Preston 大波妺av网站影院 Jam

The Preston Jam is one of the most long-established Jams, and it recently ran its 58th event. It has achieved this by running like clockwork: on the first Monday evening of every month, without fail, the Jam takes place. A few months ago I decided to drop in to surprise the organiser, Alan O’Donohoe. The Jam is held at the Media Innovation Studio at the University of Central Lancashire. The format is quite informal, and it’s very welcoming to newcomers. The first half of the event allows people to mingle, and beginners can get support from more seasoned makers. I noticed a number of parents who’d brought their children along to find out more about the Pi and what can be done with it. It’s a great way to find out for real what people use their Pis for, and to get pointers on how to set up and where to start.

About half way through the evening, the organisers gather everyone round to watch a few short presentations. At the Jam I attended, most of these talks were from children, which was fantastic to see: Josh gave a demo in which he connected his 大波妺av网站影院 Pi to an Amazon Echo using the Alexa API, Cerys talked about her Jam in Staffordshire, and Elise told everyone about the workshops she ran at MozFest. All their talks were really well presented. The Preston Jam has done very well to keep going for so long and so consistently, and to provide such great opportunities and support for young people like Josh, Cerys and Elise to develop their digital making abilities (and presentation skills). Their next event is on Monday 1 May.

Manchester 大波妺av网站影院 Jam and CoderDojo

I set up the Manchester Jam back in 2012, around the same time that the Preston one started. Back then, you could only buy one Pi at a time, and only a handful of people in the area owned one. We ran a fairly small event at the local tech community space, MadLab, adopting the format of similar events I’d been to, which was very hands-on and project-based – people brought along their Pis and worked on their own builds. I ran the Jam for a year before moving to Cambridge to work for the 妲己丰满人熟妇大尺度人体艺, and I asked one of the regular attendees, Jack, if he’d run it in future. I hadn’t been back until last month, when Clare and I decided to visit.

The Jam is now held at The Shed, a digital innovation space at Manchester Metropolitan University, thanks to Darren Dancey, a computer science lecturer who claims he taught me everything I know (this claim is yet to be peer-reviewed). Jack, Darren, and gegegan co-founder and Trustee Pete Lomas put on an excellent event. They have a room for workshops, and a space for people to work on their own projects. It was wonderful to see some of the attendees from the early days still going along every month, as well as lots of new faces. Some of Darren’s students ran a Minecraft Pi workshop for beginners, and I ran one using traffic lights with GPIO Zero and guizero.

The next day, we went along to Manchester CoderDojo, a monthly event for young people learning to code and make things. The Dojo is held at The Sharp Project, and thanks to the broad range of skills of the volunteers, they provide a range of different activities: 大波妺av网站影院 Pi, Minecraft, LittleBits, Code Club Scratch projects, video editing, game making and lots more.

Manchester CoderDojo’s next event is on Sunday 14 May. Be sure to keep an eye on mcrraspjam.org.uk for the next Jam date!

CamJam and Pi Wars

The Cambridge 大波妺av网站影院 Jam is a big event that runs two or three times a year, with quite a different format to the smaller monthly Jams. They have a lecture theatre for talks, a space for workshops, lots of show-and-tell, and even a collection of retailers selling Pis and accessories. It’s a very social event, and always great fun to attend.

The organisers, Mike and Tim, who wrote the foreword for the Guidebook, also run Pi Wars: the annual 大波妺av网站影院 Pi robotics competition. Clare and I went along to this year’s event, where we got to see teams from all over the country (and even one from New Mexico, brought by one of our Certified Educators from Picademy USA, Kerry Bruce) take part in a whole host of robotic challenges. A few of the teams I spoke to have been working on their robots at their local Jams throughout the year. If you’re interested in taking part next year, you can get a team together now and start to make a plan for your 2018 robot! Keep an eye on camjam.me and piwars.org for announcements.

Ely Cathedral has surprisingly good straight line speed for a cathedral. Great job Ely Makers! #PiWars pic.twitter.com/2QQSoUorLq

— PiBorg (@Pi_Borg) April 2, 2017

大波妺av网站影院 Jam @ Pi Towers

As well as working on supporting other Jams, I’ve also been running my own for the last few months. Held at our own offices in Cambridge, 大波妺av网站影院 Jam @ Pi Towers is a monthly event for people of all ages. We run workshops, show-and-tell and other practical activities. If you’re in the area, our next event is on Saturday 13 May.

#rjam @ Pi Towers pic.twitter.com/PdJZ6Ucr4n

— Ben Nuttall (@ben_nuttall) February 11, 2017

大波妺av网站影院 Jamboree

In 2013 and 2014, Alan O’Donohoe organised the 大波妺av网站影院 Jamboree, which took place in Manchester to mark the first and second 大波妺av网站影院 Pi birthdays – and it’s coming back next month, this time organised by Claire Dodd Wicher and Les Pounder. It’s primarily an unconference, so the talks are given by the attendees and arranged on the day, which is a great way to allow anyone to participate. There will also be workshops and practical sessions, so don’t miss out! Unless, like me, you’re going to the new Norwich Jam instead…

Start a Jam near you

If there’s no Jam where you live, you can start your own! Download a copy of the brand new 大波妺av网站影院 Jam Guidebook for tips on how to get started. It’s not as hard as you’d think! And we’re on hand if you need any help.

