See SPOT Play

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See SPOT walk, see SPOT climb, see SPOT dance! This spring, we had the opportunity to host a very unusual guest at story time!

Meet SPOT, a four-legged robot created by Boston Dynamics. He lives on Princeton University campus and is part of a course titled “Robots in Human Ecology: A Hands-on Course for Anthropologists, Engineers, and Policymakers.” SPOT arrived with an amazing team of undergraduate handlers, plus plenty of plush toys to share.

Vivian Chen, Marisa Hirschfield, Aaron Serianni, Vasumathi Venkat, Zoe Rhodes

We started the program reading Boy + Bot, written by Ame Dyckman and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf Books, 2012). The story is about the playful interactions between a boy and a robot, which fit perfectly with SPOT’s dynamic nature. After the book concluded, we had a short, 10 minute design activity in which young future engineers drew their own personal robots, and earned a paw print approval sticker from Team SPOT:

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Then it was time for the big show as SPOT entered the gallery!

The students did a fantastic job putting together a demo, answering endless questions from the audience, and just being enthusiastic about sharing what they study. One of my favorite parts was when they demonstrated how SPOT can be programmed to read and follow fiducials, which are basically QR codes representing numbers. SPOT scans the code, finds the number, and then completes a pre-programmed action associated with the number (like moving forward, turning, or extending his arm).

I asked Zoe Rhodes (seen above) what was the best lesson she learned from SPOT this semester. She replied:

“I would say the best lesson I learned from working with SPOT is the importance of making mistakes. We love it when things work out but most of the time we’re dealing with mistakes. But as I’ve worked with SPOT I’ve realized that these mistakes teach us so much more about ourselves and our capabilities than when things go correctly. It sounds a little cliche to say we learn from our mistakes but that’s really what robotics (and most things in life) are about. SPOT may fall down but we pick him right up and try again. In my opinion this makes the end product so much more fulfilling and exciting.”

I posed the same question to Vivian Chen, who added:

“The best lesson I learned from working with SPOT is patience goes a long way when working with robots and new technology!”

It was a truly magical story time, THANK YOU so much to the students and to professors Alexander Glaser and Ryo Morimoto for putting together such a tremendous program!

That’s a Big Twinkie (Pie)

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It’s time to head to Katie’s test kitchen to try a literary recipe! Previously, it was sunshine bread. Today, it’s a delicious helping of Twinkie Pie! Twinkie Pie hails from Kat Yeh’s middle grade novel The Truth About Twinkie Pie. It’s a sweet story about coming-of-age, sisterhood, secrets, and delicious desserts. Ever since my interview with Yeh, I have been yearning to try her novel’s signature dish, and it did not disappoint! Take it away Katie!

As a 1980s kid, it was a great day when my mother came home from the grocery store with a surprise box of Hostess sweets. Whether it was Twinkies, CupCakes or Ding Dongs, I can assure you that when the box was empty, there would predictably be a fight of “who ate what and how many” between my brothers and me.

When I saw the recipe for Twinkie Pie, I just KNEW it was something I needed to make and taste test. It gave me a great excuse to purchase a springform pan, which was something I had wanted for a while, and it also meant I could officially introduce my son to the magical and wonderful Twinkie.

What about the Twinkie? Mothering fail. My kid had never eaten one.

So while I was baking up the vanilla wafer cookie crust, I sent my son to the grocery store to pick up a couple necessary items for the pie, most importantly a box of Twinkies. After a 45-minute food aisle scavenger hunt, he sent me this hilarious text.

He did eventually track down the elusive Twinkies, though he didn’t say if it was because of the screenshot photo or by asking for assistance. Side note: Does anyone remember the great Twinkie crisis of 2012?

The pie is very easy to put together. After you cool the cookie crust, you essentially layer the different ingredients inside the springform pan. Once finished, I popped the pie into the refrigerator for a couple of hours to firm and then brought it to share with friends at an evening BBQ.

Twinkie Pie is a heavenly blend of flavors and despite all the sugary ingredients, it’s not overly sweet. The inside layer of bananas and outside circle of Twinkies add the perfect texture to the pudding and maraschino cherry whipped topping. Needless to say, it was very popular with the teenagers in attendance at the BBQ. One kid said, “This is the best pie I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

And this is from Dr. Dana’s 13 year-old: “The pie has some flavors that I wasn’t sure would mix well together, but I was surprised at how good everything tasted and found myself wanting more, especially the soft crust. 9/10!”

Surprisingly there was enough Twinkie Pie left over that I could bring slices into work to share with my library colleagues. Here is the opinion of Beth Kushner, who, being an awesome librarian, dropped in an additional literary reference:

“I’d like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around.”
~Daisy Buchanan, The Great Gatsby

The slice of Twinkie pie was mainly creamy and delightful.
pros: that PINK CLOUD smelled and tasted wonderful… fluffy, ambrosial
cons: the slice of banana looked weird (I couldn’t identify it before tasting it); the crust was kinda hard (wish it were crispy or crunchy) — one hard element in an otherwise soft dessert.

For adults with kids who are eager helpers in the kitchen, there are great lessons to teach while creating the pie layers: crushing vanilla wafers, whisking pudding, blending cherries, beating heavy cream with a mixer, cutting bananas. Twinkie Pie is an excellent introduction to the art of baking, and the best part, it’s REALLY delicious!

Extra bonus! In preparing this post, we found this awesome YouTube video of Kat Yeh making Twinkie Pie with KidLit TV’s Rocco Staino. It’s definitely worth checking out!

The BiblioFiles Presents: Ellen Oh

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Ellen-62_72Just posted! An interview with award-winning author Ellen Oh!

Born in South Korea and raised in New York City, Oh was originally a “boring lawyer” (her words, not mine!) before she decided that writing children’s and YA books is where her heart truly lies. Oh is also one of the founding members of We Need Diverse Books, a non-profit organization with a mission to change how the publishing industry promotes and highlights the voices of marginalized authors, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA+, Native, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.

It is difficult to summarize Ellen Oh’s books because she delves into a prolific multitude of topics and genres. There is the spooky supernatural Spirit Hunters series, the classic fantasy of The Dragon Princess and the Prophecy series, the retelling of Asian myths in A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, the suspense and horror of Haru: Zombie Dog Hero, the touching historical novel Finding Junie Kim, and the modern day You Are Here: Connecting Flights. She has also contributed essays and short stories to multiple collections.

Though Oh’s range is vast, running through all her works are three beautiful threads: 1) Her wry sense of humor and perfect comedic timing; 2) Her experiences as a Korean American and what that means historically, personally, and culturally; 3) Her powerful strength in writing about difficult, painful, and terrifying things while still encouraging readers to have courage and faith.

Oh’s most recent young adult novel is The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee. It’s senior year for Mina Lee, and her father has her life set and planned and none of those plans involve art school. Mina pours her creativity into her webcomic, The School of Secrets. Suddenly and shockingly, she wakes to find herself actually in her webcomic, interacting with her characters. The stakes are high, and the consequences serious as her epic story twists, turns, and rockets to its conclusion.

Follow this link to the BiblioFiles interview

Image courtesy of Ellen Oh