Jam Labs

Draft Planning Text Only - not for distribution

Unmaking at Bridge Rectifier

Jam Labs - a scavengerlabs project -

Jam Labs (for digital jam labs) will be a new project which builds on some of the exploratory work of Noisy Toys and the Makery workshops. It is about exploratory, expressive and collaborative uses of low cost, low impact digital technology.
Jam Labs are workshops or events that are themed around a collaborative approach to playing with technology as a way of learning and as a way to express ourselves in communities. Invite us to your community or events.
Jam Labs are also physical centres (currently in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge) where activities happen and volunteers can come and contribute they time and skills. Come visit us.
Jamming is Digital Jamming. It’s an educational process is based on Project Based Learning and follows principles of UDL universal design for learning. Have a look at our free resources or invite us to collaborate to create more.

Jam Labs audience

Young people

Young people at Galleries, Libraries and Museums
Young people and families getting experience for young people outside of schools. e.g coding clubs
Home educating families and networks
Young people in other forms of alternative provision of education

Adults

Volunteers wanting to help our mission to provide education for young people
Adults wishing to develop technical skills in an accessible and creative way
Team building creative exercise

Jam Strands

Strands include the following.

Workshops: One off workshops
Courses: 5-6 wee courses
Resource creation: Creating resources under open source licences for home based education or fellow Educators
Home Ed Networking: An online and occasional networking events for Home Educating Families
Outreach Events: Installations and interactive stalls at community and educational Events
Research Partnerships: Exploratory work in research partnerships with academic and educational partners.

Jam principles

Our principles are inherited in part from our parent project Scavenger Labs. We try to communicate them in a straight forward way for our audience of young people, home educators and educational partners.

based on permaculture principles: including the use of waste products, or reusable technology to reduce environmental impact and to explore related issues.
under-pinned by wider ideas of well being and positive mental health. This can involve advocating a balanced approach to screen time and the use of collaborating on digital projects as a family as a way of informing a productive basis of discussing online media and game use.
informed by a participatory approach to digital resistance. Not all technology is positive. We recognise this and are willing to fight together for a better future which may involve resiting new forms of technology if they are not positively for people and planet.

Existing Jam projects

The following have been undertaking as 4-6 week projects already.

Game making - a subject of Mick’s PhD work. We have extensive resources to support game making via block coding or text coding
Battle buggies - a mini robot wars - perfect project based learning jam material
Sketchy Robots - We have good documentation of a pilot project at Ferney Lee school.

Other workshops run regularly by Steve as part of Noisytoys.org may also suit transforming into shorter projects.

Unmaking and Junk Making: This is already an active part of Noisy Toys workshops which was developed in part at the Makery workshop.
Noisy Toys Scavenger boxes workshop. Link to online information about workshop

Jam projects in development

Sketchy Circuits - in progress, building on the process learned with Sketchy Robots.
Junk Marble Run - involving junk and use of additional 3d printed elements.
LED theatre work - we have undertaken a pilot project at the Makery - more info on that website
Retro News Reporting - using older broadcast quality cameras to make short news reports and feed them back to the community a video screenings
Retro podcasting - Using old equipment from radio stations to record audio podcasts, or portable equipment to record radio out and about in unusual places.
Screen printing and logo design - Screen printing is fantastic accessible and messy technology, we also use Inkscape to design our logos which is a great graphical editing tool.

Jam Labs Process

The process is based on Project Based Learning with particular supports around the way we structure choice and self-expression with in projects and the social processes involved. The process is described in brief below with two examples of our existing projects. Game Making through coding and Buggy Battles.

A clear and attractive mission.
A starting process where participants can get started easily on a draft project and tinker around in a low stress way which gives them a lot of feedback
Choice based development of the project
Regular social feedback from peers
A final show case event to work towards.
Being part of an ongoing community to share ongoing creations and ask questions after the life fo the group project.

Jam Labs Delivery / Business model

We are investigating different models to try to make our work sustainable and replicable. Our goal is to create inclusive and attractive educational kits and courses that are used widely.

One model of particular interest is the open source / free software model. This would involve sharing our resources online for anyone to use to maximise the impact of our work. As a team we would be paid in other ways including:

To develop, test, design and publish accessible resources online
To promote those resources to relevant networks and organisations
To deliver training to support the use of resources for groups, institutions or families
To deliver workshops to our local groups of families and young people in alternative provision
To take part in relevant research partnerships with academic research projects

Jam Labs Timeline

The following activities will help develop Jam labs. These will form the basis of an ongoing timeline of the project.

Create an advisory group for the project, to advise in particular about the business model aspect.
Develop a draft business model
Develop and document 2 proof of concepts using our more advanced projects following the Jam Labs Process above to share with our advisors - ideally with seed funding
Keep delivering these 2 projects locally and reflect on the joint delivery with the business model in mind in a pilot process
Identify and apply for funding to develop more projects, and a pilot community project to test the community aspect of the project
A larger funding bid to pay for 2 x 0.5 project workers over 2-3 year for a larger scope of community building and development
A sustainable business model maintaining and developing new partnership work