Back in June last year I worked in Northern Ireland on the BBC Blast Truck. Emma the event producer sent the link today of the TV programme that went out with me on it….

Take a look at what I wrote last year here on my blog about the events.

I also wrote about the truck stops at Belfast and Derry over at digitalcreativity.org

Take a look, I’m near the end of the show running the animation sessions…. which was broadcast on BBC 2 last year….

Watch the show!

The best organised events last year were Northern Ireland and Cardiff.

Working on the BBC Blast Truck last year was one of the best summers of my life, it meant travelling all over the UK with the truck to create opportunity for young people in film making, animation, art, music, dance, etc etc etc….

BBC Blast is a great thing for young people, and the outreach tour is an amazing experience, if it pulls up in your town, go, it is well worth it.

Last year the main room within the truck had 15 Sony Viao PC laptops on the round tables, which were unreliable and in seldom demand by the facilitators in comparison to the three MacBook’s which sat in the studio. We found more and more of the facilitators working with the young people wanted to use the Mac’s for their workshops…. the PC’s were redundant at most locations while the three Mac’s were in constant use.

One big lesson learned from the 2006 tour was that the truck needed less PC’s and more Mac’s.

I arrived on the first day of the 2007 tour in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, to find the main room within the truck flooded with 12 new MacBook’s plus the three existing from the 2006 tour, there was not a PC in sight. The MacBook’s, which can run Microsoft Windows (dual boot) did not have Window’s installed.

I worked on the truck for three days running a film school with a group of young people, who did exceptionally well and created some excellent short films during their time with me. We worked with Final Cut Pro after an initiation in iMovie.

Last year, under the ‘Ultralab (1990-2006)’ flag myself, Hal and Hamish acted in the ‘Lead Facilitator’ role for the duration of the national tour helping all the local facilitators to plan their workshops and deliver the Blast experience. ‘Lead Facilitator’ is a role that does not exist for the 2007 trip around the UK due to changes in the way the tour is being run this year.

It is clear to me that the 2007 tour will be very different to the 2006 tour, and I wish the BBC and the new truck team all the very best of luck in delivering the Blast experience.

Today we received confirmation that we’re officially a supplier to the BBC. Our team have been working in conjunction with the BBC on many projects since 2001. Under our new flag at ‘Cleveratom (2006-2011)‘ it is great to continue the work….which begins, for me, tomorrow on the BBC Blast truck on its first stop this year, in Hatfield at the University of Hertfordshire.

Yesterday was an amazing day. I headed down to the Science Museum in London to facilitate the start of the BBC Blast Science Week which is being held over five days between the Science Museum’s Dana Centre and the Serpentine Gallery.

In the morning I worked to facilitate the bonding of the group of 18 young people, who were from all over the region and not met each other before. I started by challenging the young people to undertake our “12 Photo’s” digital creativity challenge in groups after asking each person in the room to recollect their earliest memory.

In the afternoon I had the absolute pleasure to witness the work of Christian Nold in one of his fields of work, Bio Mapping.

Christian says on his website:

Bio Mapping is a research project which explores new ways that we as individuals can make use of the information we can gather about our own bodies. Instead of security technologies that are designed to control our behaviour, this project envisages new tools that allows people to selectively share and interpret their own biometric data.

The Bio Mapping tool allows the wearer to record their Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of the emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. This can be used to plot a map that highlights point of high and low arousal. By sharing and reflecting on this data, we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.

How will our perceptions of our community and environment change when we become aware of our own and each others intimate body states?

So what do you do with 18 young people and an afternoon? We sent them off round London (with adults) wired up to Christian’s Bio Mapping equipment. In pairs the young people walked around a region surrounding the Science Museum with a A Galvanic Skin response sensor/data logger on a finger which was connected up to a commercial GPS unit (more about the technology here).

The data captured by the technology includes the sweat levels from the walkers finger, and the exact location (in the world) where they are. On return to the Science Museum Christian downloads all the data and feeds it into Google Earth.

