First workshops of Somability are underway!

CARIAD’s Wendy and Leah and partner from CARIAD Interactive Joel Gethin Lewis had the warmest of welcomes and most productive of workshops at Learning Curve Gadlys, Independent Living Resource Centre in Aberdare this morning. This will be teams’ new home for the coming months working in partnership with the staff at the centre to develop a brand new set of applications, making movement irresistible for people with learning difficulties.

We are always a bit nervous going into a new centre for the first time to meet our new stakeholders. We want to give them the best possible introduction to the projects to create a supportive and dynamic workshop environment so that we can really understand and learn from the people who work closest with our end users, so the pressure was on!

After some slightly perplexed looks when CARIAD Interactive demonstrated the ‘Top Hat Smile Detector’, the group took to the paper-prototyping knowledge exchange workshop with ease, and of course smiles!
It was a true delight to capture some of the prototype ideas from the group, to listen intently to their expertise and to really get a sense of the community, the fantastic work each individual achieves on a daily basis and to be immersed in their world. Within only a few hours our group identified several key areas in designing for users with various levels of mobility.

The most significant outcome of the day was bringing on board such an engaging and involved group who (in the space of a morning) took complete ownership of this project and have integrated Somability firmly into their resource centre and local community. Looking forward to our next visit to feedback some early prototypes!

Connected Studios: linking academics and media

CARIAD were delighted to partake in a very interesting workshop and debate to re/engage the public with classical music through digital platforms. The event was run as a part of the larger CEWN project series, where CARIAD has several on-going collaborations and partnerships http://cewn.weebly.com/. The day also identified some synergies with CARIAD and S4C and BBC Wales.

bulb%20copy%20sm_234_234_rsWe are looking forward to seeing how the projects develop especially since so many important issues were raised. Questions asked included ‘what is classical music’, ‘why is it called classical’. The elitist attitude and the accessibility of classical music for all demographics was also on the agenda, certainly some meaty food for thought. Thanks to all involved for hosting such an interdisciplinary day and facilitating in bridging gaps between academia and the media. Take a look her for details of the pilot projects https://www.mediaacademywales.org/partners-pilot-the-first-connected-studio-for-higher-education

CAN PLAY TACKLE SOCIAL ISSUES AND ENCOURAGE CHANGE: A collaboration with PlayARK as part of the Play:Do Hack Week

CARIAD were delighted to have representation at the PlayARK festival this year our very own Steve Coleman reports on his very exciting week:

CAN PLAY TACKLE SOCIAL ISSUES AND ENCOURAGE CHANGE?

This was the question which PlayARK’s collaborative project, the Play:Do hack week, posed to nine individuals from different disciplines and offered them the opportunity to explore this idea in an environment that “focuses on the idea of knowledge exchange and open experimentation.”

The project took place in the week running up to the PlayARK 2013 festival, and was organised by Cardiff based company Yello Brick who specialise in playful communication approaches to create experiences for brands and organisations. The project and festival were held at the Wales Millennium Centre at the beginning of November and brought together international speakers, developers, designers, technologists, and practitioners to contribute to a two-day series of public talks and game events.
The call out for the Hack Week was more than a little enticing:

“The aim of the week is to create a playful and socially aware experience that utilises creative technology and reclaims traditional approaches to how we live and work within our cities”

The idea of reclaiming lost or forgotten processes piqued my interest. It evoked ideas from my previous research into reconnecting with our inner child and using play as a means of developing our creative processes. Whilst the idea of using play as an approach to encourage social change in a real world context drew parallels to my current project of using playful activities to encourage wellbeing in the very real context of persons with dementia. By the time I got to the part about “playful ways to break down barriers and encourage positive social engagement” I was hooked and an application was sent.

I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the nine hackers, and at the start of the week I teamed up with Ravi Thornton, an award-winning writer with an interest in narrative environments as storytelling devices, and with Andrew Price who, as Technology Director for the digital agency Moon, has an impressive client list that includes the BBC, Box UK, and the Welsh Assembly Government.

What followed was an intense semi structured few days that focussed our attention, rapidly yet rewardingly, on prototyping methods, game structure, and concepts that lay at the heart of the projects’ aims; this was achieved through a series of informal presentations from organisations such as the Arts Council of Wales and the Climate Change Commission for Wales, as well as from individuals who shared their experience in using playful methods to engage with a wider audience, such as Transmedia storyteller Robert Pratten and live events organiser Ian Thomas.

The outcome of the week was a game that linked physical experimentation with digital recording and presentation, using collaborative engagement to produce and reveal narratives to those who took part. We were looking at the idea of the transience in relation to online content, how games could be used to reveal a hidden narrative, and explored how engagement in the creation of a story could lead to a sense of ownership of the underlying message within participants. We presented our prototype as part of the festival’s series of talks and then ran a trial event with the public the following day.

