this summer (be sure to check out their tumblr), and they just stopped in Iowa City! Sorry you missed them, but it looks like they had a great time at the White Rabbit and the Record Collector. Cool!
Photo from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience
It seems that as people who grew up playing with Legos become adults, more and more examples of AWESOME Lego sculptures (seriously, works of sculptural art) dance about on the internet. Take this recent article from the Wired blog, “Wired Science.” Generally when you stumble upon a Lego creation, it’s an incredibly intricate sculpture of Barad-dûr, the Fortress of Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or an actual working printer constructed out of those small plastic pieces. However, Wired’s article compiles a collection of models and structures of scientific origin: the DNA molecule, a human kidney, and the ATLAS detector (that huge installation used to study fundamental particle physics in Switzerland) are all fodder for Lego creativity. There are many more fascinating sculptures on the article page, so go check it out! Or create a sculpture of your own!
Until recently, I spent a fair bit of time on Twitter. However, as a full-time graduate student in the University of Iowa Library and Information Science program and a part-time intern at ICPL, my time of late has been spent learning, reading, and dreaming about libraries. But when I do manage to stumble back to Twitter, I always check in on the antics of one Maureen Johnson.
Ms. Johnson, the author of such young adult novels as The Name of the Star and 13 Little Blue Envelopes (both available in the young adult fiction area at ICPL), spends an abnormal amount of time in the world of tweets and hashtags, but in so doing, manages to be one of the most entertaining people on the internet, in my opinion. There is something of a learning curve to her tweets: she writes about “Monday dragons,” “flying monkeys,” and what she calls “danubing” (I imagine it’s a dance suspended somewhere between a waltz and hula), but after this short adjustment period, one can’t help but follow along. Although the majority of her tweets are silly in tone, she does occasionally post articles about young adult literature, often inspiring discussion about controversial issues. She frequently travels to the United Kingdom to write, and often offers advice and suggestions to aspiring young adult authors. Be sure to check her out; she’ll put a smile on your face.
You can find her on Twitter, and you can follow her blog on her website.
Curious about Twitter? Wondering how to compose a thought in 140 characters or less? Stop by the Teen Tech Zone on Thursdays from 3-5 PM and Saturdays from 1-4 PM, and I’ll help you write your first tweet!
Google is looking for the brightest, best young scientists from around the
world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world
today.
Students all over the world between the ages of 13 and 18 are invited to enter this exciting new global science fair to compete for prizes including scholarships, internships, and some pretty crazy once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
It’s free to enter and submissions will be accepted until April 4, 2011. For more information visit the Google Science Fair site.
Here’s a video that walks you through the submission process.
The newest installation in Sid Meier’s Civilization series. A lot has happened since the last installment of the series, Civilization Revolution. The biggest change is resources the land resources such as iron or gold can actually be used. another change is that you can trade resources such as gold for iron and you can make open border treaties once you have the resource. ONLY FOR COMPUTER.
