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

EMF camp 2012

The first EMF Camp (https://www.emfcamp.org/) in Pineham Park - blacksmithing, soldering, hammock-knotting, SuperCollider, lock-picking, stoves from beercans, hacking the Tilda (http://blog.emfcamp.org/) - otters running along the canal underneath the M1... 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenrocket/sets/72157631365691028/

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.

MAKER FAIRE 12-13 March 2011

Just back from Maker Faire in Newcastle, and it was one of my best ever festival experiences.

Kids loved ZU3D workshop - http://www.zu3d.com - where they made their own playdough models and created stop-frame animations.  Also DIY PIE (although they ran out of pastry for jam tarts), where they cut out and decorated oven gloves.  They made pin-hole cameras from beer cans, designed and created pop-up cards, built amazing marble runs from cardboard and plastic piping and empty bottles (and masses of gaffer tape), also home-made compasses from paper cups and paper clips... We never made it to the guerilla knitting zone.

Some great audio stuff, in particular Mike Cook's hexome...

BIG PIECES: El Grando the fire-breathing dragon was pretty hot, there was a noisy robot fighting arena + Arc Attack show.

Fun pieces: the robot toilet cruising around outside the venue, illuminator imaginator pictures from glowstix, chainmail makers and a giant cardboard spider over a giant cardboard racetrack hosting wiimote controlled cars equipped with their own webcam eyes, a flirtboard interactive table that senses when your beermat is close to mine, the pulsing Emergence tree...

Digital Toy Design

This was the first year we taught Toy Design as part of the BSc Computer Games degree. Second year students were asked to undertake a small piece of research into toys, then produce their own concepts and working prototypes, using Arduino as base hardware development environment.  The module focused on technical aspects rather than aesthetics.

After a basic introduction to electronics - a reminder to those who had done physics at school - we launched into some toy-hacking. 

The local car boot sale provided plenty of material, including a talking Elmo, a motorised train, a dancemat game and electronic language lotto.  Our electronic labs also had a few old keyboards to deconstruct.  These all proved useful for demonstrating the simplicity of the technology underpinning seemingly complex electronic devices.

Students began to play with the kits, experimenting with sketches and different sensors. We showed them how to construct their own large pressure pad sensors (buttons), how to link Flash with Arduino, how to create simple applications using Processing, how to solder components.

Working in small teams, they came up with the following concepts: laser-activated hit-blob game; pressure-pad alarm system for a house (not really a toy); "simon says" game (match the light sequence); musical soctopus. 

For non-programmers, "simon says" game was trickier than they expected.  The alarm system cautiously worked by showing which doors had been breached on a processing application.  Jamie and Kyle's laser-target game was successful and fun to play.  Soctopus got the award for best sewing technique...

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.