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The New Term Begins!

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As we welcome young people back for a new term at Jump Studios, we thought we’d let you know what our first week looked like. Following on from last term’s theme ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’, this term we will be focusing on ‘The Celebration of Community!

Maker City

We kicked off Maker City this term with Sphero Mazes…

The young people worked collaboratively to decide on their interpretations of a ‘new Bristol’. They created new rules, such as everyone must be kind and everyone gets free bus fare. They also decided on some new landmarks and then prototyped their new city using scrap material. From there, they began to use Sphero robots to navigate around their new cities, allowing them to discuss what change they would like to see. Finally, they tried their hand at ‘Tinkercad’, using their new cities as inspiration to learn 3D design.

Young people creating their own cities for the Spheros to navigate through

Control Alt Delete  & Creative Hub

The group shared their favourite celebrations and festivals throughout the world. They carried out self-led research around a different celebration they did not know about already; from a different culture, religion or historical time. The group then used to learn ‘Canva’ and created posters and PowerPoints which advertised an event for their chosen celebration. At the end of the session, the group presented their work and shared their research findings with the rest of the group.

 

Young people researching various celebrations

Sound Wave

This week at Sound Wave, we welcomed some new young people to Knowle West Media Centre and we also had some familiar faces return. In our 10 – 16 group, we went over what we do at Sound Wave. This meant young people were able to try out different instruments in a group jam and then use ‘Soundtrap‘ loops to create their own piece of music and share it with the group.

In Sound Wave +, we looked at writing a song from a group jam and then continuing to refine or add sections to it as we progressed throughout the section. The young people really showed off their creativity after writing something in under an hour and the exciting part is that this is only the foundation of what they will be working on in the coming weeks.

Members of Sound Wave Jamming

Check out the video below to see Jump Studios in action!

If you want to find out more about how young people can get involved in any of our programmes, click ‘here‘ to find our registration form!

Our End Of Term Wrap Up

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At Jump, we believe in looking after ourselves as well as looking after each other. The ‘5 steps of Mental Health and Wellbeing’ have helped guide the winter-spring term at Jump Studios. These 5 steps are: give, connect, keep learning, take notice and be active.

We know how important it is for young people to keep learning and exploring topics around mental health and wellbeing so we have been spreading awareness around the 5 steps and using each one to drive creativity and design throughout our sessions.

Sound Wave

This term in Sound Wave, we have been exploring songwriting, inspiration and collaboration. We have seen some amazing work from the young people and we have really noticed their confidence grow throughout the term. We have a range of interests and tastes which has resulted in an amazing selection of great music. Some have taken to creating music on software such as Sound Trap, Garage Band and Logic Pro and some have used the range of instruments to jam with others and create songs for the first time.

Through these discussions about the ‘5 Steps of Mental Health and Wellbeing’, we were able to get some insights into the importance of having a safe creative space for them to come to each week. This has been demonstrated by the supportive atmosphere the young people have created, as well as the work they have created.

Sound Wave cohort performing

Youth Council

We have started running our Youth Council sessions with the new 2022 cohort. We understand how important it is that local young people get their voices heard and with the new Youth Council committee they are willing to use their voices to start making positive change!

We have been communicating with the wider Knowle West community and the young people have been working with re:CREATE Filwood, Play:Disrupt and the wider ‘KWMC‘ organisation to help drive change and make real-life community decisions.

The Youth Council having a discussion

Control Alt Delete

The young people have demonstrated a lot of creativity throughout the term and have been willing to explore new technologies that they may have not used before. They have been trying out a range of different tech that includes VR, coding with Spheros even creating their own face filters using P5 coding. We have also seen some incredible 3D designs using Tinkercad where they have created their own gaming worlds. Along with this, they created their own characters for their gaming world, digitally drawing them using Sketchbook or Pixel art.

Young person using VR

Creative Hub

Creative Hub used the 5 steps to inspire their own personal creative projects.

While learning new creative tech skills the young people continued with the theme of ‘Keep Learning’ while they researched new topics that they felt curious about. They used this research to help guide their personal creative projects. Gathering new information through self-led research and channelling their new ideas and knowledge through different creative vices.

