Most people are familiar with the Angry Birds game, which is an video game made popular as an app on mobile devices (iOS, Android, etc.) which, thanks to its incredible popularity, is now also available on other platforms. The premise of the game is simple: Pigs are positioned in/on various structures. The player's goal is to destroy the pigs by using a slingshot to fling a variety of wingless birds at the structure, hopefully knocking it and the pigs to the ground.
Creating a "live" version of the game was actually pretty simple. Well in advance, I asked the library's administrative assistant to set aside boxes for me as we received deliveries at the library. In one or two months' time I had collected 60 boxes, mostly Baker & Taylor boxes of uniform size, for this project. We then used these boxes to build structures that mimicked the levels seen in the Angry Birds game. I also purchased some small playground balls from Oriental Trading which came printed with birds' faces on them. Not exactly trademarked Angry Birds materials, but it was close enough to give the general idea without being too terribly expensive. I brought bath towels from home to use as rudimentary sling shots. The only other supply that we used, which is strictly optional but helped to set the mood, was green balloons, which were taped to paper cups and set on our structures as the pigs. My summer helper even decorated the balloons with pig faces - they were super cute!
I had seen a number of posts from other librarians online describing their versions of such a program. Some of the most helpful ones that I used in planning can be found here:
Teen Librarian's Toolbox
The Show Me Librarian
I more or less followed these librarians' descriptions of how to put this program together in terms of what supplies to use and how to play the game. I did make one major change, however. Most of the program descriptions that I came across had this event taking place in a large program room, where participants were also responsible for designing the structures themselves and then knocking them over. This is a very good way to do it, and I love that this kind of program is creative play at its best from start to finish. However, I really wanted to take advantage of the fact that we were in the library after hours and I wanted to use as much of the library's space as I could. My solution was to instead design six "levels" of the game in advance. Each level was assigned a location in the library, and the teens could wander from level to level to try their hand at the game with a different structure, kind of like a game of mini golf. This was a little more work for me, but it was the only solution that I could come up with that let us take advantage of the library's space.
Because we were going to be spread out all over the library, I wanted to have someone present who could be in charge of each level. I recruited six volunteers, one for each level, to help out with this program. Each volunteer was assigned a level, given a diagram of how it was set up, and shown where his/her level was to be located. It was the volunteer's job to be the person in charge of the level - to make sure that it was rebuilt after it was knocked over (though I also told them to make the participating teens help out with this), help chase down the balls when they went flying, and basically be the person in charge to made sure that the teens didn't do anything stupid. Myself and another staff person were then able to wander around from station to station, mingling with the teens, taking pictures, replacing pigs as their balloons were popped, keeping track of the time, etc.
In the end, 25 teens attended this program. They divided themselves into six groups, and each group was given about 8 minutes to try each level before I flexed my vocal chords by yelling really loudly for them to help reset the level and move on to the next one. We were able to go through all six levels in about an hour's time. Since destruction is always fun the teens generally were eager to try each level multiple times, which was good because it generally only took the teens about two minutes to successfully "complete" each level.
I had created a scorecard for the teens to use, but didn't exactly expect that they would care enough to keep score. And I was absolutely right about this - no one kept score, and they had a great time anyway. The big thing that they did take from the scorecard was the set of optional rules printed on the back, which basically gave each color bird a different way that it could be used and launched. I didn't even directly point this out the teens and figured that those teens who wanted to use these rules could, and those who preferred to play the game in its most straightforward manner could do that. The groups were split about 50-50 when it came to using these optional rules.
The only hiccup that we came across was the fact that the small playground balls that I had purchased were actually almost too small and light to pack enough force to knock the large boxes over using the typical slingshot method. We did find throwing the balls to be a more effective technique than using the slingshot, and slinging multiple balls at once also seemed to work well. The teens, however, had no complaints about the balls that we used. Part of me wonders if coming up with a solution to this problem was part of the appeal. Smaller boxes, of course, would be easier to knock over but have the drawback of making each level smaller as a whole.
All in all, this program was a tremendous hit. It was actually pretty easy and relatively inexpensive to plan - the balls were the only real expense, and I bet that a diligent shopper could find something fairly comparable to the balls that I used for cheaper. Even still, now that the balls our purchased we have them at our disposal for future programs. Most importantly, it was just so much fun to give the teens a chance to play. Yes, you can make the argument that there's a science lesson to be found in this activity and that we're promoting teamwork, etc. But the bottom line is that they had a good time just goofing off while playing a game. Can't beat that.
Because this program was so successful (and because one six-year-old was practically in tears when we told him that this program was only for teens) we are planning to recreate the event on a smaller scale in our Community Room for kids of all ages in November.
