Maker City

Home Education June 2023

June 27, 2023 by Megan Ballin

a group of people sat down at KWMC The Factory

Since the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in young people who are being home-educated. As a response to this social change, we decided to run a Maker City project throughout June. This was specifically for home-educated young people and their parent-teachers to come to KWMC The Factory and take part in alternative STEAM education. This also included offering Continuing Professional Development for the parent-teachers. Creating a space where young people and their parents could learn and create together felt truly inspirational.

A parent-teacher and young person stood over a heat press

We designed a variety of activities which allowed the young people and parent-teachers to learn both collaboratively and independently, experimenting with hands-on proto-typing and engineering tasks, leading to sophisticated digital fabrication.

A young person on a macbook using tinkerCAD

The cohort thrived in our community Maker Space, and we witnessed the group bloom in skills, confidence and a sense of empowerment. By the end of the month, the group had 3D-designed boats using Tinker CAD, learnt how to operate Sphero robots, designed an entire city based on their personal social action passions, laser cut name badges, built propeller boats to race across a swimming pool and designed, UV printed and heat-pressed their own family flags.

A group of people outside of KWMC The Factory showing what they have created.

We have built strong relationships with this local cohort and are hoping to continue working together in the future. Thank you for all the helpful feedback we received from both parents and young people. Here is one of our favourite quotes;

‘The combination of discussion, design and practical activities worked well. I gained an understanding of new software and different machinery which is available to use. We wish there were more home-ed sessions, we loved it – thank you!’
parent-teacher

A parent-teacher and young person at a desk looking at a computer screen and drawing

Maker City Winter Term!

April 4, 2023 by Megan Ballin

Our Tuesday night Maker City cohort is gaining great confidence both personally and in using the software and hardware in The Factory. This has been fantastic to see. We have been focusing on social action and incorporating that into different creative sessions. Guiding the young people through the design process from generating ideas in groups to discussing them openly and presenting their ideas publicly. From sketching and prototyping to designing on software and making the final products using The Factory kit.

Through our ongoing research project with UCL, we have recruited a team of young researchers from our core cohort. They have been learning about what makes equitable maker spaces; undergoing various research tasks to help understand and develop the Maker City program. The co-researchers both participate in research studies as well as design and facilitate their own research.

As well as our after-school session, Maker City has been running weekly sessions at Knowle DGE secondary school through the winter term. Years 10 and 11 have been working together to learn digital fabrication skills. The cohort decided to use their new design skills to develop their own dungeons and dragons gaming world. One young person started designing dice on TinkerCAD which we printed on our 3D printer. The cohort also laser-cut their own personal character pieces in a variety of 2D and 3D design methods and started designing their own game board.

The young people have been thinking about how to bring the community together and this new design project has allowed them to create a new Knowle DGE gaming community with other students; creating a safe space, thriving with creativity and possibilities which benefits young people’s mental health significantly.

The young people at Knowle DGE have also learnt how to create stickers using Inkscape and a vinyl cutter. Liam is passionate about nature and green spaces in Bristol and designed squirrel stickers as part of an environmental project. Although he is worried about the climate crisis, Liam made us all smile by telling us about the squirrel near his home which he has seen navigating the zebra crossing like a human – twice!

We can bring lots of our digital fabrication equipment into schools for Maker City sessions and at the end of the term we invite our school cohorts to The Factory to experience the rest of our equipment in action. This term we also ran our school program with Parson’s Street Primary School and Holy Cross Primary School.

At the end of March, we hosted the end-of-term showcase. There was a magical energy in the building as young people took their family and friends on tours around The Factory; showing them their projects and teaching them how to use the kit.

Our partners from ARUP, Arcadis and Mott Macdonald joined us to support the young people and be part of this celebration. Professionals from each organisation have been mentoring the young people throughout the year, working closely with them to help them build on their ideas and connect their projects to real-world applications. These mentors will continue working with the young people and in July they will collaborate with us to run our once-in-a-lifetime work experience program.

If you are interested in signing up for any of our after-school sessions or have any questions, please email jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.