Some of the sessions focused on the idea of ‘Giving’ where we thought about the people we cared about and made them gifts using the sticker making machine. ‘Be Active’ was channelled through animation and the concept of movement as expression. Throughout all of our sessions, we make sure that the group starts with an active, tangible exercise to get everyone’s brains and bodies moving to help inspire their creative juices.

We successfully included all of our themes in the sessions and had a really positive response from the young people.

Young people learning stop motion animation

Maker City

This term at Maker City we have been busy delivering a programme alongside the curriculum at ‘KnowleDGE‘ (a local school down the road from ‘KWMC‘). The students have tried their hand at designing laser cut and vinyl objects they have been fascinated with 3D design and have learnt some new 3D design skills using Tinkercad and Thingiverse. This proved useful when taking part in STEM-in-Action activities where they designed and built a bridge out of spaghetti! The young people also took part in creating Sphero mazes, and carefully engineered a parachute to protect their eggs in the famous Maker City Egg Drop!

Combining Maker City with assessments alongside the school curriculum has allowed the young people to express their creativity, learn lots of new STEAM skills and have the chance to talk about social issues that matter to them. It has enabled a different perspective on how you can combine STEAM, product design and creativity all whilst completing assessment criteria.

Young people creating

Maker City Industry

The participants have been taking part in live project work alongside mentors from ‘Arup’, ‘Arcadis‘ and ‘Mott Macdonald‘. The projects the young people got to work on were: Ensuring accessible transport for the “Youth Zones” project, prototyping houses for Better Lives at Home, and How Sustainability is considered in businesses when designing homes. Maker City Industry is a space for young people to gain real-world experience and insight into how some of the most influential construction organisations create change and make things happen in Bristol and Beyond!

Young person creating designs on Tinkercad
Young person using a laser cutter

We are readying up for the next term as we focus on the celebration of community, which is dear to our hearts!

If you want to find out more about how young people can get involved in any of our programmes, click ‘here‘ to find our registration form!

Jump Studios Summer Programme – What We Got Up To!

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What have we been doing?

Over the course of 3 weeks, we had a plethora of workshops lined up. This included 2 days of ‘Young People Can Make’, 2 days of ‘Maker City’ and 3 days of ‘Sound Wave’. We had a jam-packed summer, full of fun here at Jump, and we are really grateful to everyone involved, from the young people to the Jump team!

Young People Can Make

Jump Studios, local young people, We Can Make, and Automated Architecture collaborated to create Young People Can Make. The young people learned vital design skills and had hands-on experience working with the construction blocks.

Those that participated in YPCM were given the ability to design and materialise whatever structural or architectural ideas they may have had. Houses, bridges, community centres, and anything else their creativity allows them to manifest.

If you want to see what happened during the days of Young People Can Make, click here. Check out our blog, which reflects the fun-filled time we had.

Maker City

The Maker City Summer Programme welcomed a brand-new cohort of aspiring creatives and makers eager to learn how to create socially conscious products for causes that are important to young people! They developed STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) skills, product design, and participated in digital fabrication masterclasses. The participants also mastered collaborative creative problem-solving tasks, such as the infamous egg drop challenge and building spaghetti bridges that could hold 1kg of sugar! By the end of the two days, new friendships had formed, new skills had been learned, and confidence had been built!

Maker City is where we design products about things we care about.

young creative

We are excited to restart the Maker City programme at KWMC The Factory in October. Please contact clara@kwmc.org.uk if you would like your young person to become part of the Maker City Movement.

Sound Wave

Over the three days of ‘Sound Wave’ in the Summer Programme, young musicians’ musical creativity shone through. Our young musicians demonstrated their musical abilities in a variety of ways, including playing together, conducting the entire room, creating podcasts, and writing and performing their own songs.

The young people started off by building their first beats and exploring the beauty of loops using the FREE web-based DAW(Digital Audio Workstation) Soundtrap. We even saw some future podcasters shine through with podcasts that included facts about bunnies, inspirational quotes, and things they care about within their community and wider Bristol.