Here is a screen grab from Alli’s Map as it is in Google Earth —>

The spikes demonstrate Alli’s level of anxiety along the route as he reaches a busy road to cross. On other group members maps from the day we noticed that those walking through Hyde Park felt much calmer with less spikes appearing in the map.
The devices detect the change rates of the galvanic skin response.

On Christians FAQ page he states the following:

When its hot outside or you are exercising it simply raises your baseline but your GSR still changes according to mental events. Believe me I tested it myself in Bangalore, India

If during the middle of your walk you suddenly started running you would see a momentary arousal increase which would flatten out again pretty quickly.

Click to leave this site and watch Christian’s Documentary.

Click here to review the pictures I took on my phone camera.

Or check out the below phone camera movies I took during the day…

 Christian Reflects on some Bio Mapping results: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Christian talks about white lines and corner spikes: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been up to my neck and beyond these past few weeks on the BBC Blast national truck tour.

As I posted earlier on this blog, I’ve been touring with the truck to support the Beeb’s facilitation of workshops role.

Hal MacLean and I worked together on the London Event based in White City. Our role was to teach young people film editing and animation, while supporting the facilitators of the other workshops to achieve Blast objectives.

So far I’ve worked on the truck in Liverpool (with Shirley), Derry (Martin came along), Belfast (our Anthony made big friends with BBC Northern Ireland)…. Derry and Belfast were Hamish’s locations, I helped with the animation classes. In Manchester our Shirley supported me again….then when the truck arrived in Sheffield it was all Hal’s. The truck next rolled into Cardiff and I ran workshops in English, Geraint ran the same workshops in the Welsh language. White City London was manned by Hal and myself.

The White City event was based outside BBC Television Centre in an old car-park. Hamish and Colin brought down the young people from the Anglia Ruskin University Summer School for a day on the truck. On the final day of White City Ultralab (1990-2006) Director, Richard Millwood joined the event and even took up one of the camera positions to film the showcase event.

We’re having great fun on the truck, which today is in Trafalgar Square…. See if you can spot Hal on the webcam!.

I’ve not toured the UK so much since the days that Colin and myself worked on the RNLI’s Lifeboats.TV project, we visited eight lifeboat stations (some with young people) making TV for the web….. it was an amazing project, which I have many fond memories….but right now I’ve embarked on another national tour, this time where young people are the focus….

Lifeboats.TV was very much a project to engage young people in the work of the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) by undertaking research into what young people though about this voluntary driven service and provide an interactive web solution to engage young people in the RNLI’s work long term….

We took some young people into some lifeboat stations to research what they thought was interesting in the lifeboat service. Unsurprisingly it was the ‘volunteers’ which were the most interesting factor in their eyes. The young people we worked with always questioned why volunteers would risk their life in the middle of the night, leaving their family to go and fish a stranger out of the sea…..in the middle of a violent storm….. Never before had the RNLI marketed itself on the strength of its volunteer crew’s lives….and all of a sudden it dawned on us all that the RNLI really needed to focus on the rescue stories, from the point of view of the crew….in order to ‘assist engage’ its audience…..and future, long term…funders…

Colin and I spent many a happy evening filming crew, tempting out stories….turning them into web movies and serving them up on the Internet….

What we discovered was that the stories told by the crew were engaging young people….rather than ask them to read safety worksheets the RNLI was outputting real life experience in video format which got the same message over in a medium which engaged the audience much better….

Back then, Colin and I made the movies….we did the filming, we did the editing and we served it up to the Internet….
The young people knew what they wanted, but we delivered it….

Five years ago, Lifeboats.TV’s remit was to engage with its audience…..by delivering what they needed…..but ‘Input CBBC was a whole new ball game.

Because of Ultralab (1990-2006)’s work with young people in film back in 2000 some heads turned at the BBC and we were invited to work with Children’s BBC on a research project into ‘user generated content’.

This time, the research question was much different to the RNLI’s “How do we engage young people into our work, so they understand and support us in the future”….. the BBC was asking the question “If young people made television, what would it be?”