Jump Studios In Schools

December 17, 2022 by Cashell Smith

Maker City at Oasis Academy Connaught

We had the pleasure of running Maker City with the year 6’s at Oasis Academy Connaught this school term.

Maker City is a STEAM (science, tech, engineering, arts and maths) programme aimed at inspiring young people to design and create products using state-of-the-art technology such as laser cutters, 3D printers and sticker machines. We focus on collaboration, creative problem solving and social action to work together to design something that would be useful for ourselves and our community!

It is amazing for us to be able to meet young people in their school environment and offer a different approach to education; broaden their horizons and show them what is available in their local area and how they can be involved.

For the school sessions, we brought iMacs, drawing tablets, and robots to work with. At the end of the term, we bought the young people to KWMC The Factory where they could see their work being made using our other equipment, have a tour of the space, and get stuck in with our hands-on engineering activities.

Sound Wave at Parsons Street Primary School

This term we have run three Sound Wave taster sessions at Parsons Street Primary School with two year 6 classes. We were able to bring in percussive instruments and laptops for the young people to use in the sessions. In our first session, we kicked things off by playing a conducting game where everyone in the class would have a piece of percussion and one young person would come to the front to conduct the room. They could affect when people played and how loud or quiet, they played their instrument. The enthusiasm from the year 6 classes was great to see and we had multiple volunteers all wanting to have a go at conducting.

We introduced the young people to composing and creating their own music using loops on Garageband. In a short period of time, the young people showed their amazing creativity and quickly took to building their own songs with loops and were really excited to show the rest of the class what they had been working on in the session.

Our Sound Wave taster school sessions have also included young people creating their own podcasts! In these sessions, the young people worked in groups to come up with a theme for their podcast, something that they are passionate about or want to talk about. Then after some planning, and writing down a few key points they moved on to recording their podcast on software such as Garageband or Sound Trap. They also looked at creating some theme music or a jingle for their podcast which could be from loops or recording an instrument. Again, we saw amazing creativity from the year 6 classes at Parsons Street and a willingness to share their work with us which we always love to see at the end of sessions.

If you are interested in having any of our sessions at your school, please contact jump@kwmc.org.uk.

If you are interested in signing up for any of our after-school sessions or have any questions, please follow this link or email jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.

October Half Term At Jump Studios

November 23, 2022 by Megan Ballin

Maker City

With Halloween on the horizon, local young people came together for a day of spooky STEAM shenanigans at KWMC The Factory. From pumpkin carving, and clay sculpturing to making their own Halloween stickers and laser-cut frames, they did it all.

Photography

The group of young people learned composition theory, and how to operate a professional DSLR camera. They participated in a photography expedition to the Northern Slopes, learned how to edit images, and hosted a public photography exhibit at Knowle West Media Centre in only two days.

The building felt alive as young people shared a collection of 2D photography collages, digital images and visual storytelling presentations. A collection of their work is going to be up in the main studio for people to come and see in their own time!

If you are interested in signing up for any of our after-school sessions or have any questions, please follow this link or email jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.

The Jump Studios Summer Programme 2022

September 21, 2022 by Cashell Smith

Maker City

Jump Studios star-jumped into August with an action-packed Maker City week at KWMC The Factory. The programme’s first day began with exciting tasters of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) world we were about to explore.

The young people were given a tour of the building and shown live demos of the diverse technology we have available at The Factory. Excited by the laser cutter and the vinyl cutter; the young people tried their hand at making their own personalised stickers and wooden name badges, learning how to use Inkscape and transfer files onto the machines. They even learnt how to drive Sphero robots and created their own 3D mazes to race them around.

As well as tasters of the technology, Maker City Day 1 delved into Social Action; practising interactive activities to ignite conversations around interests and passions within their community. This led us to our first ‘Build Your Bristol’ challenge where the young people were given a budget for simple materials to design and engineer a prototype of something that Bristol would benefit from as a city.

