This Summer we have begun the delivery of our Superpowers Creative Technology Workshops project, which is part of the Digital Makers Fund.
We have spent time testing and iterating content in various settings including the Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire, tEchDU Kids at Made by Many, and at an after school club which we ran at Tetherdown Primary School last school year. The content which we have decided to move forward with for the project is varied and allows for a wide range of activities to run at the museums and galleries that we are working with. It ranges from creating a Capacitive Sensing Synth, to making a Platform Game, to making Light Sensitive Creatures! All of the workshops are designed for two different ranges of age groups and to be run within a set time frame as well, however this can be tweeked accordingly.
Each of the workshops also fit within a theme. Our three themes for the project are Games, Musical Instruments and Creatures/ Characters. We already found from a lot of our previous workshops that there were correlations between the theme and content so when it came to categorising this for Superpowers, these three themes fitted perfectly. The range of age groups can be seen below in the table and the tools used to teach the content can be changed to fit this, making it open for young people aged from 6 to 18.
| Project | Age Group | Workshop Length | Tools Used |
| Platform Game | 6-9 | 2.5 hr | Scratch |
| Platform Game | 6-9 | 2.5 hr | Scratch |
| Platform Game | 13+ | 3 hr | Processing |
| Platform Game | 13+ | 3 hr | Python |
| Light Sensitive Character/ Creature | 6-12 | 2 hr | Conductive Paint |
| Light Sensitive Character/ Creature | 6-12 | 3 hr | Conductive Thread |
| Light up Character/ Creature | 6+ | 2 hr | Conductive Thread |
| Capacitive Sensing Synth | 6-12 | 1 hr | Arduino, Processing, Pure Data and Conductive Paint |
| Capacitive Sensing Synth | 13+ | 3 hr | Arduino and Conductive Paint |
The Superpowers workshops that we ran over the summer period consisted of a one day conductive paint drawing workshop for families at Mansfield Library with Broadway as part of their Near Now programme, a platform game workshop for a mixed age range over two Tuesdays, also at Mansfield Library and lastly, a capacitive sensing synth workshop for 6-12 year olds at Phoenix in Leicester which we ran twice over August. We have been using new evaluation forms provided by Icarus to assess the success of our workshops and so far everything has been very positive.
Light up Drawing Workshop at Mansfield Library (Photo by Gaelle Berton)
Light up Drawing Workshop at Mansfield Library (Photo by Gaelle Berton)
Capacitive Sensing Synth Workshop at Phoenix
Capacitive Sensing Synth Workshop at Phoenix
We have also began scheduling in workshops with MK Gallery in Milton Keynes for the new year! More news about that coming soon.
We are still looking for more partners to come on board. For more information please download the document below. You can also email us at [email protected].
Download “Open Call for Partners”