For me the experience was incredibly valuable and I feel very fortunate in having attended. As a researcher definitions are fundamental to the shaping and direction of my projects, and my involvement in the hack week allowed me to understand how others define the term play and how this shapes or informs their practice. From a practical point of view the opportunity to collaborate, to such an extent, with practitioners from very different disciplines to my own was something that was quite new to me, and as a result collaborative approaches with makers and practitioners is something I want to pursue further as a researcher. My PDP has quite a few new entries about presentations and communication, time management, focus versus balance, as well as the use of social media (I need to do more of it). The biggest reward of the week is the fact that we all feel that something valuable had been created, and view the week as the beginning of an exciting development.

As a group we have set already set date to meet, chat, and take the project further, with the help of a Google doc we are currently making plans on how to develop our prototype in ways that can address social engagement, playful enquiry and even education issues. As a result of the Play:Do hack week there have been some new skills learnt, and some superb contacts made all of which will, I am sure, inform and contribute to the development of my PhD project.

LINKS:
Play:Do Blog
http://www.thinkark.co.uk/playdo-part-playark-2013-festival
PlayARK
http://www.playark.co.uk/
Yello Brick
http://yellobrick.co.uk/
Ravi Thornton
http://ravithornton.weebly.com/blog.html
Andrew Price
http://madebymoon.com/
Steve Coleman, previous research
https://thehourofplay.wordpress.com/

CARIAD has its official launch at the Senedd supported by Leanne Wood AM and Eluned Parrott AM

 

 

 

CARIAD had our biggest event to date on Thursday, our official launch at the iconic Senedd building in Cardiff bay. We were honoured to have the support of three assembly members. Leanne Wood AM officially launched the centre and offered wonderful words of support and encouragement for the team. Eluned Parrott AM was our official sponsor and made the day possible. She presented some insightful thoughts and offered her congratulations to the successes of CARIAD thus far. We are looking forward to welcoming Eluned Parrott AM at some of our workshops in the near future! Jenny Rathbone AM also attended the day in full support of all of our research projects. We were also thrilled to have the wonderful Glynis from the Hollies School and Anthony from Trinity Fields on the podium to represent our stakeholders and say a few words about their experiences working with CARIAD. John Killick from Dementia Positive closed the session with a touching poem and invited everybody to come and have fun at his workshop later.

In true CARIAD style the day was much much more than a launch, we also hosted two separate workshops and demonstrated some of our capturing and video coding technologies working with AnalysisPro LTD http://www.analysispro.net/ and the Centre for Performance Analysis http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/english/sport/about/staff/academic/pa/pages/home.aspx

CARIAD paper prototypingWendy’s Paper Prototyping workshop used paper to rapid prototype interactive and non-verbal communicative devices. The morning invited our PLC (professional learning community) group in Gesture-Based Technologies http://kinectsen.wikispaces.com/ and many new stakeholders to come up with a technology, using only paper, which might facilitate communication. These were presented back to the group and a vote was taken on which technology to develop further. The ‘rhythm detector’ won in the end and our invited coding and technology experts from our partner’s at CARIAD Interactive http://cariadinteractive.com/ created a code and working prototype which we were all playing on by the end of the session, not bad for a day’s work!

john killickOur second workshop was last of Cathy’s OPAN funded sessions, we invited John Killick from Dementia Positive to come and run one of his infamous ‘invitation to have fun’ events, and fun it was. We made human statues, described objects through touch and even had a puppet show! While the sound of laughter was echoing from the building throughout the day the message was poignant: Dementia is not something to be frightened of or to shy away from. We need to find ways to engage with it and adopt a more positive and responsive attitude towards investigating and understanding some of the underlying features of the condition and ‘we must not be afraid to laugh’! You can read more about the day’s events and see more pictures here on Cardiff Met’s main page: http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/English/News/Pages/CardiffMetlaunchesinteractiveandinclusiveartsresearchfacility.aspx
Our latest edition to the team Steve Coleman PhD student (read about him here http://cariadblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/cariad-awarded-ria-research-innovation-award-to-support-new-phd-student-steve-coleman-investigating-the-benefits-of-creative-play-for-people-with-dementia/ ) also made this fantastic video documenting the day’s events, take a look https://vimeo.com/75386114 thanks Steve!

CARIAD really has so many people to thank for the successes of the day and rather than thank a few here publicly we would rather thank EVERYBODY privately. Here’s looking forward to making this an annual event, thanks to all involved