Our t-shirts arrived today! Here's Cameron modelling them. In case you can't see it, they say 'born to create'. We're pretty happy how they turned out.
A few of you may remember our RC planes from Aerospace Camp last year – one of the campers, Matthew Prett, has been making a few alterations since then and not only is it still flying, but he has managed to get some excellent footage from it using a GoPro Hero 3 camera.
In October and November we enjoyed running a couple of different workshops on light. The first one was “Light, Lasers & Illusions”. During the presentation the children discovered how our eyes can be tricked, how we can burst balloons with different coloured lasers, and how a drop of water can be turned into a simple but impressive microscope.
It's the last day of the science festival and it's been a busy time. We've had to ration out the UV torches as otherwise we would have run out a couple of days ago. We even had to close this workshop one evening when a mini riot started outside with parents trying to get their kids inside (no, we're not joking!)
Just finishing up at the Cheltenham Science Festival. We've had a great weekend. I've been runing some "Light, Lasers and Illusions" workshops for the Family Programme, and Jack & Felix have been running laser tag with the public in the gardens. Some of the locals were really geared-up for the tech tank, but even with full camouflage some of them still couldn't reach the trigger ...
Does your child love their gadgets and wants to learn more about how technology is developed? If they love experimenting with computers, simply book them onto one of our tech camps in 2018. Tech Camp inspires the next generation of inventors through our coding, electronics and engineering holiday camps for kids.
Tech Camp are heading up to the Newcastle Maker Faire again, and this time we’re bringing our very own time machine! It’s top secret at the moment but we can speed-up, slow-down, freeze, and even reverse the flow of water using the three ‘time controls’! We’ll be making up a few of these machines for the public to try out as it’s hard to stop playing with them once you start!
If you were asked to describe a robot 10 years ago, you might have come up with something along the lines of a large silver box covered in lights and dials, with 2 arms, 2 legs and a human-like head – the reality of modern robots is of course quite different! Robotics and electronics in our daily lives are becoming more prevalent by the day, not just in labs and factories, but at home and in the office as well.
Out of all the courses we run, no tech is so fast changing at the moment as drone racing (OK, maybe 3D Printing is pretty close …) Every year when we review our drones, there are major steps up in what capabilities you can shove into a tiny drone. Now a drone that is able to fit into the palm of your hand can capture cinematic-quality footage.
We've just opened up bookings for the 2013 season, and have some great news. We now have a wide range of courses from the technology of chocolate, to robotics, rocketry, game design, and even the Raspberry Pi. Our main events are now open to a much wider age range (9-17), with separate course choices for the younger and older campers.
Only men being techies is a stereotype up to a certain point, but with the male population providing the lion’s share in the digital industry, questions are being asked why women are in the minority of employees in this field. It could be argued that boys are given remote control cars, planes, trains, robots and drones as presents and therefore are introduced to technology from an early age – or at least that was the case maybe a decade or so ago.