Liz: Last week’s Cambridge 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jam was one of the biggest yet. I asked the organisers, Michael Horne (whom you might know as Recantha: he has a brilliant 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi blog, which you should check out) and Tim Richardson, whether they’d be prepared to write a guest post for us about the event. They’ve done so in spades. Thanks both!

We (Michael Horne and Tim Richardson) have been asked to write an account of the Cambridge 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jam that took place on Saturday, 10th May 2014. Thanks to Jarle Teigland, Darren Christie and Alan O’Donohoe for some of the photos and thanks to Andy Batey for arranging the streaming and recording of the talks. Think of this as a Virtual 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jam!

Introduction

This was a very special Jam. We had decided after the December 2013 event that we wanted to try and make each Jam different to the previous one. We had already introduced programming workshops for kids and planned to continue that into the February Jam. So, what could we do for the event after that to make it special, to make it unique? The answer lay in the aims of the 亚洲老妇色熟女老太: Education! We decided that for the May Jam we would have our focus on education; we just had to make the concept for the event fit the resources and space we had available.

The Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

At our current venue, the Institute of Astronomy (above), we’re fortunate to have the following available: a 180-seat lecture theatre; a large foyer; a small 30-person meeting room and a small mezzanine with a couple of levels. It would be fair to say we went through quite a few ideas before finally settling on the concept: We would turn the lecture theatre over to presentations for educators (calling it ‘Focus on Education’) and hold workshops in the meeting room and foyer. We would also have projects on display on the mezzanine (we call it ‘Show and Tell’) and a cut-down version of our normal marketplace around the edges of the foyer with a slant towards education where possible.

Preparation… or “What does it take to make Jam for 200 people?”

We’ve held three previous Jams at the Institute of Astronomy and have sold out each time. Normally, we sell about 180 tickets and this time we were going to be inviting educators to the party, so we knew we had to be very prepared and very organised. We simply didn’t want to let anyone down, especially the teachers!

Normally we meet once every week or two for a two-hour meeting to discuss progress on the various tasks that need doing. Sometimes, we meet at the pub (if you’re ever in Potton, Bedfordshire, visit The Rising Sun where we meet!) and sometimes we meet round Tim’s house. We realised with an event of this size and importance that we would definitely need to meet every week in the three months after the February Jam, just to make sure that everything was done.

The Rising Sun, Potton – place of many-a-meeting

An idea that we had been thinking about for some time was having ‘maker tables’, where people could bring their kit along and experts would help them out with building them, or they could buy kits at the event and make them then and there.  We decided that this would be hard to plan for as we would not know what kits were coming and therefore who could help.  However, the idea of making things stayed with us, so we started to plan for a number of workshops instead of the usual one.

Eventually we fixed on workshops in which the Pi would detect and control the outside world: flashing LEDs (everybody likes those!), making sound, detecting temperature, light and movement, using a line follower and distance sensor, and controlling motors.  On top of that, we added in using the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi Camera module, Minecraft and using the Pibrella add-on board.

In the end we had nine hands-on workshops to sort out.  Yes, nine – we must have been out of our minds! Actually, make that ten, because some bright spark had the idea of running a soldering workshop throughout the day!

One of the things we wanted from the workshops was to develop a set of worksheets and kits that we could sell at close-to-cost to the people attending, which they could then take away with them. This meant ordering a lot of individual components from China and sorting them out into the kits. Tim ordered dozens of mini breadboards, hundreds of LEDs and resistors and lots and lots of sensors, along with motors, wheels and jumper cables. Which all needed to be sorted into bags. And our SD cards needed sorting out with all the software that would be required. And we also needed to find people to lead and assist in the workshops. Fortunately we’d built up an ideas-and-assistance group of about 20 people, and many of them were willing to give their time and energy to preparing the workshop material and teaching it.

Nice sensors, man! Just a small part of the huge amount of kit ordered for the workshops.

