Summer Activities for the Creative Computing Club 2022!!!

August / September 2022

The Creative Computing Club Annual Games Week!!

Creative Computing Club 10th Annual BBQ

Every year we try and have an annual BBQ for the members, familes and friends. It is a good opportunity for them all meet up and have a catch up, see how everyone has grown and how they have progressed as technologists. Last year kind of thought a curveball so this year was especially nice as so much has happened, it was lovely to talk to everyone and have the building full of laughter, conversations and good food.

It was particularily nice this year as the Creative Computing Club alumni returned from University to take care of the cooking!!!

We are now on Holiday until September when we will return with a Godot Game Development Course for Under 12s and Blender 3D Modelling for the Over 12s, and The History of Video Games for the Online groups. We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

The Creative Computing Club Enters the 3rd Dimension

June / July 2022

GODOT and Game Maker Programming at the Creative Computing Club

It seemed to all happen at once, all of the students suggested we learn GODOT, so we did and we not only built 3D parkour games but we also taught to two new groups across Suffolk. It is an amazing game engine and so simple to use, we were able to build complex multi level games with all kinds of different features. The Creative Computing Club in Ipswich now interested in 3D development now, now want to learn 3D modelling next.

Because GODOT was so new to us, we decided to use the time to build a simplified toolkit for the Under 12s so they can use it too after the summer break, so during this time we got them to build some awesome Game Maker Space Shooter games, which turned out great and had some really wacky ideas.

GODOT Programming and Blender 3D Modelling at Bank, Eye

In June the Creative Computing Club starting delivering sessions at The Bank, Eye on Sundays. As they have such lovely computers and an amazing space we thought we would get them designing 3D models in Blender and build 3D games in GODOT right away. It is a lovely little venue and we are fortunate to be able to go out to yet another rural location and give young people skills.

GODOT Programming at the ArtStation, Saxmundham

Now that Creative Computing Club has a mobile setup, we can pretty much go out to anywhere and deliver sessions for up to 10 young people at a time. This time we are at the ArtStation, Saxmundham running GODOT programming sessions on our lovely laptops.

It was really good fun shifting from 2D games into 3D and now we have powerful enough machines and the know-how we will be doing that more regularly.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

The Creative Computing Club Grows!!!

Apr / May 2022

The Automated Herb Garden at the Creative Computing Club

The Automated Herb Garden is a project we do every two years at it gets better and better each time. The last time we did it was in Mar-Apr 2019 so the pandemic forced us deliver the sessions online which meant it wasn't very hands-on and the young people didn't get to eat the vasy amounts of Parsley grown. This time around the did everything, code the sensors, plant the Parsley, solder the components and monitor the plants. All of this adds up to a British Science Crest Award and a bunch of Parsley at the end of it.

The over 12's had a go at Surface Mount Soldering to build some of the sensors using a microscopic soldering kit. It was really difficult but they did amazingly well considering this was their first time and it helped develop their fine motor skills.

Even the under 12's had a go at soldering, instead of the super tricky surface mount soldering they also helped build some of the sensors used in the automated herb garden but instead they did through hole soldering.

All that was left to do was to water and monitor the hundreds of Parsley plants. We have soil moisture sensors, DHT22 Humidity sensors, soil temperature sensors, light and Lux sensors all feeding into an Arduino and displaying all of the data on a computer monitor.

Processing Generative Art the ArtStation, Saxmundham

It's always lovely to run Creative Computing Club workhops out in rural Suffolk, there aren't many opportunities for young people so we feel it is very important to go that extra mile to get them involved in technology. This time we are at the ArtStation, Saxmundham running Processing Generative Art programming sessions on our lovely laptops.

It was a good half term and the young people achieved lots, we are very please we are now set up in Saxmundham on Thursday nights and look forward to having other groups in Eye on Sundays in the future.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

Summer Activities for the Creative Computing Club!!!

August / September 2021

The Creative Computing Club Annual Games Week!!

We take video games very seriously at Creative Computing Club and it was so lovely to finally have all of the groups back together again socialising, playing games and eating pizza. A huge thanks to Jagex for sending loads of awesome prizes and to Coderus for sponsoring the grand prizes and the pizza. It was really good fun, loud and just what the young people at Creative Computing Club needed.

Norfolk & Suffolk LoRaWAN Innovation Network Week

The students at Creative Computing Club took part in the Norfolk & Suffolk LoRaWAN Innovation Network week, the week comprised of learning about LoRaWAN and understanding its benefits, creating an idea of how to use the technology. They then created a proof-of-concept and presented their projects at the end of the week. We had Bee, Security, earthquake, Temeperature and Irrigation Monitoring systems all with working prototypes. It was really impressive to see just how much these young people were able to learn and how quick they were at implementing this new technology.

