There was something electric in the skies over Smithtown on Friday, May 10, and it wasn't just the Northern Lights.
Twenty students from the High School West Makerspace Club had the opportunity to meet former D1 athlete and Key Account Manager of Lego Education, Joseph Sanfilippo. Mr. Sanfilippo visited the library on the day students were finishing the Avengers Tower Lego build. The Avengers Tower was built in one week with 5201 pieces and 20 students during their lunch and study hall periods.
Students spoke to Mr. Sanfilippo about our experience with LEGO this year. He learned about the Makerspace Lego Month that more than 100 West students participated in. He was asked by student Joe Devito to vote for his favorite LEGO from the "Build a Piece of Technology" challenge from the final four of Lego Month March Madness. Joe built a Pac Man Game and Gus Manikas built a Chromebook that was streaming our Makerspace podcast.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Sanfilippo was invited by senior Matt Bannell to be a guest on the Makerspace podcast. Matt has been running the podcast for the past few months and we have had the opportunity to interview many students and teachers. It was clear that this episode was Matt's all-time favorite. Mr. Sanfilippo and Mike Saladino (Smithtown IT and an employee at the Smithaven Mall Lego Store) walked on to the podcast set to the sound of "Everything is Awesome '' from the 2014 Lego Movie.
You can check out the podcast and Matt's other podcasts at makerspace.shsw and smithtownwestlibrary on Instagram.
