Makerspace Inventory Reflection

When constructing the Makerspace inventory we started out by discussing what could potentially go into the makerspace we would create and who the space would be for. Since Sean and Latrece both work in public libraries we decided to focus on a public library environment and devoted the new makerspace to children ranging from toddlers to older school children. From here Sean brought up interest in having the capability to build robots with the children and I brought up having a Lego wall so that toddlers would have somewhere to build and show off their creations. After we had a general idea we started building an actual inventory of what to include and I created a Google Document for all of our information and plans. 

Having worked with Google Docs before it was easy for me to set up the document, share it with my group members, and then add in a table to organize our inventory. I explored a new feature of Google Docs by using the drawing function to create a diagram of what the makerspace would look like in our new library. We based it off of the way the children's section and preexisting makerspace is organized in the library Latrece works at. I was somewhat disappointed that I could not use formulas in the table in Google Docs to add the cost of all our items together automatically. Everything had to be added together in a separate excel sheet and then one of us would just change the total cost in the Google Doc as we added more items to our inventory. I was able to add in new rows to our table as Latrece and Sean found more items we could include; Latrece was having some difficulty in adding a row and I am unsure how to do this on a Mac computer. This removed some of the technical difficulty that would have come up if she had to do this alone or if we simply divided the project into parts and worked separately. 

Google Docs and the other office like functions they have like slide show and spreadsheets is already a part of my professional tool kit and will continue to be a part of it. All of us being able to work on the document together and separately was immensely useful. It saved us a number of emails and revisions were we to have used a word document or just a long email. Another thing we did that I will need to start using in future group work was use a conference call to be able to work on the project together without actually being together. I'm not a big fan of talking on the phone and am usually quick to pick a video chat over a call. This worked out perfectly for our group; we worked on the project together online and spoke on the phone without anyone losing contact because of a bad internet connection or misunderstandings in what was said due to choppy quality.