Centre for Applied Research in Inclusive Arts and Design
Delighted to announce that Leah has been successful in her latest funding bid to work with special need teachers from Exeter House School and AnalysisPro! ProEngagementCoding will be developing new work and templates from our first collaboration with the project ProFoundCoding. The group will be seeking to extend their reach by designing a series of templates and to begin evaluations of the templates in action, a call for some volunteers will be going out soon!
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
Wendy’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!
Our 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
CARIAD are delighted to announce the latest edition to the team, our first fully funded PhD student Steve Coleman. Steve was awarded the prestigious RIA (Research Innovation Award) scholarship from Cardiff Met to research the therapeutic benefits of creative ludic play for people with dementia. This is a part of one of CARIAD’s bigger projects led by Cathy into well-being within the aging population.
Steve completed an outstanding Masters here at Cardiff Met which looked at the healing potentials of being playful. We are thrilled that he has been given the opportunity to develop the project here at CARIAD and to have such a dynamic and committed new academic associate to contribute to the centre. I’m sure everybody will be keen to extend their congratulations in due course. On behalf of CARIAD, well done Steve excited to have you on board and looking forward to working with you!
CARIAD enjoyed the second of its scoping workshops in Swansea today. Dr. Cathy Treadaway ran the second OPAN funded research development workshop for the ‘Making a Difference’ research project which is exploring the development of playful artefacts for people with dementia. The workshop was held in Swansea at the very welcoming Tapestri building. We brought together care providers, managers, occupational therapists and academics and included a presentation by Dr. David Prytherch, from User Lab at Birmingham City University, on haptic perception and dementia. http://www.bcu.ac.uk/biad/research.
Topics arising after the talk included: the difficulties faced in working in care homes; the stretches and pressures on care home workers; community engagement; perception of dementia in society; fiddling and making for makings sake; the relationship between sensory experience and instinct; and the ways the brain processes and understands reactions to sensory stimulus, all very interesting indeed, take a look at a clip here (https://vimeo.com/71807694). We closed the session discussing some of the technological possibilities. Thanks to everybody for making it such an insightful and interesting discussion full of potential! Looking forward to seeing you all at our next session.
‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ was the first of the OPAN RDG workshops for the ‘Making a Difference’ project held at Swansea University 31th May 2013 as part of the ‘Coming of Age’ arts trail and exhibition supported by ABMUHB and OPAN.
CARIAD members Leah and Cathy enjoyed the best Swansea University had to offer today (including the sun) at our first workshop for ‘Making a Difference’ supported by OPAN (Older People & Ageing Research and Development Network). We had a long overdue reunion with Graham Dean one of our friends from Lancaster University (http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/graham-dean(4ee2e191-9ee4-41b1-868c-92c43452aab6).html) and a core member of the project.
We also welcomed over 16 experts from the fields, of mental health, well-being, technology, interactive design, music, arts, creative business, academics and many more to brainstorm possibilities. After an introduction and summary of the projects themes and aims, we invited our audience to create Lego avatars of themselves to encourage sensations of play and memory.
Our Lego avatars then introduced themselves and their interests in the project. Graham presented some wonderful food for thought showing videos ranging from whimsical musings to state of the art technologies in memory boxes. Check them out here: Spotify box – http://vimeo.com/21387481More4 Rebrand -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ5U3t1zZ_s Music Memory Box – http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/music-memory-box
Finally our paper posit ideas board drew out some of our experts poignant and novel contributions leaving CARIAD with endless possible explorations from bread making to Ukulele orchestra’s. Our next step is to think about ways to encourage our stakeholders to play!
A massive congratulations to Dr. Cathy Treadaway who has just been awarded funding from OPAN (Older People & Ageing Research & Development Network) to scope the project ‘Making a Difference – ludic artefacts to promote playfulness.’ http://www.opanwales.org.uk/funding-sources-main-websites.htm
The purpose of the RDG is to scope a project to investigate how new technologies and smart materials can be used to extend individual experience of creative playful activity for the elderly. The project is already gaining momentum with our first workshop due to be held at Swansea University as a part of the OPAN ‘Coming of Age’ project on Friday the 31st of May.