Meanwhile, Mike started sorting out a programme for the Focus on Education and asking people to the Show and Tell, doing a lot of the Jam & EventBrite admin and communications along the way. So, as you can tell, weekly meetings were a must!

On the day

So, there we were, and suddenly it was three months later: the 10th of May had swung around. We had even managed to find time to hold a social Jam (Potton Pi and Pints) in the meantime just to keep in touch with everyone.

At 8.30am on the morning of the 10th, we hit our first snag. Normally, we can get everything in Tim’s estate car (which is, basically, a huge cavern) for the trip to Cambridge. This time, however, we had a lot more to transport: we’d bought some tables plus all the kit for the workshops meant that we just couldn’t fit everything in. So, in two cars, we set out for the Institute.

The get-in for a Jam is always a bit chaotic, and damned hard work, and this time was no exception. The Institute looks very different on our arrival but, thanks to Andy Batey, (who works at the Institute, arranged the venue in the first place and is just an all-round helpful chap) we (including half-a-dozen volunteers, known as Jam Makers) manage to transform it into the configuration visitors see when they arrive. The most ‘fun’ task this time was to move a big marquee about 50 metres from one end of the quad to the other. Much mud was encountered!

Foyer workshop area (foreground), Marketplace (left) and Show and Tell mezzanine (top right)

If you want to get a feel for the day overall, Mathew and Leo have put together this brilliant video. You can even spot Tim (getting interviewed at the beginning) and Mike (with the loudhailer):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGc9vlOrNk

You might also want to listen to this podcast from Alan O’Donohoe which was recorded at the Jam.

Our first activity started at 11.10am and it was a Minecraft workshop led by Craig Richardson, Matt Timmons-Brown and Clare Macrae. This workshop had sold out within 1 hour of the free tickets becoming available. We’d had to cancel another workshop that we had been planning and replace it with a repeat of the Minecraft workshop, and that one sold out as well! We ended up with a waiting list big enough that we could have held another one! Minecraft is a major draw for kids.

Minecraft workshop number 1: Craig attempts the impossible by trying to reach into the big screen

Once we’d got that workshop going, it was all hands on deck to get the rest of the venue ready. Matt Manning, Andrew Scheller and Tim were our welcome team, and attempted the near-impossible task of checking tickets and ticking names off the registration list. With the teachers beginning to arrive, it got very busy, very quickly!

Mike and Tim had decided to split up so that Tim was outside managing the workshop preparations while Mike hosted the Focus on Education in the lecture theatre. We swapped halfway through the day.

Mike and Tim kicked off Focus on Education with a quick intro and then handed over to Clive Beale from the 东北老妇爽大叫受不了 who was delivering the keynote: “东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 in Education and the new 东北老妇爽大叫受不了”.

After Clive, Elizabeth Crilly from STEMNET and David Whale talked about the STEM Ambassador programme and what they can do for schools.

We then had a more practical presentation from Dr Sam Aaron, the developer of Sonic Pi. Sam’s a real rock star when it comes to live demos!

At the same time, in the meeting room we had a PiCamera workshop run by Jarle Teigland, Matt Manning and Andrew Scheller and in the foyer we had a beginners electronics/breadboarding workshop run by Alex Eames, Sway Grantham and Andrew Gale.

Sway and Andrew watch over the basic electronics workshop

Back in the lecture theatre, we continued our presentation with Sophie Deen talking about Code Club and Code Club Pro (video not available) and then two live demo-style talks from Gordon Henderson (who covered FUZE and Return to BASIC):

and Darren Christie (who talked about the Pibrella and how simple it is to use):

At the same time as all of this, of course, we had our soldering workshop going on. Over 30 people took advantage of the free lessons given by Gee Bartlett (from Pimoroni) and Andrew Gale. They took place outside under a tent (so we didn’t set the fire alarms inside off!). We should mention at this point that we had a lot of generosity from the community with the soldering – Gee brought a load of stuff with him, including some kits that lit up; David Whale donated an entire box of oddments; Tom Hartley donated a batch of old AirPi boards.