On Days 2 and 3, the emphasis was on the students working together to compose their own songs. Our two groups not only wrote the lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions to their songs, but also performed them in front of KWMC personnel, thanks to seminars on rhyming and song writing and performance advice from our music facilitators!

All in all, it was an amazing experience to see such an array of musical talent come through in such a short amount of time.

Not only did we learn about music but we made new friends!

Young musician

To learn more about how you can get involved with Sound Wave in the new term, contact Mike at mike@kwmc.org.uk.

We are delighted to say this summer break has been amazing! With a wide array of activities and endless enjoyment, on behalf of everyone here at Jump we would like to say a big thank you to all involved its been a blast! But even though the summer is over and young people have returned to school, we are returning with after school workshops and half term festivities to carry on the fun!

Interested in coming to Jump Studios After-School sessions in Autumn 2021? Sign up here!

Young People Can Make: Summer Spirit

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Over the summer break here at Jump Studios, we having been hosting a number of workshops. Most recently, we have been working with the ‘We Can Make’ team to help introduce sustainable community architecture to the young people.

What have we been up to?

Now that the schools have broken up for the summer holidays what better time to get creative with Jump. With our enrichment activities we’ve been organising, young people will now get the opportunity, outside of school, to learn new skills while having fun! By partnering up with the ‘We Can Make‘ project, young people now have the chance to construct sustainable models of their choice. They use a scaled down version of the Lego-like building blocks that those at ‘We Can Make‘ are using to build housing amongst the community.

Young People Can Make is a collaboration with Jump Studios, local young people, We Can Make and automated architecture. The young people gained some valuable design skills and were able to get first-hand experience working with the construction blocks. They were given a design mission to re-mix the main studio at KWMC! The final product was absolutely brilliant, they worked so well as a team and combined everyone’s ideas to create a really useful, imaginative design. There was a hangout seating area, different levels and space to display things during an exhibition. They even thought about incorporating a podium for people to present during workings and meetings! The structure they created had three parts and you could configure it in different ways, meaning that it is multipurpose, portable and looks really cool! One young person said “I feel really proud of myself” At age 10 she had contributed her ideas, learnt how to design the app and got on the power tools to fix the final product together.

CLARA COLLETT, Project Manager (Young People and Creative Tech)

What is Young People Can Make?

Young People Can Make is a subsidiary of ‘We Can Make‘ which focuses on involving the younger generation in community driven projects in regards to housing development. ‘We Can Make‘ is striving to create sustainable living firstly within Knowle West then the whole of the U.K, whereas YPCM gets children involved so they can have an understanding of what is going on whilst contributing. At YPCM, those involved are given the opportunity to create and manifest any ideas that they’ve had, in terms of structures and buildings. This could be houses, bridges, community centres and anything their imagination will allow them to produce.

What we aim to achieve?

With Young People Can Make, we hope to guide the new generation with an understanding of sustainable living, as the children of today will be the adults of the tomorrow. It is important for us here at Jump to pass on valuable information which will aid them and offer them the relevant knowledge that could change the world for the better.

It was great witnessing young people’s imaginative ideas highlight what was missing in a space that could be brought to life through the creative process of digital design to physical construction.

MIKE MOAST, Project Manager (Young People and Music)

If you want to follow us for updates on spaces in the sessions, opportunities for young people and sharing some of the work they have been up to – you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter.

The Jump Studios Summer Showcase: Celebrating Young People’s Work

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This week, we opened our doors for a very special three-day event: our summer showcase!

The showcase was all about celebrating the work of the young people who have been attending sessions over the last few months to create a whole range of podcasts, designs, prototypes, music and much, much more.

What is the Summer Showcase?

The Summer Showcase is a chance to show off the work created by an incredible group of young people over the last ten weeks. Work from ‘Control Alt Delete‘, ‘Maker City‘, ‘Creative Hub‘ and ‘Sound Wave‘ was on display to the young people from all of the groups.

