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AI Summary:
The 2026 summer reading theme for the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) is “Unearth a Story,” which focuses on dinosaurs, paleontology, and archaeology. The slogan, “Unearth a Story,” invites layered interpretations, encouraging readers to discover the joy of reading, uncover history, or explore the past.
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When I spoke to the Cranberry children’s librarian last night, she said that their plan for this theme is to focus on dinosaurs. In my mind, this conjures up Jurassic Park (minus the fatalities). We could start with an underground layer of geologists mining for amber or petrified bones. (Is there an electrical outlet in that case yet?) Also @tbrown00 suggested an underwater section for mosasaurs.
To make more of the above ground areas visible from a child’s perspective, we could build tiers that go upward towards the center. Last night Tim also suggested wooden platforms and I think some of the elevation could be achieved with DUPLO.
The display will be installed in June, so we’re in the brainstorming phase now. Please feel free to offer suggestions and/or to commit to certain aspects of the build. @tfdesigns @rcgrier3406 @bengood921 @timf @joshhall @krista @amplef0rth @argonvesher
I can contribute these dinosaur skeletons from the display we did at the Science Center in 2021. The rest of the scene has been disassembled but I still have the dinosaur skeletons together in a box somewhere in the garage. The Diplodocus is a MOC (Dippy from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History), and the rest are from the LEGO Ideas Dinosaur Fossil set from a few years ago.
@greg, there is power (extension cord) available in that case.
Savy asked me to do a Quetzalcoatlus for my flyer. So that’s going to likely be what I build for suspension. I imagine it’ll be roughly the size that my Black Dragon was. Savy also suggested the Mosasaurus but there is an existing brickbuilt set of that and it’ll require us to create an aquatic scene. So I’m not going to commit to that one for now. Figure if someone else wants to build out an Aquatic scene and if nobody wants to bring the brick built set then maybe I can pivot back to that but for now and am considering instead a Spinosaurus which can go either on land or water and thus can fit into whatever we decide to build terrain wise.
I have the baby dinosaurs… Bumpy, Eatie and Delores and some other random dinosaur figures… A t-rex, raptors, anklyosaurus, pterydactal, etc.
I have a stegosaurus at that scale. I will need to change out the base if it’s not going to be in a museum setting.
Should we have a section of the dinosaur display that has bone fossils in an underground cavern? Bob has several skeletons.
Is there a section of the display case that might be more suitable than others for making an underwater section? Any ideas on how to best create an underwater section? I have a pair of those blue canyon / raised baseplates which would take up a 64 wide x32 deep section.
So I think the idea was to build an actual shelf to split the case into two levels. Cave with fossils under and “live” build above. What we could do is truncate that shelving so about 2 baseplates or so from the third window is on a lower level (but still on a bit of a riser). Then we’d have to build landscape “clading” to wrap the frame and riser. We’d then be able to build the cave under the shelf for fossiles to sit in. Waterscaping on that Riser and an above ground live section above the shelf. Question is who if any are doing builds that would require the underwater section. If not we can just do a full split and that would probably save on having to build a bunch of “Clading”. Still have to engineer that shelf though.
The file names “Dino-Support-Front” image is not opening for me, but I’d really like to see it so I can understand more than the idea of building a platform above. Has someone offered to build this platform?
I suppose there might be problems with light availability away from the windows if there is a platform all the way across. Although I would not expect the underground / undersea build to go all the way across the first level anyway, so having light in the middle wouldn’t be essential.
I imagine we’d want to add some lighting below it. There’s power in the case, so that should be doable. As far as who might build it. Not sure at this point, it was mentioned is all. I think first step is determining if that’s actually what we want to do because this isn’t something we’d be able to do last minute. Then we could look at how exactly we do it. I do know I don’t have enough Lego to provide the clading but I’m sure I can contribute to building the understructure as I have a table saw and once spring comes and I move my car back outside, I have space to store it. If we do build it, then no I don’t think it goes all the way across…well it might with the cladding at least from front to back to look right. Thus why I think we’d want lighting in there.
The file names āDino-Support-Frontā image is not opening for me, but Iād really like to see it so I can understand more than the idea of building a platform above. Has someone offered to build this platform?
I suppose there might be problems with light availability away from the windows if there is a platform all the way across. Although I would not expect the underground / undersea build to go all the way across the first level anyway, so having light in the middle wouldnāt be essential.
There is a plug in there, a cord, and I think I left my timer in there. You can string up any LED lighting under any platform for lighting.
I can still fill in that weird corner with the MILS plate I have and build fossil and fossil digs into the landscape.
The image below (which is probably AI) inspired me to think more about the dinosaurs display in Cranberry. Here is an idea I’m proposing: what if we were to use inverted aquariums to provide the height needed to have a multilevel display?
inverted aquarium
That is a very interesting idea. Each aquarium area could be a separate “habitat”. The question then becomes – to how many empty (clean) aquariums do we have access?
First, I think we need at least one tank for a Mosasaur, which someone will hopefully build for the display.
to how many empty (clean) aquariums do we have access?
I used to teach Biology and I had probably a dozen aquariums between my classroom and the adjoining greenhouse. I sold some and left some behind, but I think I still have two ten gallon tanks that I can easily access. I have two more aquariums that are 40 gallons but they are much heavier / difficult to maneuver.
A standard 10 gallon tank is 20″ x 10″ x 12″ and weighs 11 lbs. A standard “40 gallon long” aquarium is 48″x12″x16″ and weighs 55 lbs when it is empty.
I am not planning a Mosasaur on my end. There’s a nice set out there for that, so hopefully that’s already in someone’s collection. If I see it at a steep discount, I might pick it up, but I’m not expecting that to happen. On my end I am planning a Spinosaurus and a Quetzalcoatlus. The Spino is already well in progress. It will be apx. 2 feet long, about 9″ high and about 6″ wide at the hips. Hope to have 1st iteration done by Ross Park. Home and Garden at the latest. If I have time, I might build some terrain (riverbank) for it to stand on but I’m not expecting that to be a part of the Cranberry Display and it’ll likely just stand wherever there’s room. The Quetzal is just hypothetical at this point but I expect it to be about the size of the Black Dragon I did previously and it will be suspended on wires from above.
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