College Development Network – DM CIC Robotics workshop

We were asked by the College Development Network to put on a robotics workshop for their CPD provision, so we gladly said YES!

Here’s a link to the course in Dundee & Angus College. They have kindly agreed to host the event at their Gardyne campus, and CDN are looking for college staff keen to exercise their engineering, programming and design skills on the 28th of September. 

Full details & links are here : https://www.events.cdn.ac.uk/ehome/362505?&t=30f2d8676e7ed69370facb7507bd3a4e

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.

Digital Maker CIC win major funding & support from FirstPort Scotland.

Digital Maker CIC has won £25,000 funding from FirstPort Scotland to boost their business, providing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics) education to Aberdeen Schools.

Set up in 2017, Digital Maker CIC’s mission was to get high quality STEAM education to pupils that don’t usually have access to the technology, expertise & opportunities. Digital Maker CIC have had a phenomenal first year of business, working for the Prince’s Trust, Edinburgh & Abu Dhabi Science Festivals and Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire councils’ Schools impressing FirstPort with their work and passion to get exciting STEAM education to pupils that don’t usually have access to it.

“This funding is going to help Digital Maker CIC a great deal” said Martin Evans, Director and lead tutor, “It gives us funding to develop new workshops & curriculums, and offer our services to underfunded areas in need of STEAM education”. Philip Thompson, also a director and lead tutor for Digital Maker CIC  said “It’s also given us a confidence boost, FirstPort were really excited about what we’re doing & see the benefits of our work for pupils that don’t have the kinds of opportunities we offer, we can really contribute to the Scottish Government’s plans to get Scottish School Pupils digitally savvy & turned on to STEAM opportunities”.

With the FirstPort funding, Digital Maker CIC are in a strong position to expand their business and provide more high quality STEAM education in Aberdeen and beyond.

Pi Wars Scotland 2018

The first Pi Wars Scotland is going to take place on the 26th May at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G1 1XJ

The main Pi Wars  competition takes place in Cambridge, UK and is open to anyone from around the world. It is run by the same team that organises the Cambridge Raspberry Jam. The fourth competition will take place in Cambridge over the weekend of the 21st/22nd April 2018.

Martin Evans and Philip Thompson are going to run the first Pi Wars Scotland with the permission of the main Pi Wars organisers.

Pi Wars Scotland is a  one day, challenge-based robotics competition in which Raspberry Pi-controlled robots are created by teams and then compete in various non-destructive challenges to earn points. Prizes and Medals are awarded at the end of the day in a ceremony.

This will be the first time that Pi Wars has been run in Scotland.

Digital Maker head to Abu Dhabi for the #ADSF2017

Digital Maker CIC are pleased to announce that they will be working with the Edinburgh Science Festival at the Abu Dhabi Science Festival 2017!

Martin & Philip will be working with the Science Communicators at the festival to build, control & explore Micro ROVs in an exciting workshop for kids aged 9-12.