Clara, the lead facilitator from Maker City, described the showcase as:

The end of term Summer Showcase was really a chance to celebrate the amazing creative work the young people have been doing despite going through a global pandemic! We have been really lucky to work with local young people who have shown immense resilience and ability to adapt and be flexible in order to get back to doing the things they love doing! I was really impressed with all the work we showcased, and it was a really lovely experience seeing the young people engaged and interested in what others had been up to! We were able to invite the funders from Maker City to come and have a look at this year’s projects. The Maker City projects really demonstrated how important it is to young people to be able to amplify their voices on social topics that matter to them! From wooden protest placards to 3D models “Clean up our Beaches boxes” their ideas were inspiring!  

Clara Collett, head of maker city

What did the young people make of the showcase?

My project was about pollution and recycling. So I made a bag out of old jeans which contributes to climate change.

Jasmine, 13

I made productions to raise awareness about women’s rights and sexism to empower women.

Lois, 13

What skills have they been developing this term?

Every Monday to Wednesday, a group of young people have been coming into Knowle West Media Centre to engage in a series of activities to help learn and develop new skills.

On Mondays, Control Alt Delete is about tech and coding.

On Tuesdays, Maker City is about digital fabrication and social action.

On Wednesdays, Creative Hub is about engaging creativity and Sound Wave is about music and podcasts.

In Control Alt Delete, numerous programmes were made in a variety of programming languages, games through Scratch and creative builds in Minecraft! At Creative Hub, it was really exciting to be able to display young people’s photography and digital design projects. And in Sound Wave: After School, it was great to be able to share everyone’s podcasts and original songs. We also had the chance for some live performances on the day.

mike moast, head of control alt delete, creative hub and sound wave.

If you would like to check out some of the music created by the young people over the term, check out a link to our Soundcloud.

At the showcase, we were also able to present a project that some of the Maker City participants have been working on – in collaboration with University College London. They have worked with researcher Kylo Thomas to undertake important field work on equitable Maker Spaces for Young People. 

Here is one of those participants, Max, made of the project…

Maker City has made it easy to create products to show what is going on in the world.

Lexi, 12

This whole term has been a very unique one. With lockdowns and restrictions changing what looks like a ‘normal after-school session’, we had to adapt both virtually and safely.

So we are incredibly proud of the work they showcased and cannot wait for the next term of activities.

If you want to follow us for updates on spaces in the sessions, opportunities for young people and sharing some of the work they have been up to – you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter.

Interested in coming to Jump Studios After-School sessions in Autumn 2021? Sign up here!

Jump Studios has reopened its doors…

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A group of young people gather before a ‘Creative Hub’ session on Wednesday afternoons.

As of Monday 19th April, Jump Studios has opened the door again to young people to enjoy the after-school sessions!

We’re back!

This week was special as it marked the first time of 2021 that we opened our doors for young people.

Facilitator Jack and Will assisting three young people on laptops.

Since March 2020, we’ve had to change something we did almost every day at Jump Studios; we’ve stopped being able to deliver after-school sessions in person.

We recently talked about what that experience has been like and how we dealt with the changes, if you want to check out that blog post. But for now, the recent changes in the COVID guidelines meant that we can have young people back in the media centre.

How does it work in-line with the COVID guidelines?

To put it simply, caution!

The current government guidelines allowed us to open our doors from the 8th of March, but with the Easter break looming, we decided it was best to begin the next stage when we had found our feet a little more.

Three young people arriving for the after-school sessions, all wearing masks.

Firstly, we are all regularly tested.

Every member of staff on the Jump Studios team are tested regularly, whether before or during work. This is not just including those working directly with the young people.

In the Jump Studios team, we prefer to use the tests from home before we come into the office each morning.

Secondly, we distance out activities and keep strict guidance on how many young people and staff can be in a room at one time.

Three young people on desks spaced apart at the beginning of a session.

Whilst it does make you wonder whether you’re in an episode of Black Mirror at times, the enforced distancing between us is a necessary hurdle in reopening our doors.