Day 2 of Maker City continued with the fight for Social Action as we went out as a group into the local community and started highlighting things that we noticed. The young people were aware of the positive infrastructure around them and were equally aware of the things that were missing or that they would like to change. Passionate conversations arose about the environmental and social needs of the people and the area and how they could start making positive changes.

The group noticed social issues; large amounts of litter on the ground and overflowing bins, a lack of greenery and dull signposting. They discussed how these issues made some of them feel unsafe and unwelcome on Filwood Broadway. The young people started to think about the technology available at KWMC The Factory and how machines like the laser cutter or the vinyl cutter could be used to create bright colourful signs for the high street and how the CNC machine could help build more bins for the community.

When we got back to the Factory the young people started thinking about the Social Action Campaign they wanted to focus on throughout the project. They came up with snappy slogans and designed their own protest placards using digital drawings on their computers ready to be cut out on the laser cutter. Some of the slogans included; ‘This Is Not Freedom’, and ‘Protect Our Planet.’ The young people thought about products they might want to create to support their social action campaign and created prototypes of their designs.

One young person designed a pill-shaped magnet with their slogan on it to spread awareness about the current anti-abortion laws in America. Another young person wanted to focus on improving people’s lifestyles in Bristol by designing a free transport bus. One even designed an ocean-cleaning boat which gathered plastic from the top of the ocean as it moved.

The ideas were courageous and diverse, looking to help people and the environment in a variety of creative and innovative ways. Other STEAM tactile design activities were carried out on this day to help the young people develop their STEAM practices and influence their Social Action campaigns. The young people created personalised kaleidoscopes and embroidered their own tote bags to take home.

The third day of the programme is when we bought everything and everyone together. The young people processed their ideas from prototypes to their final products and created PowerPoints on Canva to explain their Social Action journey in a colourful and accessible way. Gathering all of their hard work together, the young people set up KWMC The Factory as an incredible exhibition space and invited friends and family to come along to enjoy their incredible creations.

Sound Wave

We ran our Sound Wave summer programme in the second week of August at Knowle West Media Centre. These three days consisted of young people taking part in drumming circle workshops, jamming together and creating their music using a mix of instruments and music software.

Day 1 of the programme introduced the young people to different ways of creating music. We had workshops from our associate facilitators/musicians around lyric writing, using synthesizers and finding inspiration when writing a song. In one activity everyone shared a song that they really enjoy and connect with then gave a few reasons why. We found there was an eclectic range of songs and styles within the group and the young people were able to use it as a springboard to start creating and making their own music!

Day 2 started with some group games that included learning how using different sounds in your music can change the feeling of your song. The young people would hear a sound and have to walk to a spot if they thought it was a High end, Midrange or Low end sound. We then went into a group jam with young people trying out different instruments and taking turns to conduct the group. We saw great group dynamics with everyone taking part and giving it a go.

After everyone was warmed up the young people started creating their own songs using software (Soundtrap, Garageband or Logic) and instruments of their choice. We were then able to showcase the amazing work that was made. Parents and staff were invite to the main studio of KWMC, where the young people had their laptops and headphones ready to play the songs they had created. It was amazing to see the creativity that they all have.

If you are interested in signing up for any of our after-school sessions or have any questions, please follow this link or email jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk

The New Term Begins!

May 5, 2022 by Clara Collett

As we welcome young people back for a new term at Jump Studios, we thought we’d let you know what our first week looked like. Following on from last term’s theme ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’, this term we will be focusing on ‘The Celebration of Community!

Maker City

We kicked off Maker City this term with Sphero Mazes…

The young people worked collaboratively to decide on their interpretations of a ‘new Bristol’. They created new rules, such as everyone must be kind and everyone gets free bus fare. They also decided on some new landmarks and then prototyped their new city using scrap material. From there, they began to use Sphero robots to navigate around their new cities, allowing them to discuss what change they would like to see. Finally, they tried their hand at ‘Tinkercad’, using their new cities as inspiration to learn 3D design.

