can I start where I started with the library because we had lived in Napa for
a number of years and moved to Meridian I'm guessing about five years ago and I
went to the Discovery Center and the Discovery Center had some 3d printers
and I go how how do you have gained access to these 3d printers I I knew
that things were changing and I'd like to learn about them and they said oh
well the Meridian library is opening a library for this and so I was watching
for the grand opening I think it was in November three years ago so it was just
an exciting time for me to gain access to something that I knew was happening
in the world of technology but I wasn't ready to buy something it wasn't
something that I knew how to how to do so I wanted to learn they introduced me
to Tinkercad and they said hey take this home you can do this at home do these
designs and then I would come back to the library failure was the best
learning experience I had so when Unbound open it was really exciting
because here was this place where so much was available and I was introduced
to the CNC machine because the 3d printers were so busy I had to wait two
weeks to get a print back so what I said was what's that machine over in the
corner and they said well that's a CNC machine no one knows how to use it yet
we keep trying but we don't know how and I said well can I so that started this
process and the more I got involved with the CNC and the more I experienced
people coming to the library looking for things 3d printing and kids that would
come and they'd get excited about all these things they could do and the
library had samples of 3d prints and I started saying well I could teach some
of these kids or adults about how the CNC machine works and so and it gave me
a chance to teach a class and then it was really a lot of fun and I saw kids
and they just would light up as they saw
something they could create of their own and my one of my first experiences was a
I think a 7 year old girl and I said this is how this works she asked some
questions and so she brought her little brother over I was like 5 and oh look at
how this works this is this is really cool and I said well you could actually
make something and she's what could I make and I said we could carve your name
into a piece of wood and she goes I can really do that and I go yeah here's how
you do it and we took a pencil and wrote on a
piece of paper and then took a picture of it import it in the software and then
we we worked on it and she was really impressed it's just I want to do more so
she went home she designed her own little keychain with her name in a
puzzle and she brought it back in and said can we make this work it's an
inspiring moment for me to watch someone see what they can accomplish and the
library make that possible and I thought well I'm gonna I'm gonna contribute all
I can to help people see this so my youngest that ever came to a class was a
five year old boy and and I've had people who are retirees who've come and
they want to learn something new and some people have gone through this
process and then either purchased or built their own CNC machine others we I
have relationships with who have tried to start small businesses and we share
materials I mean we started a small community within the library it's been
really exciting and and I always say that was all possible because of the
library because of the Meridian libraries insight into seeing what a
technology environment or creating an environment where technology could be
accessed was just amazed I've never seen anything like that before