Make Live

Make Live is a series of ‘hybrid’ digital / craft workshops for children and young people in schools, libraries and museums.. A playful exploration of creativity, physical materials, simple interactive technology and art-making, it foregrounds the A(rt) in STEAM education to inspire young people who find more traditional approaches to science, IT or engineering less engaging. Some of the interactive pictures, musical paintings, and interactive glass art made over the project will be on display in local libraries and art centres.

• A project for 9 to 11 year olds from Roman Hill Primary School, Lowestoft, started with light up greeting cards. Students have designed an interactive collage coded to trigger speech and sounds inspired by local history presentations given by a volunteer from the Lowestoft Maritime Museum, specifically the fishing industry. The children did drawings, creative writing, learnt how to record audio and used conductive ink to play their sounds through a microcontroller. The project culminated in Summer 2022 with a display of finished interactive artwork in Lowestoft Library.

• Year 7s at Pakefield High School, Lowestoft, made interactive artworks using found glass objects by incorporating electronics to trigger sound through touch. They learnt how to craft digital-physical interfaces and use coding to programme microcontrollers for their artwork.

• Ongoing - A series of pop up ‘makerspace’ family workshops for libraries and out of school clubs around Suffolk, using art materials, electronic circuits, simple microcontrollers and coding to create light up cards, e-textile items, fused glass sensors, interactive drawings or musical instruments.