A dilemma, possibly.

I have recently set up a Creative Computing Club for the 12-16 year old age range and it is going great with some excellent results and feedback from both parents and students. There is however a dilemma , possibly, they are all boys. I know this is a common situation for computing in general, but my 7-11 groups are always 50/50 boys and girls and the situation on the Games Design degree is certainly improving. The thing is, I was actually taught to code by two women, and have worked with and met some amazing women in technology so I never see gender as an issue. I judge people on their output, not gender.

I really want to run an adult Creative Computing Club, I have received loads of emails asking for it, I am just concerned it may go the same way as the 12-16 group. I simply don't have time to run a fourth gender specific Creative Computing Club, so here is what I plan to do.

I will run one off day sessions for the adult Creative Computing Club, each session will be a self contained course. That way there is no long term commitment by the group once the session is over they can choose whether to return to the next one or not. If they don't feel they fit in or feel uncomfortable it is only for one day. I know, that sounds kind of terrible "don't worry if you feel uncomfortable, it is only for a day" but it is the only solution I can think of at this stage.

I really want Creative Computing Club to be as inclusive as possible, I want everybody coding and creating, and this is the only solution I could think of.

Any comments would be great.

Social Computing.

I posted a comment on Twitter today "My eldest boy is 10, it is about time he got a laptop and earned himself a living." partly in jest, I don't really expect him to earn a living but partly because I do want him to develop his computing skills (if he wants to). I have a big family two ten year old girls, the two boys one nine and the other three so they have to share the tech between them. Despite (me) his dad running all over the country and sometimes the world teaching computing and and technology, he (my nine year old) gets very little time to develop his skills, beyond that of quickly dipping into this or that website or game on the computer. My house is a home not a computer network.

I have never been a pushy dad, my career is my career, what ever they want to do with their lives is fine so long as they are happy and safe, so I have never really pushed them towards computing. I let them try stuff out but have never been pushy to the extent of teaching them everything I know about computers before breakfast. They could, be involved in all kinds of mad technology stuff, they know about it and get to hear about it usually at dinner, but one of them likes athletics and music, one likes all things creative, the boy likes archaeology and they youngest will be a rock star (I should know).

So why am I buying him a laptop if he just wants to dig up the past?

Firstly, well (this is ironic a parent saying this) "all of his friends have one". They use it to converse, play games online, and he misses out quite a bit socially because that is where a lot of the lads his age spend their time. I don't think it is particularly a bad thing at their age they want to be social but don't have the opportunities to be, or at least not on their own. School all day, home, fed, homework, bed and loop, not much time for socialising except for the weekend and that is often taken up by socialising with the family. He does not have a mobile phone of his own.

Secondly, he isn't that great with technology, he can use all the gadgets in the house but not to any great depth, we live in a very technology driven world. I don't think it would be a bad thing if he was more digitally literate, again, that is if he wants to be. At least this way he will have the tools to be.

Thirdly, he can do his homework on it, I know he can I checked with his teacher.

Fourthly, there are a lot of great things on iPlayer that he will miss as we only have the one TV in our house, and with the kids having such different tastes it will help him watch things that he is interested in. "The Man Who Discovered Egypt" was a prime example.

Fifthly, he is good at mathematics, and I mean really good, this the parent part kicking in, there are loads of cool practical things you can do with a computer and mathematics. Obviously.

Finally, if he ever wants to learn any of the things that I can teach him he will have the appropriate tools to do so.

I got a comment back about how he might withdraw socially (I am paraphrasing) because he has a laptop, which completely confused me. I don't see computers as solitary devices to sit at, for me they are all about interacting with other people who aren't physically near you, so what if they are a million miles away. All the activities I do with computers and technology are aimed at bringing people together, that is not in spite of technology but because we can with technology. My teaching of computers, done in a group, creative computer club is a group, my music tech work is a group. So yeah that completely confused me, it didn't annoy me or upset me, just confused me.