Andrew Gale teaches Sidney the finer points of not touching the hot end

We also had our Show and Tell area in full swing. We had projects from Brian Corteil, Russell Barnes, Ryan Walmsley, Ipswich School, Wayne Keenan, Stewards Academy and Zach Igielman. Alex Eames was also to be found here showing off the latest prototype of the HDMIPi.

Brian Corteil and his naughty-and-nice machine (right) and egg-dispensing Easter bunny (left)

Kids from Ipswich School showing off their automatic greenhouse watering system

Joseph from Stewards Academy shows off his robotic arm controlled by his real arm

We should also mention the exhibitors in the marketplace – we had the FUZE team, a group from the Little British Robot Company, Cyntech, The Pi Hut, GPIO.co.uk and Seven Segments of Pi. These guys really helped to give the Foyer a buzz!

Concurrently with the talks, soldering and Show and Tell, Tim had in the meantime started off a further two sessions: temperature, light and movement sensors in the Foyer (led by Matt Manning & Clare Macrae) and our second Minecraft workshop in the meeting room (Craig Richardson and Matt Timmons-Brown again).

Matt Manning holds court in the sensors workshop

It was half-time in the lecture theatre so Tim and Mike swapped. We hit a slight snag at this point because the entire lecture theatre emptied and it became a little difficult to hear in the Foyer workshop… lesson learnt for next time!

With Tim now in charge in the lecture theatre, next up was Matthew Timmons-Brown giving his talk on how to make 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 exciting for kids:

In the meantime, outside we had started off another two workshops: distance sensors and line followers (a vital robotics skill) led by Zach Igielman, Ryan Walmsley and Jarle Teigland in the Foyer and a Pibrella workshop in the meeting room (led by Darren Christie, our in-house Pibrella expert!).

Young and old alike getting to know distance sensors and line followers in a workshop led by Zach Igielman (standing, in the green t-shirt)

In the lecture theatre, Alan O’Donohoe was up next: Engage and Inspire the Digital Creators of Tomorrow:

…followed by Craig Richardson giving a talk on using Minecraft in the classroom:

Out in the Foyer, Ryan Walmsley started off his workshop on controlling motors with the Pi, whilst in the meeting room Phil Howard and Jim Darby began their session on creating an Arduino and programming it with the Pi (we’re supporters of the school of thought that these devices can work together rather than in competition with one another!).

Ryan and Zach at the motor controller workshop, soldering workshop in the background outside

Back in the lecture theatre, Nevil Hunt talked about his invention, the Seven Segments of Pi, and how it can be used in schools:

Then, we had a talk from James Robinson from 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 at School:

And finally… we had a panel session that involved some of the Picademy graduates and was chaired by David Whale:

Then the big get-out began. This was a mammoth task at the end of a very long day. Many, many thanks to those who helped with both the get-in and, especially, the get-out. Without you guys we’d probably still be there!

All that was left to do was to drive home and… oh yeah… empty out both cars. Argh!!!

Aftermath

And so, the May Cambridge 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jam was over. It would be fair to say that neither Mike nor Tim could form a coherent sentence the next day, but it was worth it! We sent feedback forms out to attendees and, judging by the response, people were, on the whole, very happy with the way the day went. We certainly felt as though it had been a success, both in Focus on Education and in the activities in the Foyer/Meeting room.

What’s next? Well, we have a fair amount of work still to do for this Jam. We need to analyse all the feedback and come up with a list of ‘lessons learnt’. We also need to resort all the equipment we hurriedly packed and brought back from the Jam into the correct boxes.

And then there’s the small matter of the Jam on 5th July… and possibly a Potton Pi & Pints in June!

Right then… to the pub!