Creative Computing Club Computer Science GCSE Cram Week

Every year the Creative Computing Club runs a Computer Science GCSE Cram Week for all of our members to attend, it is an intense American style cram week in which we cover the entire GCSE Computer Science Syllabus in one week. The time allows members to solidify their knowledge and ask additional questions, it also allows them to sit another mock to find their weaknesses and better prepare for the exams.

It was lovely to have the all in the building for face-to-face learning as most of their learning for this GCSE has been online and this was all funded by Ipswich Borough Council, IJYI and the Ipswich Roundtable to whom we are incredibly grateful.

We are also pleased to announce that all of the Creative Computing Club GCSE students got their grades and places on college and the A-level courses they wanted, we are super proud of how hard they worked through the lockdown and online learning.

Creative Computing Club Annual BBQ

We are now on Holiday until September when we will return with a Game Development Course for Under 12s and Over 12s. We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

Creative Computing Club and the #PowerOfStories

June / July 2021

A long long time ago the Creative Computing Club planned out a course around the amazing planned #PowerOfStories Ipswich Museums exhibit, it was meant to open last year but the world had a different story to tell. We took upon ourselves to explore the amazing world of stories that Marvel has to offer and more specifically the role of technology within those stories. We set aside 8 weeks to look at how technology is portayed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, how it compares to where we are with technology and to get some hands on experience with some of those technologies.

Artificial Intelligence is prominently featured throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and we decided to see what easy-to-use A.I. projects we could adapt for fun, so we initially taught an A.I. to recognise different colours. After a successful test we were able to get it to recognise colour schemes and then eventually different Marvel Heroes and villains to build a security system for the raft, a fictional prision in the MCU and it worked.

As we progressed through the course we looked at Falcon's drone tech and programmed a series of robots to perform simple tasks before going back to Iron Man in a cave and understanding just how difficult it is to build something complex with simple parts while under a timed pressure.

To finish off the course we were able to visit the incredible #PowerOfStories exhibit which was amazing. The young people really engaged with the exhibit and spent several weeks after the visit discussing the themes and issues raised by it. A huge thanks to Melanie Hollis, Eleanor Root and Izzy Keith for reaching out to us all those years ago as we were really happy to be included in this exhibit. You can still visit the exhibit until October the 24th 2021 and we strongly recommend you do, more info here .

Creative Computing Club tests out Kuato Studios and Marvel's Marvel Tales

We are always keen to promote digital literacy at Creative Computing Club and this extends to using digital tools to promote literacy and Kuatos Studios / Marvel's Marvel Hero Tales was a perfect way to do this. Its a wonderful application that encourages the players to use a wider vocabulary to overcome opbstacles, solve problems and defeats enemies all set in the wonderfully narrative rich Marvel Universe. It was really good fun to tey out this app and give feedback to the developers as it ticks several boxes for the Creative Computing Club; literacy, tech and Marvel.

We genuinely recommend this app for any young reader and/or fan of Marvel to help improve their reading and comprehension skill its available on Android and iOS.

Creative Computing Club and the wider community

One of the things we noticed early on during lockdown was the lack of equipment for young people so they could connect to their schools, friends and just to study online. Luckily the Creative Computing Club was perfectly positioned to refurbish, redirect and redistribute just over one thousand computers around Suffolk, helping thousands of young people get online and continue learning. We delivered them to schools, youth organisations and indiviuals and as the lockdown rules eased we even got some of the older Creative Computing Club members in to help refurbish and clean computers for young people less fortunate than them. We are really grateful for Suffolk County Council getting involved and funding the continuation of this project through the "IT Kit for Kids" programme.

I am very honoured to have received a certificate from the House of Commons for the work we did during the pandemic, we love doing what we do and love knowing what we do helps.

We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

Creative Computing Club and the History of Computing

April / May 2021

We are back in-person after being online since March 2019 and it is lovely to have the members back in the building. So what better way to start than with a technological recap of the last 5000 years!!! Throughout April / May 2021 we looked through the History of Computing all the way from the Abacus, Napier, Babbage and Lovelace all the way up to Artifical Intelligence and Quantum Computing.

As we ventured through the 1980s it allowed us to have some hands on experience with a working BBC Micro using BASIC which proved to be incredibly fun and highlighted some of its limitations in comparision to modern languages but also some of its benefits in terms of how beginner programmers were able to follow the flow of computer programs more efficiently.

As we hit the 1990s it allowed us to see just how computers lept from simple 8-bit graphics to the vastly more powerful 16-bit, this also allowed to have a detour into video games looking at colourful masterpieces such as Zool (which coincidentally just been remade by Sumo Digital Academy / Secret Mode ) and it is awesome! Fortunately we were able to dig out a working Amiga 500, an original copy of Zool and its amazing security wheel to experience the sheer speed of the game as well as thing called "loading screens".

