In October of 2004, eight fifth grade students joined a Groton Dunstable
Regional Middle School after-school enrichment program with the intention of
making a book filled with student literary offerings that would be accepted into
the Guinness World Book of Records. That initial project has taken on
considerable scope and an even more admirable goal - to make the world's largest
book - and to focus its subject on world peace.
Members of the Bookmakers and Dreamers Club are now well on their way to
reaching their ultimate ambition. After their researching the current record
holder for the largest book (nine feet by eight feet and weighing about 500
pounds), the students wanted to make one that would easily beat that size and
could sustain the record as the biggest book in the world for some years to
come.
These optimistic students decided that their book should be 10 feet by 12
feet and would be a volume that was not only large in size, but larger in
stature by making its contents meaningful. Teacher/adviser Betsy Sawyer attended
a Jimmy Cliff concert and brought back a powerful message to her students from
the activist reggae musician, "It's up to us to teach the children about peace"
she described the singer as saying. Cliff also asked his audience, "What have
you done to promote peace lately?"
The Bookmakers and Dreamers took that message to heart and began researching
the topic of world peace. They sent letters to thousands of people around the
world asking for their opinions about peace:
What is world peace?
Would there
ever be world peace?
Where would they like to see the world in 20 years?
Responses began pouring in and to date, the club has received over 1000
letters from politicians, veterans, students and teachers to Nobel Laureates
such as Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. Club members followed advice from
former President Jimmy Carter, himself a Nobel Laureate, and a traveling
ambassador for peace.
President Jimmy Carter
told the students to
chart all of the world's conflicts on a
large map and join other peace initiatives to stay involved in their quest
for peace.
Those original members of the Bookmakers and Dreamers are now in high school
and have seen their group grow to over 50 students from fifth through ninth
grades. Besides researching prospects for peace by writing all of those letters
and mapping the conflicts that continue today throughout the world, the students
have also expanded their academic horizons as their journey has exposed them to
up-to-the-minute technology required in order to make the world's largest book.
They have traveled to the
University of
Massachusetts at Lowell’s Francis College of Engineering to learn about some
engineering concepts in order to choose the proper media on which to print their
giant book. They watched as technicians demonstrated tests for tensile strength
that ultimately determined that
DuPont’s TyvekŪ was the media of choice as it was very strong, wouldn’t tear
and was light enough to be practical. People are more often familiar with other
uses for Tyvek such as in the construction trade where it "wraps" buildings to
offer air and water resistance, postal delivery envelopes and protective covers
for boats and cars.
The next step in the process required some expertise in printing "really big"
things. Some research lead teacher Betsy Sawyer to seek the help of a New
England company, EFI VUTEk, a
manufacturer of grand format ink jet printers in Meredith NH. Representatives
from EFI VUTEk offered to provide some technical expertise for the project as
well as donate the huge volume of ink required to print the 500-double sided
page book. (If you think the toner for your computer’s ink jet printer is
expensive, imagine how much ink is required to print such a huge book.)
In order to grasp a better understanding of how the giant printers work, club
members took a field trip 90-miles north to EFI VUTEK’s Meredith NH headquarters
to gain some first hand knowledge about the world of grand format printing. It
was an awesome sight to see club members’ looks of amazement as they watched a
copy of a photo being printed that had been taken of them that morning. The
photo was as large as one of the pages of the book - 10 feet wide by 12 feet
tall!
The staff at EFI VUTEk also introduced the Bookmakers and Dreamers to
UniGraphic of Woburn, MA, one of New England’s leading printing companies that
agreed to print the giant tome using the EFI VUTEk 5330 grand format ink jet
printer. The monster printer is capable of printing as many as eight colors and
producing up to 2230-square feet (207 square meters) per hour! The students got
to see the printer in action during a recent field trip to UniGraphic where they
learned more about how the book and cover would actually be printed and bound.
Once the book is printed, these young peacemakers want to be able to display
it in museums around the world, so they partnered with U Mass Lowell’s
engineering students who developed a prototype robotic,
automatic page turner
that is one-fourth of the size needed for the final project. Once completed, the
book and page turner will then be able to be displayed at such locations as the
Museum of Science in Boston, MA. President Jimmy Carter has also asked that the
final project be displayed at his Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta,
GA. The automatic page turner will allow the masses to view each page of the
giant book.
The culmination of the last four and one-half years of work was the
students’
trip to United Nations Headquarters in New York City as part of the observance
of the International Day of Peace in September of 2008. The students were asked
to give a presentation to the annual international youth conference with over
700 attendees within the UN General Assembly and international participation via
satellite with students from UN missions in Afghanistan, Liberia and Sudan.
Those original members of the Bookmakers and Dreamers are now in high school
and have seen their group grow to over 50 students from fifth through ninth
grades. Besides researching prospects for peace by writing all of those letters
and mapping the conflicts that continue today throughout the world, the students
have also expanded their academic horizons as their journey has exposed them to
up-to-the-minute technology required in order to make the world's largest book.
The staff at EFI VUTEk also introduced the Bookmakers and Dreamers to