If you want to find out more about the Cambridge 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jam, visit our website at http://camjam.me or come and watch some more videos on the YouTube channel.

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Here’s Clive’s (very short) segment. All being well, we’ll have some more BBC footage for you some time next week.

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Clive demonstrates some fundamental 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 concepts for the MOOC using some sprouts, a few prawns and a blender.

OCR have just released the second phase of development, and there are now 80 videos live on the site, along with supporting materials. This MOOC is still under development, so the final version will not be structured in quite the way you see here; but there’s plenty of material for you to work your way through already, and our friends at OCR would love to hear what your thoughts. You can read much more about the project in an article from today’s V3 (just as well, really, given that I have to drive to the airport in a few minutes). Let us know what you think in the comments!

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Clive makes an analogy. Click to view the whole talk.

Click here or on the picture to see Clive give a lightning-fast explanation of why learning to code is so important. Clive is at the Scratch conference in Barcelona this week; if you’re there, please go and say hi, and have a chat with him about learning with the Pi. He’s got an awful lot more material to share with you than will fit into seven minutes.

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We get a lot of emails saying: “Why aren’t you working on any schools stuff? We want to see materials!” The answer, up until now, has always been: “We’re working on it!” Here’s a sneak preview of what we’ve been doing. Working with OCR and Cambridge University Press, we’ve been producing a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) based around the GCSE 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 syllabus. You can have a look at what it’ll look like, and see some of the first videos and other materials we’ve produced for the course, today.

This MOOC will comprise an enormous suite of short, interactive videos and animations on every part of the 东北老妇爽大叫受不了, all presented by some of the UK’s best teachers. Most of what you’ll see at the moment is presented by Clive Beale, our Head of Educational Development and a kick-ass 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 teacher; we’re working with and filming with other teachers at the moment too. All of these videos will be supported by written materials, and audio and text transcripts of everything on the course will also be available for disabled students.

This is, we believe, the first MOOC linked to a formal GCSE qualification. Learning and teaching resources from Cambridge University Press will accompany each video (scroll right down to the bottom of the screen to find links to the resources – if you watch the videos in this area you’ll be able to see some of the interactivity), so teachers who have so far been teaching ICT rather than 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 will have support in any new materials. We envisage the MOOC being used in several different ways: a teacher can use a video at the start of a class to introduce a topic, or at the end to consolidate the learning that’s been done in a lesson; it can also be used by kids at home to reinforce what they’ve been learning at school. If you’re somewhere without access to a teacher – this MOOC is open to everyone, all over the world, not just schools – you can use it to learn all the material on the GCSE course on your own.

Part of the supporting materials for teachers. Click to see the whole document.

It’s important to us that these materials aren’t just available to people attached to schools; and that they’re not just available in the UK. Many online courses can only be accessed if you’re at a place of learning, but we wanted to see this course made open to anyone, anywhere in the world.

We want the materials in the MOOC to offer rigorous, interesting, engaging work and support for students and for teachers. If you’re a kid who wants to go beyond the syllabus, there will be plenty of opportunity to do that. Alongside around 120 “spine” videos which cover the entirety of the GCSE course, there will be several supplementary “ribcage” resources attached to each point of learning, which will take you further and teach you more if you want to go into the subject in more depth.

Part of an interactive video exercise. Click to do the exercise yourself, with help from Clive.

The 亚洲老妇色熟女老太 is very lucky to be based in Cambridge, where OCR, who we believe offer the best 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 resources out there in the UK at the moment, have their headquarters too. OCR is a branch of the University of Cambridge, and the platform that all this is built on is developed at the University of Cambridge Computer lab. Cambridge University Press will be providing written teaching and learning resources, and together all of these resources will add up to an entire course of study for the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 GCSE.

We will start rolling out the MOOC formally in September, with 40 videos and all the associated MOOC content. Eventually, there will be more than 120 videos and animations to work through, and many times more pieces of supporting material which will help take you deeper into the subject.