Even in our large studio, where we would once have 30+ young people running wild – we now have brought that right back to a maximum of 6 young people and 2 facilitators.

Thirdly, we wear masks.

It’ll come as no surprise to find that, when you’re not completely in your own space, you are wearing a mask.

That applies for the young people, staff and parents.

A young person wearing a mask during a ‘Maker City’ session.

How has it gone?

This week saw us run Control Alt Delete on Monday afternoon, Maker City on Tuesday afternoon and Creative Hub on Wednesday afternoon.

It has been amazing to let young people back in through the doors and, whilst it is only the beginning, we can already feel a slight buzz around the place.

Knowle West Media Centre is a place that was designed to be a hub for creativity and technology, so it has felt very close to our values.

We’re aware that it must be difficult for the young people, who have to uphold these strange measures throughout their whole day at school before coming to the after-school sessions, but we genuinely get the feeling that the space that we create for them is a return they welcome.

Youth programmer for Maker City, Clara, says: I feels so refreshing to be back in the space with the young people! Especially seeing them create stickers and take them home! 

Youth programmer for Control Alt Delete and Creative Hub, Mike, says: It has been so great being back at KWMC. We’ve missed all of the young people and can’t wait to deliver exciting (and safe!) activities with them.

Here’s to next week and many, many more to come!

Youth facilitator Jack, playing guitar with young people.

How do after-school sessions work in lockdown?

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For the best part of the last year, our work with young people has been stripped back from a vibrant and collaborative setting in our centre to over Microsoft Teams. But how are we doing it?

Back in January 2020, we had just started another term of our projects that help young people engage in technologies and the arts.

Maker City school session with Artist Megan Clark-Bagnall delivering a social action masterclass.

But like most other things, that came to an abrupt stop in March when the national lockdown was announced. So what changed and how have we adapted?

The start

All of our sessions up to this point had been in person, where we could interact and support young people wherever we could. It was incredible to be able to see the buzz of creativity the sessions created with the young people.

But that was no longer an option.

From when the lockdown came into place in March through to May, we were finding our own feet with the new virtual world and we needed to know what was needed in the community.

We contacted all of the young people that attended our sessions and their guardians to see what they needed from us. These were unprecedented times (as I’m sure you heard a million and one times in March of 2020) and we wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing.

But the need to keep the after-school sessions going in an online format was clear, therefore we pushed on with the shift to virtual sessions.

How did we adapt in the first virtual sessions?

Our facilitators, Jack, Rapha and Mike during a virtual session.

It’ll come as no surprise to hear that we didn’t hit the ground running. This was new to us as it was the young people. So what issues did we notice?

‘Virtual Fatigue’

We realised that the young people were on their computers all day at school. They were going a full-day in front of a monitor, before coming for an extra hour and a half with us. It was intense.

How did we address this? We encouraged as many breaks as necessary. Whether this meant taking a cup of tea or just going outside for five minutes, any breaks were encouraged to get young people away from screens.

Zoom VS Mircosoft Teams

Zoom was very popular – but was deemed insecure, so there was an organisation-wide decision to not use Zoom and for all sessions to be on Teams. This was problematic as Teams was not as accessible. No breakout rooms, only four cameras on the screen at a time and the chat function is clunky. Zoom seemed so much easier to use!

How did we address this? Well, we persevered! Trying to make sessions as engaging as possible and use different apps to keep the sessions interesting. Luckily, Teams has now upped its game, with breakout rooms, can see more people on the screen and more reactions!

Not being able to reach as many young people

We were missing the element of working in schools. Pre-COVID, we would work in up to four local schools a week which meant we were working with a much wider range of young people and were able to support teachers and young people in school through arts, tech and music as part of their extra-curricular activities.

How did we address this? We spoke with teachers and developed new ways to support them and the young people who are still in school (vulnerable and key worker children). This led to the development of a new way of working: semi-virtually. We would work with the teacher to be able to deliver engaging, creative activities to pupils in school through Teams. Essentially, the Jump Studios Team were virtually in the classroom!