*Young people creating their own cities for the Spheros to navigate through*

Control Alt Delete & Creative Hub

The group shared their favourite celebrations and festivals throughout the world. They carried out self-led research around a different celebration they did not know about already; from a different culture, religion or historical time. The group then used to learn ‘Canva’ and created posters and PowerPoints which advertised an event for their chosen celebration. At the end of the session, the group presented their work and shared their research findings with the rest of the group.

Young people researching various celebrations

Sound Wave

This week at Sound Wave, we welcomed some new young people to Knowle West Media Centre and we also had some familiar faces return. In our 10 – 16 group, we went over what we do at Sound Wave. This meant young people were able to try out different instruments in a group jam and then use ‘Soundtrap‘ loops to create their own piece of music and share it with the group.

In Sound Wave +, we looked at writing a song from a group jam and then continuing to refine or add sections to it as we progressed throughout the section. The young people really showed off their creativity after writing something in under an hour and the exciting part is that this is only the foundation of what they will be working on in the coming weeks.

Check out the video below to see Jump Studios in action!

If you want to find out more about how young people can get involved in any of our programmes, click ‘here‘ to find our registration form!

Our End Of Term Wrap Up

April 25, 2022 by Cashell Smith

At Jump, we believe in looking after ourselves as well as looking after each other. The ‘5 steps of Mental Health and Wellbeing’ have helped guide the winter-spring term at Jump Studios. These 5 steps are: give, connect, keep learning, take notice and be active.

We know how important it is for young people to keep learning and exploring topics around mental health and wellbeing so we have been spreading awareness around the 5 steps and using each one to drive creativity and design throughout our sessions.

Sound Wave

This term in Sound Wave, we have been exploring songwriting, inspiration and collaboration. We have seen some amazing work from the young people and we have really noticed their confidence grow throughout the term. We have a range of interests and tastes which has resulted in an amazing selection of great music. Some have taken to creating music on software such as Sound Trap, Garage Band and Logic Pro and some have used the range of instruments to jam with others and create songs for the first time.

Through these discussions about the ‘5 Steps of Mental Health and Wellbeing’, we were able to get some insights into the importance of having a safe creative space for them to come to each week. This has been demonstrated by the supportive atmosphere the young people have created, as well as the work they have created.

Youth Council

We have started running our Youth Council sessions with the new 2022 cohort. We understand how important it is that local young people get their voices heard and with the new Youth Council committee they are willing to use their voices to start making positive change!

We have been communicating with the wider Knowle West community and the young people have been working with re:CREATE Filwood, Play:Disrupt and the wider ‘KWMC‘ organisation to help drive change and make real-life community decisions.

Control Alt Delete

The young people have demonstrated a lot of creativity throughout the term and have been willing to explore new technologies that they may have not used before. They have been trying out a range of different tech that includes VR, coding with Spheros even creating their own face filters using P5 coding. We have also seen some incredible 3D designs using Tinkercad where they have created their own gaming worlds. Along with this, they created their own characters for their gaming world, digitally drawing them using Sketchbook or Pixel art.

Creative Hub

Creative Hub used the 5 steps to inspire their own personal creative projects.

While learning new creative tech skills the young people continued with the theme of ‘Keep Learning’ while they researched new topics that they felt curious about. They used this research to help guide their personal creative projects. Gathering new information through self-led research and channelling their new ideas and knowledge through different creative vices.

Some of the sessions focused on the idea of ‘Giving’ where we thought about the people we cared about and made them gifts using the sticker making machine. ‘Be Active’ was channelled through animation and the concept of movement as expression. Throughout all of our sessions, we make sure that the group starts with an active, tangible exercise to get everyone’s brains and bodies moving to help inspire their creative juices.

We successfully included all of our themes in the sessions and had a really positive response from the young people.

Young people learning stop motion animation

Maker City

This term at Maker City we have been busy delivering a programme alongside the curriculum at ‘KnowleDGE‘ (a local school down the road from ‘KWMC‘). The students have tried their hand at designing laser cut and vinyl objects they have been fascinated with 3D design and have learnt some new 3D design skills using Tinkercad and Thingiverse. This proved useful when taking part in STEM-in-Action activities where they designed and built a bridge out of spaghetti! The young people also took part in creating Sphero mazes, and carefully engineered a parachute to protect their eggs in the famous Maker City Egg Drop!

