Global Game Jam 2016 returns to Londonmet

48 hours of game production as part of the Global GameJam 2016, streaming live on twitch

Read about the weekend here: http://www.thinkmakeplay.co.uk/?p=688
and here: http://kavitakapoor.org/2016/02/game-jam-2016/

See pix here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmakeplay/albums/72157663983583452

See what the kids came up with here: http://goodomensgame.blogspot.co.uk/

Play our jam games here: http://globalgamejam.org/2016/jam-sites/london-metropolitan-university/games

EMF Camp 2014

ElectroMagnetic Field 2014
Near Milton Keynes, last weekend of the school holidays.

The light saber workshop kick-started the weekend and broke the ice with all the kids - swimming pool noodles + tape.

Kite-mapping was fun - we attached a camera to a picovet hanging from string of kite and launched it from the field.  The resulting photos showed the landscape emerging every 3 seconds as the camera rose.





There was a very popular retro gaming tent where kids tried Pacman ("it's great!") and Indiana Jones pinball (I had the top score) for the first time.

A gigantic LAN tent with Free Quake for Linux; a badge made from a micro-controller with LCD screen -  TiLDA MKe -

We hammered silver rings, played with makeymakey, learned how to pick locks and tasted freshly made Dutch waffles.

Laser-cutting was cool - perspex dragons sketched on paper, drawn in Flash, exported to Inkscape and tidied up for the hardware.  These were inspired by hanging birds and mobiles.



Press comments: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/03/electromagnetic-field-camp-emfcamp-drones-arduino-burning-man

laser cut dragon pair

Edible Physics

Kebab sticks and midget gems - build as high as you can!

3D Printing Minecraft

It was Mozilla Festival on Oct 26 2013, halfterm weekend.  My children were very excited to create and then 3D print models using Minecraft as the development tool. 

The person running the PRINTCRAFT server is Paul Harter, who used to work with my old colleague Simon Schofield on Simon's art algorithms.

Clyde created an elephant which was then saved and exported as an STL file.  The original Minecraft blocks were reduced to 2mm cubes for printing on a Makerbot 2.

We snapped off the strands holding up the trunk, cleaned out his ears and he was ready to play.

Technology Will Save Us DIY Synth

My sons are way better at soldering than me after about 5 minutes...

We went to Technology Will Save Us and Little Bits Global Make-athon at Limewharf, Vyner Street.  DIY little synths were very successful, and we also constructed Snowkilla the Iceman with revolving chainsaw...

Robot workshop with Year 4



Simple circuit

Putting the bits together

Year 4 at Chesterton are learning about circuits at the moment, so I went in to spend the day doing a bristlebot / robot workshop.  We looked at a commercially produced hexbug and the kids figured what was inside - battery, switch and vibrating motor.

No sensors, no intelligence, but cleverly designed legs.

 

Then we looked at some home-made versions, using larger toy motors and simple slide switches.  One was made with wire legs and the other had a brush for a base.



Plastic cup Dalek

The children worked in pairs, listed all the parts they would need and stripped the connecting wires.  We used pliers and sticky tape to secure contacts; matchsticks and sticky tape to scupper the motors.   

They created all sorts of great stuff.



Brush beast

Helicopter



Brush aeroplane



Octopus

Cardboard record player

 

Wood Festival 2013, DIY cardboard record player workshop from www.ifoundsound.com.  We left them on car roof but more to follow...

LEGO decal

First attempt to create Lego decal, using a template from http://www.minifigcustomizationnetwork.com/templatecentral.  Linton wanted Captain Cody and Black Spiderman; Clyde decided to do own custom design:

These are the Lightning Lads, who subsequently starred in their own photo-cartoon story.  Here are a couple of scenes:

Ready for action

Raiding the bank

Soft circuit t-shirt

Mztek workshop at Shambala 2012 - making soft circuit t-shirts.  We finished this one when we got home - it has a pocket for the battery, a fabric on/off button and a stretchy conductive fabric resistor that alters the pitch when you play with it.  buzz buzz

Pipecleaner Olympics 2012

Inspired by Olympians... created by kids, aged 6 and 8

Penguin catches fish

Knitted glove puppet with hand-made sensors in flippers, controlling its on-screen avatar. 

See http://www.itknit.com for details: early prototype glove puppet used as game controller.

Vibrobot Saturday

Homage to Evil Mad Scientist.  We scuppered old motors from toy cars instead of using mobile pagers.  The manufactured track is from a Hexbug Nano set.

pH ART

A day at Chesterton Primary showing Year 2 kids how to make their own litmus paper using red cabbage.

Chop and boil the cabbage for 10 min, then paint the dark red juice onto blotting paper.  Leave it to dry, or warm very gently in oven.  When it's dry, you can cut it into strips.

Children painting with lemon and bicarb

Use the strips for testing various liquids - try milk, oven cleaner, lemon juice, baking soda, saliva etc.

The children numbered their strips and wrote down what they had tested.  When they went back to class, they did a presentation and explained how some things are acid, some are alkali and some are neutral.

Red cabbage litmus test strips 

At home, we used lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda and tea as finger paints.

Rude Cats

Clips from toy theatre project, using TAGS hidden in the puppets and an RFID reader in the cottage.  The cats make different comments depending on who approaches.  Lots of fun making puppets and voicing cats.

 

Using Processing to play audio files, triggered via Arduino (with RFID reader) connected through serial port.  The cats have a range of responses for each tag, so the output is randomised.  You can hear the same audio clip being invoked more than once so the sounds overlap.

Run marble run

Thanks to Renzo the Toymaker http://www.toymakingactivities.com/english/homepage.html for the original idea of making a marble run from cardboard.  

We built this one from cornflake packet, glue, sellotape.  Designing it was fun, testing it was better.

SuperMario gets real

Hard to explain ... but they set up their own Mario Kart Racing Game (inspired by the original) using toy cars, toy rockets for boosters (Bullet Bill), brio, lego and cushions for tracks and mushroom jumps, gold coins to collect and spiders to avoid.  It was an epic race with a lively soundtrack, requiring no consoles, controllers or screens.

Watching that spontaneous leap from virtual to actual was a profound inspiration for toy development, how to utilise embedded technology and how to avoid manufacturing more plastic ...

PaintJam

It started with a fishing game.  Transformed into an observation of magnets.  Became a snake chasing marbles.  Metamorphosed into an automated drawing tool... using metal balls.  Jumped out into ovenware and lost the motor.  Evolved until finally even the marbles disappeared and total human control took over.  Check the video.


PaintJam 2010 from Fiona French on Vimeo.