Aberdeen Art Gallery Micro:Bit workshops 2024

We have some workshops coming up in January/February 2024 in the Aberdeen Art Gallery, thanks to our successful application to the “Creative Funding Programme” from Aberdeen City Council in the summer!

We’ll be running free “drop in” sessions, where you can find out about Microbit s & “break out boards” (adding more inputs & outputs) to make really cool interactive things…

And we’re also running some “inventor” workshops (£45 per person) – but you get to keep £45 worth of kit! (Micro:bits, Breakout boards, sensors, LEDs, wires, breadboards, electronics etc). – Some spaces are sponsored by SRCN Solutions – so if you need financial assistance & would love to come to the workshop, get in touch to secure a sponsored space.

you can sign up via the #AAGM website

Supported by SRCN Solutions

#YesNo (“Do you care?”)

Step By Step PDF of how to build a “Yes/No” custom buttons display with a Raspberry Pi Pico, 2 x Custom Made Buttons & 2x7segment 4 digit LED backbacks

We have uploaded a PDF of the steps to build a “Yes/No” Custom Button + LED Digit displays on a raspberry Pi Pico , with step by step guide on how to make the custom wooden buttons, and the easy implementation of the adafruit_ht16k33 library for the LED Backpacks.

You can also download the zip file of the code  here.

#optimisticOracle

Step By Step PDF of how to build an “Optimistic Oracle” with a tiny2040, PIR & speaker / Amp.

We have uploaded a PDF of the steps to build an “OptimisticOracle” using a pimoroni Tiny2040 a PIR sensros & a Speaker / Amp.

You can also download the zip file of the code & supporting MP3s here.

The Optimistic Oracle giving out helpful predictions for a fairer & healthier future for all.
Inspired by Sam Bentley’s Good News Feed

Driverless Car workshops – a five week course

Digital Maker CIC recently completed two 5-week driverless car workshops in Aberdeen. Northfield academy’s Science Club & Transition Extreme After School Club each had an exciting and challenging set of workshops for children aged 12+. Digital Maker CIC believes that these workshops are a “first” for the UK. Both projects were funded by Aberdeen City Council’s “U-decide” (participatory budgeting project).

The participants learned about Machine Learning, Engineering & design of the 1:16th scale cars, raspberry Pi terminal commands, to interface with the cars, computers    & cloud computing interfaces and driving the remote-controlled cars.

Working in teams of four, the pupils were given tasks of constructing & managing their cars, “training” and improving their driving skills, as the better the car is driven, the better the Machine Learning model will be. The pupils could quickly train & then produce ML models (via cloud computing), giving exciting results, as the cars drove themselves around the 4m2 tracks we use. The pupils quickly learned that the better they drove the cars, the automated driving improved.

The teams also tried to add obstacles (orange cones) into the modelling, creating various results (success & failure), but, with more training & time, the pupils understood that their cars would “get better” with time.

We’d like to thank Northfield Academy & Transition Extreme Sports Ltd for their support & use of space, in order that we could run the workshops. We are working on extending the workshops to Aberdeenshire & eventually have a North East interschools competition for the Driverless Car technology.

If you’d like more information, or want your school to participate in this project, please do get in touch!

AwesomeTech@digital-maker.co.uk

Digital Maker CIC – CPD for the College Development Network

Digital Maker CIC had the privilege of being asked to run a robotics challenge workshop for the CDN (College Development Network Scotland) in Dundee & Angus College’s Gardyne campus on Friday 28th of September for over 20 College Lecturers.

Teams from all over Scotland joined us for a fun day, exploring, building & programming robots in order to compete in various challenges once the teams were ready. We gave each team a CamJam robotics kit with minimal worksheets / instructions and spent around 30 mins building the kits, using raspberry Pi Zeros & piTop Ceeds (to control / interface with the robot rover via  5 meter USB cable). the Edinburgh team took the initiative to make their rover wirelessly controlled, downloading & installing software through their own phone (extra points there!)

Once everyone had built & played with their rovers, controlling it via simple on-screen button & programmable interfaces (Custom Adapted Blockly by Digital Maker CIC), we then added a line detection sensor, giving the participants experience in electronics & GPIO use on the Pi Zero. The challenge was to create a line following algorithm using only 1 sensor & the Blockly interface, to get the team’s rover around a line path in the quickest time. There were a lot of different approaches, using repeat loops, “if statements” and more. One of the most elegant solutions was a simple algorithm by West Lothian College.