In 2021, we have really started to get into the swing of things with our sessions and we are only going to get better. Whilst it isn’t the perfect situation for creativity and collaboration, we are still really happy with the progress the young people make.

How are we finding it?

A look at what it has been like for the programmers that run the sessions.

Mike Moast: Control Alt Del, Creative Hub & Sound Wave.

The last 12 months has been a whirlwind to say the least. We have all tried to find our own feet in all of the uncertainty the past year has thrown at us, and that includes all of the young people that we work with. They have shown great resilience through the pandemic, school closures and national lockdowns. They have also tackled our sessions being adapted to be delivered online, to socially distanced sessions and back online again with the same resilience and tenacity.

Last year we took a deep dive into the world of virtual sessions, which was quite daunting at first as we have never done anything like that before, but knowing that young people had an appetite for it spurred as to deliver a great virtual programme. As we couldn’t rely on the kit that we have at Knowle West Media Centre, we have had to think creatively as to how we deliver our programme using free and accessible online tools.

Control Alt Delete has been a space for young people to explore coding and new tech, moving everything online did not stop that! It has been great trying different activities from Hour of Code, Google Experiments to Sonic Pi. We’ve seen some amazing 3D designs being made on TinkerCAD and incredible 2D designs on Sketchpad. My highlight so far though has to be playing Skribbl with young people when we ran our virtual gaming evening (and yes, I lost).

Exploring the arts and music making in Creative Hub and Sound Wave brought tremendous amounts of fun. Young people used online digital design tools like Canva to design their own logos and posters, making pixel characters and animations on Piskel and creating fantastic edits on Pixlr. Our young musicians have also been busy learning, writing and recording songs using SoundTrap, blessing our ears with new and exciting music!

Through all of this we have also developed new ways of working collaboratively with each other. From using the ‘collaborate’ button on SoundTrap to work together on a track or a podcast, to using Jamboard to collectively imagine and draw a new and exciting community.

If the last 12 months have taught us anything it’s that even in a virtual world, through creativity and imagination, we can still make great connections. – Mike

Clara Collett: Maker City.

This past year has been immensely challenging for everyone, especially young people who have missed a considerable amount of time at school and activities that they would usually be taking part in. This has meant that young people have not been able to get the same support from teachers and facilitators that they would usually have readily available to them or been able to socialise with friends and build general life skills that come with social interaction.

Despite all of this, the young people that have been engaging with our virtual sessions at Jump Studios have shown a huge amount of resilience and flexibility and have been able to adapt to a new work of working really well. They have been the driving force that has kept us going through the long lockdowns! It has been great to learn a new work of working together; the young people are so well equipped these days and their tech-savvy knowledge has definitely fueled our sessions!

During virtual Maker City, the young people have been able to continue building their digital making skills, and practice digital design and prototyping from their homes. They have had to problem-solve more because sometimes it is not possible to help from the other side of the screen. I have seen a great deal of peer to peer support and young people sharing their experiences of how to fix something that might not be working, and a general consensus that they are all in this together, creating a community feel.

The young people have been able to continue conversations around social action, the things they are passionate about and what changes they want to see in their communities. Now more than ever, it is even more important for young people to have a say and be able to be the change-makers they dream of being! Our virtual Maker City sessions have provided a space for young people to contextualise events that have happened over the past year. It has become a space to discuss how the pandemic is affecting their lives, time for them to reflect on the Black Lives Matter protests that happened in May 2020, and a safe environment to be able to discuss racism and inequalities. They have been able to ponder questions around climate change and think about what young people like themselves can do to make a positive change for their futures.

Amongst all the changes that the young people have had to navigate this past year, I am privileged to have been able to embark on a journey into a new virtual way of communicating, connecting and creating through what has been the toughest year yet! – Clara

With the end potentially in sight, we wanted to look back on what lockdown has been like for the young people in Bristol.

Whether later this year we return to some level of “normality”, it is great feeling knowing that we have adapted to survive in the pandemic.

Thank you for reading.

If you want to talk to us more for information on how we run things or you’d like information about our sessions, please drop us an email at jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.