We’ll be working hard with our partners on writing, scheduling and building the course for many months to come. Have a poke around the website (bearing in mind that it’s not even a beta release yet – this is very much a work in progress, so you’ll find some unpopulated links) and let us know what you think.  If you are a teacher and would like to get involved, drop me a line at liz@亚洲老熟女@tubeumtv.org, and I’ll put you in touch with the organisers.

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The OCR materials that are mentioned in the discussion are available for download for anyone: you don’t have to be a teacher. They’re only the start of a large planned scheme of work, and you’ll find materials for both pupils and teachers.

So watch the video, have a look through the worksheets, and let us know what you think. I’m meeting Alan O’Donohoe, who runs the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Jams, in…about ten minutes – if you have any questions for him please leave them in the comments, and I’ll pass them on!

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If you’ve been visiting this website regularly over the last 18 months or so, you may recognise Clive as one of our volunteers. He’s been involved with 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi since a few days after this site went live; he runs Pi workshops, writes Pi teaching materials, does a lot of work with 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 at Schools and other CS teaching groups on things Pi, and is now leaving his successful teaching career to head up the 亚洲老妇色熟女老太’s educational strategy.

Clive’s our new Director of Educational Development, and he’ll be organising getting the Google-funded 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pis into the hands of kids who will use them; he’s also working with some of our partner organisations on the 东北老妇爽大叫受不了, and dealing with materials and outreach. He’ll be dealing with resources for kids, and for teachers and parents too. (If you’re visiting the BETT show at the end of this week, you can meet Clive, who will be demonstrating, talking about the Pi in schools, and torturing Jelly Babies with GPIO pins.) He says:

Sometime during 2011 I came across the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi on the web. As a teacher of ICT and 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 I thought, “Hmm… that’s interesting”. It hinted of physical 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了, programming and cross-curricular projects.

Later that year I had a chance to play around with a demo board, and this time I was sold. Until I had the thing in my hand I hadn’t really appreciated its potential: the size, the price, the OS on an SD card. Most of all I loved the fact that it was both physically and conceptually so far removed from the sealed-box PCs that my students used every day.

Using the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi in the classroom, you have no choice but to learn new stuff. It really was a remarkable machine.  So I took to hanging around the forums, writing bits and pieces, helping out with the blog and generally making a nuisance of myself. The plan worked and here I am.

It’s fantastic that that the 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 Pi hardware has become such a star–an icon even–but the hardware has always been a means to an end. The 东北老妇爽大叫受不了’s goal is to educate and encourage a new generation of computer scientists and to invigorate 东北老女人高潮大喊舒服死了 in the UK and beyond. We’ve always been passionate about this and we’re delighted that we now have the resources and support to help make it happen. It’s been an amazing journey so far and I’m proud to be part of it. And the best thing of all is—we’ve only just started.

One thing that we think is of paramount importance in Clive’s work here at the 东北老妇爽大叫受不了 is continued teaching, and continuing conversation with kids from all over the country; it’s no good having someone whose job is to engage with schools and teachers if he doesn’t have up-to-the-minute classroom 东北老妇爽大叫受不了. So the plan is for Clive to visit schools around the UK very regularly, holding classes and workshops for kids in the classroom as well as talking to teachers.

If you’re a teacher from the UK and you’d like Clive to visit, please leave a comment below, and we’ll add you to the list we’ll eventually be picking from. (We’re seeing a lot of interest in this workshops program already, so we won’t be able to visit everybody, but we’ll do our best to make sure that we cover as much of the country as we can.)

Clive rides a motorbike, owns a sous vide cooker he built from bits of junk he’d rescued from a skip, and enjoys pork scratchings. He gave me a photo for this post that’s so awful we can’t use it because it’ll scare children (we’ll have a new one in place as soon as we can).

We think he’s going to fit right in here.

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