Tuesday, November 14, 2017

D.I.Y. Fidget Spinners

It can be tough to create a library program that tween patrons want to attend.  For this reason, I tried to create a program around something these not-quite-teenagers find popular.  The result was this fidget spinner creation event.



A simple Google search will find plenty of information on how to make your own fidget spinners.  I chose four designs that seemed easy enough to create, yet looked different from each other.


Ball Bearings and Zip Ties
The easiest and most popular of the spinners we made!  All you need is 3 ball bearings, 6 zip ties, and wire cutters.  This YouTube video best describes how to make it. 


Bottle Caps
This spinner did not take a lot of skill to make, but it did require a lot of glue from a hot glue gun. This YouTube video describes a simple to make version. Supplies include the hot glue gun, 5 bottle caps, toothpicks, wire cutters, and pennies. An optional supply is cardstock or cardboard for the edges of the toothpicks. The pennies inside the caps really did make it spin better. 


Cardstock and Toothpicks
This was the most complex of the four spinners to make. They look so simple but require many steps. It spins the best after the glue has dried. Red Ted Art has fantastic directions and templates.


Perler Beads
This was the second most popular spinner to make. The teen librarian already had a ton of Perler bead supplies so this was an easy addition to the program. Templates and instructions can be found at the official Perler.com website. Be aware that the template requires a hex peg board. We only had square boards so I had to special order the hex boards. This spinner does require many steps: Place the beads on the board, iron it, hot glue the ball bearing and hex nuts to the beads.  I suggest checking that the ball bearings and nuts fit into their allotted holes before applying the iron. 

I had three super awesome teen volunteers from the local Key Club helping me at this event. The majority of the attending tweens managed to make three of the four spinners during the one hour event. Many were surprised at how well the spinners actually worked. It was a fun event to put together.

No comments:

Post a Comment