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Session Room Safety and Logistics Map

Run the Session Room Safety and Logistics Map MicroSim fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Eight features, and the reason to learn them as a map rather than a checklist is that their positions relate to each other.

The four that are about getting out or getting help — emergency exit, first aid kit, accessible pathway, restroom — should be findable by somebody who has never been in the room. Not findable by you, who set it up. That is a different and higher bar, and it is why the accessible pathway is drawn as an unobstructed strip rather than as a route you could pick your way along.

The two that are about the work — charging station and whiteboard — sit where they do for traffic reasons. The charging station is against a wall beside an outlet so nobody trails a cable across the floor. The whiteboard is high on a wall everyone faces.

The safety zone is the one that has to be a place, not a rule. Soldering and hot tools get a floor area marked with hazard tape, because "be careful with the iron" is advice and a taped rectangle is a boundary. A student can see whether they are inside it.

The snack and water table earns its spot by being away from the electronics. Liquid near a breadboard is a predictable problem, and the fix is geometric rather than behavioural.

A setup habit worth adopting: locate the exit and the first aid kit first, before any kit comes out. They take ten seconds and they are the two you will not have time to look for.

How to Use

  • Hover each of the eight markers for what it is and why it sits there.
  • Trace the accessible pathway (marker 5) from the doorway to the table. It has to stay clear once the room fills up, which is a setup decision, not a during-session one.
  • Note what the safety zone (marker 3) is: an area, marked on the floor, not an instruction.
  • Switch to Quiz to be asked instead of told.

Lesson Plan

Bloom level: Remember (L1) -- identify

Learning objective: Given an unlabeled session-room illustration, the learner identifies the location and purpose of each safety and logistics feature.

Before (5 min). Ask a mentor who has run sessions where the first aid kit is. The pause is common and it is the reason for this map.

With the map (10 min). Name all eight, then re-run it as a question about relationships: why is the snack table away from the electronics? Why is the charging station against a wall?

After (10 min). Do the same walk in the real room and write down which of the eight are missing or in the wrong place. Most rooms are missing at least one, and knowing which is more useful than a room that scores full marks on paper.

Check for understanding. Ask: "A new mentor arrives ten minutes before the session. What are the first two things you point at?" The emergency exit and the first aid kit — before the kit cupboard, before the whiteboard, before anything about the activity.

Embedding This MicroSim

Paste this into any page of the book, adjusting the relative path to docs/sims/ for the page's depth:

<iframe src="../../sims/session-room-safety-map/main.html" width="100%" height="650" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Specification

The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 8: "Running a Session: Room Layout to Cleanup".

Type: infographic-overlay (callout)
**sim-id:** session-room-safety-map<br/>
**Library:** Interactive Infographic Overlay (diagram.js, annotation-free illustration + numbered callouts)<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Purpose: Give a new mentor a single labeled illustration showing exactly where each safety and logistics feature lives in a typical session room, so the answer to "where's the first aid kit" is a glance at this diagram, not a guess.

Bloom Taxonomy: Remember (L1)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: identify

Learning objective: Given an unlabeled session-room illustration, the learner identifies the location and purpose of each safety and logistics feature.

Image style: Flat, friendly illustration, top-down or angled-overhead view of a coding club session room, no text/labels/numbers baked into the image (annotation-free per the overlay engine's requirement)

Image dimensions: 1200x900 (landscape 4:3)

Layout: side-panel (image left 65%, labels right 35%)

Structures to label (callouts, 8 total, each with name, 1-2 sentence description, approximate position, marker color):
1. "Charging Station" -- wall outlet with laptops charging, near entrance, color #4A90D9 (blue) -- "Devices charge here between sessions, away from the active workspace."
2. "Whiteboard" -- mounted on a side wall, visible from the center table, color #4A90D9 -- "Shows the day's agenda and the challenge card's key steps."
3. "Safety Zone (Soldering/Hot Tools)" -- taped-off corner area, color #E74C3C (red) -- "Marked boundary around any station using heat or sharp tools."
4. "Emergency Exit" -- door with visible exit signage, color #E74C3C -- "Every mentor should know this route before students arrive."
5. "First Aid Kit" -- small wall-mounted box near the entrance, color #F39C12 (gold) -- "Stocked with bandages and cold packs; location fixed and known to every mentor."
6. "Accessible Pathway" -- a wide, unobstructed path from the entrance to the center table, color #2ECC71 (green) -- "Kept clear for wheelchair or mobility-aid access."
7. "Restroom" -- door labeled generically, color #3498DB -- "Students may use it whenever needed, per the restroom break policy."
8. "Snack and Water Table" -- small side table with cups and a snack bin, color #1ABC9C (teal) -- "Location for the club's snack and water policy; kept separate from electronics."

Interactive features: Explore mode (hover/click each numbered marker to reveal its description in the side panel); Quiz mode (learner is prompted to click the correct marker for a named feature); Edit mode (`?edit=true`) for calibrating marker positions after the image is generated

Implementation: Interactive Infographic Overlay Guide (callout engine) -- `diagram.js` + `style.css` render numbered markers and leader lines over the generated image; `data.json` holds the 8 callouts with x/y percentage positions

References