Plog

Inspired by a post we saw on the MAKE: blog, we decided to make our own vibrating robots with Newtons Walk school…

We’ve been looking for an excuse to get stuck into some electronics with a group for a long time - we do a lot of circuit mashing at home - and as they had all just watched Wallee we thought this would be the perfect time.

Soldering in school wasn’t an option so we just used terminal strip to hold the motor, LED and battery clip together. The weight on the end of the motor was a piece of wooden dowel drilled off centre - all easy for the pupils to assemble themselves with a screw little driver. After a busy morning of designing, making, building, wiring, and gluing, we all put our bots to the test in the drawing arena!

If you want to try this yourself use superbright red or yellow LEDs. There isn’t enough juice in 2 batteries to push the motor and blue or white LEDs too. Pupils used whatever they could lay their hands on from our big-plastic-junk-box, and we encouraged them to try different designs to see what worked - shifting the weight and balance, adding legs or ripping them off. It was a lot of fun!

QUAD employ us to work at Newtons Walk. Keep your eyes peeled for more Newtons Walk posts, and an upcoming exhibition at QUAD in July!

A long while ago, we went to Rutland House’s Christmas party, where we were asked to work with pupils and their families to create an interactive sound making sculpture!

We built a frame, and had help from pupils, staff, mums, dads, brothers and sisters, to do the rest.

Hose pipe trumpets were coiled around the frame, with pumps that could be stood on or wheeled over to make loud noises.  Pieces of copper were dangled from the roof to bash and tinkle, jingling bells on strings and otehr dangling noise makers were also tied, twisted and attached.

Instruments were made using scented seeds, tins, and recycled stuff that could be bashed, shaken or rattled to add to the cacophony of wonderful sounds.

Rutland House is a SCOPE School for young people with multiple physical and learning disabilities including cerebral palsy.

We’ve posted a lot about animation and films recently, so here’s something to redress the balance a little.

This was a really short and sweet project with Southglade Primary school last summer. They asked us to help build a tree for the school reception, to be part of a quiet area where children could read and think about their hopes and wishes.

We worked with all of the infants in the school hall (the only room big enough) to make leaves, blossom, and branches using found, reclaimed and recycled materials - plastic bottles, tin can bells, scraps of discarded paper, cardboard, carpet and twine.

The young people made birds and butterflies to sit among the leaves and the branches had pegs attached, for people to pin their thoughts to. Finally the tree was shuffled out by the window, with seats and a table under its shade.

We had a really wonderful time, but it was incredibly hectic! We learned a great deal about working with lots of people - two class at a time, doing multiple activities in the hall together. Piles of carefully sorted coloured materials gradually migrating to every corner. But there was such excitement, and as the tree grew, a real sense of wonder in the air.

Expect more in this vein soon!

Martin works a lot with a group in Derby -funded and organised by QUAD and Children’s Fund - an after school club for young people in Derby, some of whom are on the autistic spectrum. They make all kinds of things: Animation, sculpture, comics, films, music, photos, games; there will be more here from Q Club soon that’s for sure.

This time, with lots of help from local artists Sophie and Barbara, they built a geodesic, multi-sensory, spaced-out chill-out pod. A space to relax in and be surrounded by sounds, colours, light and textures.

So much happened! -

The whole group of 10 worked together to decorate 40 bamboo triangles with all kinds of reclaimed materials from PARC (an amazing scrap centre). We tried to make the shell translucent, wove lights into the structure, and the next stage saw us filming a coloured light show to be projected onto and through the dome. Have a look at a snippet.

We used the computer to mess around with the colours of floating inks and bottles of oil, glitter, paint and water. The final touches were hand made cushions, a dreamy soundtrack and a lot of effort to put it together.

Finally, on the last day the lights were turned out, the music started up and everyone got a chance to climb in and relax! It was so wonderful to see how everyone did their best to help put this thing together, it was a real team effort, firm friendships were made under the faceted roof.

All of the young people got a DVD of photos music and the full 20 minute(!) liquid light projections to enjoy at home too. If you fancy making your own geodesic dome (who wouldn’t) there are lots of good instructions on the web.