All teams produced line following algorithms with varying degrees of success, but, all teams were resilient & spent time honing their algorithms, trying various tweaks & fixes based on their observations, critical thinking & experimentation, which was great to see. The fastest line follower was under 1 minute, the longest (complete circuit) was just under 3 minutes.

Some teams managed to start exploring adding an ultrasonic distance sensor (HC SR04) to tackle the minimal maze we had brought along too, but, time had got the better of us, and after 6 hours of playing, experimenting, trying and learning, time was up!

We’d like to thank Kenji Lamb for organising the event & asking Digital Maker CIC to facilitate the workshop. We are planning to run a 2nd CDN Robotics CPD challenge with Kenji in 2019… so if you are interested, or want more information, please do get in touch!

First Class for Driverless Car workshop in Northfeld Academy

Digital Maker’s Martin & Phil rolled out the first class of the five week Driverless Car workshop in Northfield Academy yesterday, with 20 pupils ranging from S1 – S6.

An introduction to the areas covered & straight onto building the 1/16th scale cars that are used with the Raspberry Pi & Camera. Everyone was fantastic, really productive, inquisitive, collaborative, it was a real pleasure to work with the Pupils. Also a special mention to science teacher, Mr Hunter, his help & assistance during the 2 hour class was brilliant, thank you so much for a great start to what we hope is a very rewarding & challenging class, which we believe is a first for Aberdeen, and Scotland!

Driverless Car Workshop – Call to Participate.

Digital Maker CIC are looking for 20 young people (11-18 years old) to join us for a five week course at Transition Extreme to build, maintain, program and use driverless cars!

Working in teams, we will build a state of the art 1/16th scale car, learn about the technology involved in running an A.I (Artificial Intelligence) robot in order to train & race them!

The 20 spaces are free to join (thanks to the U-Decide funding from Aberdeen City Council), so be quick! This is a first for Aberdeen & Scotland!

The sessions will start on Friday, September 7th & end on October 5th 2018 (4.30-6.30pm)

Participants must be:

  • Over 11 years of age
  • Live in Community Council areas of:
    • Aberdeen City Centre
    • Castlehill & Pittodrie
    • George Street

If you want to be in with a chance of joining us, send us an email to AwesomeTech@digital-maker.co.uk First Come, First Served.

youTube video uploads for Driverless Car R&D

We’ve uploaded 2 videos of the work we’ve done so far on preparing for the Driverless Car workshops we’re running soon.

We’ve documented the first “track” (Masking tape on the floor)

and then the black paper track + 2 different types of tape (for higher contrast).

Driverless Car Workshop development

We’ve been working in Aberdeen’s Transition Extreme to develop & test our Driverless car workshop, with great success. We’re learning a lot, honing the car, coding, track & driving techniques…

Here’s a little bit of footage from the car on our last test. We’d developed a more contrasted track with black paper & coloured tapes, which is providing excellent images for the processor / AI.

New Mission To Mars in Riverbank Primary School

Digital Maker CIC have started their 7 week course “Journey to Mars” in Riverbank Primary, Aberdeen.

We have previously run this workshop in St Peter’s, Woodside & Seaton Primary Schools, where pupils get hand on experience of electronics, computer programming, team work, design & engineering tasks, as well as experiencing critical & creative thinking, growth mindset, communication & problem solving.

The 7 weeks consist of, “scene setting”, where we discuss space travel, Scottish geography, NASA Mars exploration history, the solar system & anything the pupils bring up when shown the videos & images we bring. We then build a working Rover, working with CamJam robotics kits & laser cut PTFE chassis, the pupils have to construct & wire their robots from illustrations & trial & error. We love this task, as we see a lot of “Growth Mindset” creeping in, it always starts with “this is too difficult” to “yeah! look at our finished robot!”… emphasis on “trying” and making mistakes is key to our teaching philosophy. A lot of knowledge transfer can come form this task too, where pupils that complete the task early, ask to help others & show pitfalls & tips to complete their robots.

The following weeks, we design & build garages / habitats for our rovers from cardboard & MakeDo construction kits. We then explore making a simple program in a customised Blockly environment on the Raspberry PI to control the robot from a set start point to drive into the base, creating a repeatable algorithm. We learn about coordinates & instructions & what an algorithm is & does.

We then start introducing sensors & electronics to the kit, a line follower, an LED, a distance sensor… with around 4 weeks of deep learning & play / experimentation in using electronics & computer coding to control robotic tasks.

We have learned a lot ourselves when teaching this workshop & would like to thank all the schools that have had us so far, it’s really rewarding to see pupils surprising themselves with what they are capable of & enjoying challenging tasks.