Combining Maker City with assessments alongside the school curriculum has allowed the young people to express their creativity, learn lots of new STEAM skills and have the chance to talk about social issues that matter to them. It has enabled a different perspective on how you can combine STEAM, product design and creativity all whilst completing assessment criteria.

Maker City Industry

The participants have been taking part in live project work alongside mentors from ‘Arup’, ‘Arcadis‘ and ‘Mott Macdonald‘. The projects the young people got to work on were: Ensuring accessible transport for the “Youth Zones” project, prototyping houses for Better Lives at Home, and How Sustainability is considered in businesses when designing homes. Maker City Industry is a space for young people to gain real-world experience and insight into how some of the most influential construction organisations create change and make things happen in Bristol and Beyond!

Young person creating designs on Tinkercad

We are readying up for the next term as we focus on the celebration of community, which is dear to our hearts!

If you want to find out more about how young people can get involved in any of our programmes, click ‘here‘ to find our registration form!

Jump Studios Summer Programme – What We Got Up To!

September 17, 2021 by Cashell Smith

What have we been doing?

Over the course of 3 weeks, we had a plethora of workshops lined up. This included 2 days of ‘Young People Can Make’, 2 days of ‘Maker City’ and 3 days of ‘Sound Wave’. We had a jam-packed summer, full of fun here at Jump, and we are really grateful to everyone involved, from the young people to the Jump team!

Young People Can Make

Jump Studios, local young people, We Can Make, and Automated Architecture collaborated to create Young People Can Make. The young people learned vital design skills and had hands-on experience working with the construction blocks.

Those that participated in YPCM were given the ability to design and materialise whatever structural or architectural ideas they may have had. Houses, bridges, community centres, and anything else their creativity allows them to manifest.

If you want to see what happened during the days of Young People Can Make, click here. Check out our blog, which reflects the fun-filled time we had.

Maker City

The Maker City Summer Programme welcomed a brand-new cohort of aspiring creatives and makers eager to learn how to create socially conscious products for causes that are important to young people! They developed STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) skills, product design, and participated in digital fabrication masterclasses. The participants also mastered collaborative creative problem-solving tasks, such as the infamous egg drop challenge and building spaghetti bridges that could hold 1kg of sugar! By the end of the two days, new friendships had formed, new skills had been learned, and confidence had been built!

Maker City is where we design products about things we care about.
young creative

We are excited to restart the Maker City programme at KWMC The Factory in October. Please contact clara@kwmc.org.uk if you would like your young person to become part of the Maker City Movement.

Sound Wave

Over the three days of ‘Sound Wave’ in the Summer Programme, young musicians’ musical creativity shone through. Our young musicians demonstrated their musical abilities in a variety of ways, including playing together, conducting the entire room, creating podcasts, and writing and performing their own songs.

The young people started off by building their first beats and exploring the beauty of loops using the FREE web-based DAW(Digital Audio Workstation) Soundtrap. We even saw some future podcasters shine through with podcasts that included facts about bunnies, inspirational quotes, and things they care about within their community and wider Bristol.

On Days 2 and 3, the emphasis was on the students working together to compose their own songs. Our two groups not only wrote the lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions to their songs, but also performed them in front of KWMC personnel, thanks to seminars on rhyming and song writing and performance advice from our music facilitators!

All in all, it was an amazing experience to see such an array of musical talent come through in such a short amount of time.

Not only did we learn about music but we made new friends!
Young musician

To learn more about how you can get involved with Sound Wave in the new term, contact Mike at mike@kwmc.org.uk.

We are delighted to say this summer break has been amazing! With a wide array of activities and endless enjoyment, on behalf of everyone here at Jump we would like to say a big thank you to all involved its been a blast! But even though the summer is over and young people have returned to school, we are returning with after school workshops and half term festivities to carry on the fun!

Interested in coming to Jump Studios After-School sessions in Autumn 2021? Sign up here!