Full STEAM Ahead: A Look at a Yearly STEAM Expo

For the past eight years (including a couple virtual), my library system has held a STEAM Expo to highlight library STEAM programming from staff and to invite community partners to come with their own science, technology, engineering, art, and math offerings. 

This year, approximately 400 people attended our STEAM Expo, which was held on a Saturday at a centrally located library.  About 20 staff members from all over the system, who work with the whole spectrum of ages, came with a myriad of fun activities, which included:

• Sphero golf, augmented by cardboard construction with Makedo parts to set up putt-putt obstacles
• A Dungeons and Dragons themed math challenge, complete with giant 20-sided dice
• Take-Apart Tech (the table this author manned.  I now know what’s inside projectors and computer keyboards)
• Digital art on iPads
• Paper and printmaking
• LEGO Robotics
• Video controllers with Makey-Makeys
• 3-D printing
• Drone challenges
• STEAM offerings from our Toy Library

And then the community partners!

• NASA helped lead astronaut drops (think egg drops without the eggs) from our balcony
• Baldwin Wallace University brought sheep brains for all to examine
• A member of the Minority Tech Alliance brought his robotic dog.  (As a side note…this was absolutely amazing!  It climbed your leg, jumped, barked, sat, rolled over—so much fun!)
• Case Western Reserve University let participants explore Augmented Reality.

By participating in activities, visitors earned badges for each letter of STEAM and then could use the heat press to add them to a canvas bag as a take-home gift. 

Does your system do anything to celebrate STEAM with community partners?  If so, please consider discussing it in the comments.  If not, hopefully you will be inspired to start something!

This post addresses the core competencies of I. Commitment to Client Group, III. Programming Skills, and V. Outreach and Advocacy.