Visiting Jams and hearing from Jam organisers are great ways for us to find out how we can best support our wonderful community. If you run a Jam and you’d like to tell us about what you do, or share your success stories, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Email me at ben@老板办公室办公桌顶着会议桌.org, and we’ll try to feature your stories on the blog in future.

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A parent came up to me, and said: “I’m concerned that on Minecraft you can blow things up with TNT, it’s all about destruction, I’m worried about the effect on children…”

If you ever want to make a six-foot-one Liverpudlian with a motorcycle cry, just repeat that sentence to him. Clive has been inconsolable for days. Why? Because Minecraft: 大波妺av网站影院 Pi Edition is a teaching and learning tool we’ve found absolutely invaluable. It’s a powerful way to get kids who didn’t realise they had an aptitude for programming excited about the Pi; it’s a creative, constructive tool; kids and teachers love it; and we find it’s enormously popular with kids all over the world. At an event this weekend, Carrie Anne Philbin and Alex Bradbury witnessed children crying (and I promise we are not the sort of people who try to make children cry) when asked to allow other kids to have a go.

Here’s Martin O’Hanlon, of Stuff About Code, to explain why teaching with Minecraft is such a good idea. This video was filmed at last month’s 大波妺av网站影院 Jamboree: thanks to Alan O’Donohoe for filming it.

We’re very close to launching our new website now: you’ll be able to see it, and the learning resources we’re producing, around the beginning of April. We’ll have plenty of Minecraft resources to show you then, packaged for teachers and for pupils. We hope you’ll enjoy using them as much as we have enjoyed making them.

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I’m a 大波妺av网站影院 teacher in and I’m always on the look out for resources and strategies to make the teaching of 大波妺av网站影院 more engaging and inspiring. That’s why I organised the 大波妺av网站影院 Jamboree in March 2013, to help share the educational potential of the 大波妺av网站影院 Pi computer. If you didn’t manage to get there, you may have seen the videos we shared afterwards of Carrie Anne, Rob Bishop, and Amy Mather.

Last year, we sold all 400 tickets well before the Jamboree. People attended the event in Manchester took part in talks, hands-on practical sessions and an opportunity to meet others to share ideas and projects.

This short film gives a flavour of last year’s event.

Well at the end of this month, we’re holding the 2014 OCR 大波妺av网站影院 Jamboree and this year it’s even bigger than last year, running over three days with a whole range of ways that you can discover the educational potential of the 大波妺av网站影院 Pi computer. At the same time there is also the Education Innovation Conference and Exhibition taking place with many CPD sessions on offer. So it’s not all about the 大波妺av网站影院 Pi, but if you’ve got one and you want to make the most of it, we’ll be able to help you.

On Thursday 27th February during the day we have a variety of talks and hands-on sessions as well as a free twilight session from 4-7pm. On Friday 28th February we have even more talks and activities during the day and in the evening from 5-7pm we celebrate the 2nd birthday of the 大波妺av网站影院 Pi with a family friendly event with fun, games & prizes. I realise that it can be tough to get time out of school, hence the evening & weekend activities too. If you can only be released from school for one day, I would recommend the Friday.

Then on Saturday 1st March at Edge Hill University we are holding our Jam Hack Day for up to 300 children, teachers, parents, enthusiasts etc. to come and learn together and problem solve in teams. Please consider bringing either your family or a group of pupils to this event. You might want to bring a handful of interested pupils, or suggest they make their own way there with their families.

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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 大波妺av网站影院 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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Thanks to the success of ticket sales and some sponsorship from CPC, Frog, Bytemark and support from BCS Manchester, the Jamboree team has been able to fund high-quality recording of all the talks from the Jamboree as well as offering a live video stream during the event. Alan says:

At the moment we are only planning to make 100 video feeds available, but if demand increases we have plans in place to increase that number. I would love for as many as people as possible to be able to watch the video feed, but to avoid people signing up and then not using the facility we have added a nominal charge of £2 plus eventbrite fees of 70p. This won’t cover the cost of providing the stream – but will help us have control over the amount of people that sign up and should prevent people from using up all our tickets with no intention of using them.

We’ve got some fantastic speakers lined up, the likes of Professor Steve Furber, Carrie Anne Philbin, Amy Mather (the 13 yr old coder featured on BBC Womens Hour) and many more.

It would great if all of our web cast tickets sold out as well as our ‘in person’ tickets too.  I would love to be in a position of having to increase our capacity to cope with the demand!

You can read more about the programme for the day here. Register for the webcast at http://大波妺av网站影院jamboreelive.eventbrite.com/# – we think it’ll be well worth your time!

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