We ended each session with a Kahoot quiz and a hands-on practical activity, sometimes making some code in a lagacy language, remaking 8-bit or 16-bit graphics or even interacting with and A.I. system, it was really good fun putting our students current experiences with technology into the wider view of the history of computing.

We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.

Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.

Creative Computing Club builds worlds and tells stories!!!

November / December 2019

Game Development and Design Evening Courses

We take video games development very seriously at Creative Computing Club as so many of our young people wish to work in the industry and so many of them now do. We spent this half-term focusing on creating some fantastic worlds for our characters to inhabit and our stories to unfold with some spectacular results.

Creative Computing Club at Causton Junior School

The students at Causton Junior School are in the process of creating their first every video game which is a mammoth task considering the game will have over 60 levels and 60 characters to play with. It is a collaborative effort across the three classes of year 5 and they have made some amazing progress.

Creative Computing Club at Sprites Lane School

Sprites Lane School has really been progressing their knowledge of algorithms and how this effects the construction of video games. Primarily focussing on scratch and with the guidance of Emily and Eve the students have made some amazing games over this half-term learning about different genres and ways to make those games.

To finish off the year they made some amazing snowflakes using loops and and all the graphics skills they have learnt so far.

Creative Computing Club and the Monday Night Creative Media Club

One of the things we have always wanted to have at the Creative Computing Club is a focus on digital media so now we have our second computer lab upstairs we decided that will be the best place to create animations, films, podcasts and more. We are really pleased to have Jack and Kira join us at Creative Computing Club as they are experts in their fields and bring so much enthusiasm and fun to the sessions.

For their first course they tackled animation in its many forms from paper cut-outs to plasticine animation achieving some amazing results.

Creative Computing Club out and about!

As part of bringing Creative Computing Club to the wider community I have been speaking at Barclays Head Office about what we do at Creative Computing Club at the NEN Conference, working with British Telecom to help them work with neurodiverse employees and we did a fundraiser for SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire at our Christmas party raising £85 in just four hours!

Creative Computing Club automates and creates!!!

September / October 2019

Introductions to Robotics Evening Courses

September and October saw the evening sessions focus on Robotics of all different kinds. Thanks to the amazing space we have at the Creative Computing Centre we were able to have robot races, robot sumo matchs and even beging to look at the First Lego League City Shaper set. We programmed them to follow paths, battle and even sometimes dance in time with music using both the Microbit and Arduino systems.

Creative Computing Club at Causton Junior School

We are very fortunate to work with Causton Junior School, this time with year 5's and we started off the year exploring computer art and creating interactive art through code. It is so different working with year 5s instead of year 6s but they learnt so quickly and created some amazing pieces of art. This means they will have an extra year with these skills which we hope will encourage more people in technology roles in the future.

Creative Computing Club at Sprites Lane School

This is the first year we have had the opportunity to work with Sprites Lane School and we have taken a creative and sensory approach to the beginning of the year using microbits and Makey Makeys and more. We are really pleased to have Emily and Eve join us at Creative Computing Club as both of these talented creators focus on the arts and interactivity in their own work and study. The students have made some amazing things and will progress on to making video games in Scratch in the next half-term.

Creative Computing Club and the amazing Rabbids Coding

The Creative Computing Club were very lucky to bump into Ubisoft at the BAFTA YGD 2020 launch in London and learn about their Rabbids Coding game/app. It's a brilliant and well thought out systen which helps young people learn the basics of programming algorithms in a fun environment.

Creative Computing Club electrifies and wins awards!!!

July / August 2019

Electronics and Arduino Hacking Evening Courses

One of the best things about having our own centre is that we can do big electronics projects and learn new skills like soldering, something we were keen to take immediate advantage of with our second course in our new building. We had several people soldering for the first time, overcoming their fears and learning new skills. Our youngest solderer was just 8-years-old so it was important to teach them how to do it calmly and safely and it was real success for the young people involved.

BAFTA YGD Awards, June 29th 2019

At the very end of June, Matthew was invited to BAFTA in London as a Young Game Designer Mentor Award Nominee and won!!! Winning the award has opened a lot of doors for the Creative Computing Club and considerably raise our profile as an organisation. It was a great event to attend, and we have made a lot more connections with the games industry, which will further benefit the young people we work with.

As promised Matthew then toured the award around all the schools he works in for all 320 of the students he works with at Ipswich Academy, Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors, Trimley St. Martin, Handford Hall Primary, Halifax Primary and Farligaye High School.

Creative Computing Club Summer Games Week

We had a fantastic games week over the summer full of gaming and competitions as well as game making. We were very fortunate to try out Dreams from our new friends Media Molecule, that we made at BAFTA Vacation Simulator on PSVR and a lot of Minecraft.