He also "might lock himself away" (paraphrasing again), good, I did that to plan my world domination and that worked out rather well. People need time away from others to develop their skills, to make mistakes without constantly being watched and scrutinized. I don't think he will become any less social or confident, take him anywhere and witness him join in the conversation or haggle for a better price or deal on something he wants to buy. (He will haggle with store managers, he is ten, he gets that from his mum).

So he is going to get a laptop,

It will however be severely locked down (sorry son), but it will be filtered, crippled, no P2P, no filesharing. He gets embarrassed when I preach about the damage files-sharing does to some independent artists (I don't care about the major companies they tend to produce mediocre crap anyway) especially in front of his mates. So yes it will be locked down, but ironically give him more freedom.

Maybe he'll write a blog about his machine?

OCARBOT EDU Update

So I have been working on the Game Britannia presentations, making them special and bigger and creating an entirely new talk about how I managed to make OCARBOT. The session is a behind the scenes look at making a video game and because I did everything for OCARBOT it is a first hand account. The session ends with the students trying out the new free OCARBOT EDU version for PC which only has fifteen of the fifty levels but it comes with a level editor. I am really pleased how it is turning out, it still has a few bugs, but keeping a few of them as talking points is important too.

Admittedly most of this work is being done on "HAL" the Windows desktop but the presentation which is being made alongside of it is on the MacBook Pro, that way I can flick between the two quickly. The preparation for the sessions has taken me from dawn to dusk to do but they are done and I look forward to running them at Games Britannia later in the year. It's 21:44 that's it for me for today.

Augmented Reality Games

So I am now starting to do prototypes for the Springfield Junior Augmented Reality Games, I now have a 3D maze whose perspective changes with the AR Marker. I now have to map a cute bunny rabbit on to the red square and put some carrots around the maze. I have learned so much from this project is unbelievable, and no I couldn't have done this without my old crappy laptop.

Augmented Reality Masks

So I am finally happy with the Augmented Reality Masks for tomorrows workshop, just as well really. I had the code working ages ago I just needed to draw some cool pixel art masks.

So we have a Lion, Robot, Vampire and a smiley face.

The Vampire. 

 Umm, I don't really have anything else to write except...

I'm happy about how they have turned out.

Still Augmenting Everything

I should probably be asleep but I am having too much fun with AR at the moment and I need to test something out for the Springfield workshop on Thursday. The plan is for part of the lesson is to get the kids to try on an AR mask, by placing an AR marker on their forehead. I started by drawing the shapes but soon realised I could get better and quicker results by just adding a texture to a shape. I am quite pleased with the results.

I think that will be it for tonight though, I'll make some other masks tomorrow like zombie, a monkey and maybe another. It should be quite fun to see their reactions as they try on the different masks.

The best part about it is the image is textured on to a 3D object so as they turn at an angle so does the mask. So it gives real depth to the mask as you move around. Again this is something I could in no way do with my last laptop.

Augmenting Everything

Been so super busy with planning for the Creative Computing Club and the Springfield Junior Workshops I have enlisted the help of my son to try things out for me. Having the Mac has sped things up no end to create the downloadable resources for the club, I am able to switch between multiple bits of text and presentation software to get things done. I am also able to dip in and out of the work around the hectic week.
So although I haven't made anything new, I have made a lot of resources to make the things I do accessible.

No this is AR Reality, not our reality.

So today I will be teaching students how to design applications using Augmented Reality, a crazy idea I know, but I think they will cope with it rather well. I had never done any AR projects before and I have a policy that if I don't know how to do it, I will either learn how to do it first or explain to the students that we will be learning together. Although last night I managed to complete several proof-of-concept applications using AR, I still think I will be learning a great deal with the students.


I have twelve students I have never met, A presentation on AR, I have three ideas we could use as a starting point and I have a lot of enthusiasm for the project, I think that is all I need. It has already been a learning experience for me i.e. last night I learned about QRCodes here is mine for my website. Again this is a project I couldn't have done with my old laptop, it just wouldn't have been able to cope with it. I am excited and I will blog later about how we adapt the ideas I have into applications using the students designs.

I will be using QR Codes instead of AR markers (which are fairly similar) for the project that way we can that way we can cover more areas in the sessions.