Richard Millwood, Hamish Scott-Brown and myself embarked on six month research project with the Beeb which involved computers and video cameras being put in schools and community centres across the north of England. The message to the young people was simple… “Here is the kit, now go and make telly” ….. P.S….. “If what you make is good enough, we’ll show it on real TV”….

Some amazing films were created, with very little training, and bucketloads of creative freedom.

In the meantime the BBC had launched BBC Blast, which was an experimental project too, although much bigger as it explored creative writing, dance, art, film and music.

In 2004 BBC Blast had grown much bigger, it followed Ultralab (1990-2006) around for one of our Summer School animation projects and in 2005 the BBC Blast team joined Ultralab (1990-2006) and Apple computer to be a partner on the ‘Create at BETT’ stand at the BETT Show which Apple and the lab had been working together for four years.

Blast had really grown by now and was touring the UK with a van and a tee-pee (did I spell that right?) …. and had 8 hours of user generated content on BBC2 each year…. What Blast is doing, is really important.

So, jumping back……Colin and I (with loads of other Ultranaut’s) embarked on a massive tour where we filmed 180 lifeboat volunteers for web dissemination…. Five years ago, we were filming what we though the young people would like to see….. These days I think it would be fair to say that if we were to do the project again, it would be young people that did the filming, editing and sharing of the material…..BBC Blast is helping to prove that young people are more than capable….

I’m currently sitting on the floor in my room at the Carlton Redcastle Hotel in Moville, Co. Donegal, Ireland. 20 miles from here in Derry is two big grey trucks, being packed away this evening before they head to Belfast for another three days of creativity.

Its 11.15 in the evening and some of the team have just left my ‘lounge’ room after we sneaked back fish and chips….another late night….

I have a lounge, a big bedroom and and amazing bathroom, with a bath that is actually non-discriminating in length….I always judge a hotel on the length of the bath, tall people should be able to bath their knees too…. The man in the room next door is singing, really badly….I think he’s drunk….

Funny story…. Caroline, one of the Press team at BBC Northern Ireland was allocated a room here late at night…when she entered the allocated room, she found a man in her bath……. there had been a mix up….. ooops…….

Why am I here in Ireland? For 15 weeks the BBC are funding and running a ‘creativity’ truck around the UK. I’m part of a national tour to bring together young people and creative talent from the local communities where the truck stops…. Myself, Hamish Scott-Brown and Hal MacLean will be on the truck (at different events from each other) to add consistency across the tour in a ‘lead facilitator role’. Our job is to support the local facilitators, and run workshops too…. I’ve been getting my hands dirty running clay animation workshops…and also been experimenting with shadow animation…which is cool….. Hamish has been making films, and we’re lucky enough to be working with some of the BBC’s finest, including Michael who works on BBC Northern Ireland’s Newsline programme, editing together some of the news stories. Northern Ireland so far has been fantastic, both Hamish and I are shattered, but there is a real buzz here of activity and creative output…..we’ve really enjoyed ourselves…..

Last week I was in Liverpool, working from the truck at its first location, Mann Island. Liverpool people are lovely, very warm and friendly. We had an amazing three days running workshops and supporting young people on their next step towards their full creative potential. BBC Blast really does put young people first when it comes to user generated content, and boy, do the young people know how to deliver….

At Ultralab (1990-2006) we believe in personal centered learning, through the use of new and emerging technologies to support creative potential…. we’ve been working with the BBC for many years to explore new projects and deliver new initiatives which have scoped and changed the way organisations globally perceive user generated content.

I’ve worked globally for many organisations, especially on digital creativity related projects, which I partly blame myself for the lab becoming a specialist in the digital creativity field.

Since our work in Digital Creativity Research started (watch out for the new website which launches in two weeks time) I’ve been involved with colleagues in masses of projects which really do impact on young people. In 2000 I joined Professor Stephen Heppell, Ultralab (1990-2006)’s founder at the Millennium Dome to film a creativity celebration he was running to share the work of ‘Gifted and Talented, but ‘under achieving’ students. From that moment I was hooked at how creative young people could be when given the right technology tools, the right freedom of creativeness and loads of production time.