It was a fantastic week, and I am genuinely grateful to all our contributors as our young people got to experience a wide range of job roles of work within the digital sector from 3D modelling to Alexa skills, from Network Monitoring to ideation and planning of software. We hope to return later in the year with a follow-up skills week with even more hands-on experience of different digital skills.

Creative Computing Club VIP Microsoft Visit (July 7th, 2019)

Members of the Creative Computing Club were very fortunate to have a VIP visit to the flagship Microsoft store, before it opened to the public. They got to try out a number of games and driving simulators as well as use the updated version of the Hololens.

They also got to try out a Forza Simulator inside an actual Blue McClaren Senna and they were very happy about that.

Monthly Adult Evening Sessions

We have started a Monthly Adult Evening Sessions once a month and we are now on our third session. The two sessions we offered in July / August were Robotics and Electronics. The sessions explored the fundamentals of what is happening in the field of Robotics and we learnt to program a servo with an Arduino. The other was basic electronics where we created a simple music synthesizer and soldered a simple circuit.

We'll be offering more one-off sessions in the future (usually on the third monday of the month) so subscribe to our twitter page or Facebook page to keep updated.

Ipswich Game Development Meetup

Years ago the Creative Computing Club ran the Ipswich Game Developer Network or "IGDN" so we were keen to restart the Game Development Networking once we had the perfect building to host the event in.

In the three months we have been running it we have increased in numbers and had special guests sucah as Paul Hutson of Kingdom Game, Andy Payne of British E-sports Association and Samuel Read from Rebelephant. The group is growing and we have some exciting guest speakers lined up for the future.

If you want to stay in the loop and attend future events check out the Meetup Group here.

Creative Computing Club looks to the past and the future!!!

May / June 2019

History, Design & Development of Video Games

Through May and June, our evening classes looked over the History, Design & Development of Video Games from 1947 to the present day, discussing the hardware innovations and designs styles that dominated different eras of gaming. Each week we picked one game from the period to recreate which had us re-making PONG, Space Invaders, Pac-Man (Atari 2600) and Space Harrier to name just a few.

It was a perfect extension of the retro games wee we ran over the half-term break, and it allowed the young people to understand the constraints the developers of the day had to work with and allowed them to appreciate just how much work went into early game development.

Digital Skills Week 27th - 31st May, 2019

We hosted our first ever Digital Skills Week on 27th -31st May with the fantastic support of Rebecca Osborne (Analogue/Digital Artist ), Robin Milton (3D Modelling Artist, Lecturer), Richard Harvery (Amazon / Web Design and Hosting) Bob Harris (EX Channel 4 CTO/ Alexa Skills), Samuel Read (Game Design, Gang Beasts, Mainlining), Professor Peter Cochrane (Ex CTO & Head of Research at BT, AI), Paul Skirrow ( Octosys / Network Monitoring), Chris Pont (IJYI, Entrepreneurialism / Software Development) and Emily Godden (Virtually There, Binaural Audio, 360 Photography).

Farlingaye High School

If May and June the students from Farlingaye High School began learning about robotics in a multi-school collaboration building the sensor elements for the robot hands for use in the sessions with Halifax Primary School, Causton, Coneis & Trimley St. Martin and Handford Hall Primary.

They will be moving on to the robotics with a special project from Microsoft.

Halifax Primary School

The students from Halifax Primary School started to build the glove elements of the Microsoft Hacking STEM robotic hand which can be viewed here.

Causton, Coneis & Trimley St. Martin

The wonderful students at Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors and Trimley St. Martin had a great time discussing the type of robots they would like to see in the world and discussed what jobs could be replaced and what jobs should be replaced by robots.

Handford Hall Primary

The students at Handford Hall Primary got a closer look at how their hands work and discussed how we might build robotic hands in the future.

Creative Computing Club opens the Creative Computing Centre!

March / April 2019

We closed the doors to Creative Computing Club in March and April to deliver our biggest project yet, the Creative Computing Centre. A two story centre dedicated to computing in all its forms. The building required a small amount of redecorating and needed a bit of infrastructure in place to make it into Suffolks best computing centre for young people. As it was our space we were allowed to decorate how we wanted it and used this opportunity to subtley make references to our favourite video game consoles with our choices of colour. We had a lot of help from the Creative Computing Club members and their parents and we are really grateful for this as it allowed us to get things done so much faster. With all the work completed we let the fun begin.

For our opening week we allowed our existing members take part in our first ever "MEGA RETRO GAME EASTER WEEK" featuring over 30 retro consoles and 300 games!!! It was great fun and lead nicely into our next course which is the "History, Design & Development of Video Games".

With our building fully BETA tested we are now ready to open the doors to the Creative Computing Centre.