Since that moment I’ve been involved in most of Ultralab (1990-2006)’s Digital Creativity output, spanning the globe to advise and work with organisations such as the BBC, TVNZ (Television New Zealand), Ministry of Education Singapore and the British Council to name a few….

Each of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to work with have all been in the name of ‘digital creativity’ …. they usually involve a stills or video camera, an Apple computer…. a brief training session, some facilitation support, loads of fun and a great big celebration at the end…..

I’ve worked with young people with ‘difficult backgrounds’ (whatever that means)…..with young people who are affected by community distrust and conflict……with students who’ve arrived in England for an eduction, but don’t speak the language, or know the culture……. I’ve worked with schools who’ve challenged their entire staffing team to learn the benefits of new technologies in education or seek alternative employment…..and one of the most amazing projects involved working on the beaches of Phuket with young muslims making films about their Thailand…..

These days I’m working with the BBC to help disseminate via the truck tour how creative young people can be….and I’m also working with Apple Computer Europe to build an online community supporting creative teachers…. in a nutshell we’re going to bring together 200 of the most creative teachers using technology in their teaching….online….together….in an online environment so that they can ‘run projects’ with their schools/colleges/community groups….

To find out more about the work myself and other Ultranauts have been involved in check out the old site (till I launch the new one) at www.cleveratom.co.uk/summerschool.

These past few days on the BBC truck have been amazing, I’ve worked with some of the finest users of technology for creative purpose in the UK. In a nutshell, anyone who’s anyone in Digital Creativity local to the truck stops… is being asked to run workshops with local young people….in DJing, VJing, Filming, Dance, Animation, Hip Hop, MCing, Poetry, Creative Writing and loads loads more….

I’ve seen young people writing and singing songs from scratch in just two hours, to a live audience……oh and by the way, they could not hum a note prior to the workshop….

I watched in awe as our Shirley and Levi ran an urban poet class in Liverpool …. as young people, who started out shy stood up and read out their creative writing poems with passion and pride to an audience….

I saw tears in a mum’s eye as she proudly watched her daughter excitedly demonstrate her animation to her…

One young lad even ran into town to get some scissors to cut up some card to improve his animation…

But most of all, I’ve worked with some amazing people these past two weeks….alright, every day I’m answering questions, burning media, fixing equipment and answering seven people at once (which I love)….but wow, what an amazing team….. BBC Northern Ireland are excellent, BBC Liverpool are excellent….the work experience from Liverpool were flown over to Northern Ireland to support the team there because they are so amazing…..

For years the lab, and BBC Blast have known what young people can do when given the right tools and time to be creative….and its really nice that the lab is supporting the BBC as it embarks on the very important job of showing the nation just how creative young people can be….

After months of planning, and many trips between North Building Chelmsford and BBC TV Centre….we’re really pleased to announce that the Ultralab (1990-2006) team will be joining the BBC onboard the national BBC Blast Truck tour.

It all kicks off in Liverpool next week, I’ll be there running creativity workshops and supporting creative young people to reach their potential with digital technologies.

The truck will be heading all over England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales providing creative opportunity for the 13-19 age range. It will stop at each of the locations for a period of around three days and will work with the local community to support young people with creative ideas. BBC 2 television will be following the truck for part of the tour.

Dance, Arts, Animation, Film and Music will be central for the tour…

Ultralab (1990-2006) have a long and rich history working with the BBC from the early days of BBC Online right through to the big research project into the future of childrens television Input CBBC back in 2001.

BBC Blast and Ultralab (1990-2006) have worked together in 2004 (at the V&A) and more recently on the creativity stand at BETT Show 2005 and at the presentation to the BBC senior management celebrating Blast.

Hal MacLean, Hamish Scott-Brown and myself will cover each of the locations (one per venue) supported by other Ultranaut’s along the way….Really looking forward to working with Shirley Pickford in Liverpool.

Real exciting times as the worlds most innovative broadcaster partners with our team for another exciting adventure together with other big real key players and leading lights in the digital creativity evolution.

Check out our Digital Creativity History from 2000 - 2004 (I’m writing 2005/6 into the new site, which will launch soon, watch this space).