Oct '06 20

Hal MacLean and Matthew Eaves from the team spent the day with Class 2 at Cressing Primary School to undertake some experimental research into clay animation with six year olds. Mrs Harris and her classroom assistants were a great help throughout the day as fourteen six year old pupils took part.

DSC001801.JPG DSC001811.JPG DSC001821.JPG DSC001831.JPG

Click the above images to enlarge them.

The objective of the day was to find out how six year olds coped with an animation task, learning the skills of model making, story construction and then using computers and digital video camera equipment to animate their story.

The session was the pilot for a larger project which will be held in Cardiff next month, which we will post more about here at digitalcreativity.org when the time comes.

Hal and myself will be writing a paper on our findings. The learning from this experiment has already changed our plans for BBC Wales.

Everyone involved in the project will recieve their creative work on DVD, created using iDVD, here is a screenshot of the DVD in production:

dvdcover.jpg (Click image to enlarge)

We would like to thank Sue Giles, Head Teacher at the school for welcoming us into the school at such short notice.

Here are the files created on the day:

icon for podpress  Group 1 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 1 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 2: Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 3 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 3 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 4 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Group 4 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Ultralab Example : Play Now | Play in Popup
icon for podpress  Meanwhile Martin Hodder at Ravens Wood School in Bromley, Kent created this brilliant experimental animation:: Play Now | Play in Popup
Oct '06 13

Today the Saffron Walden County High School and Partner Primary Schools came to Ultralab to spend the day with myself and Hal MacLean to work on the DVD case designs of their Summer School project. For this challenge the young people involved in the project learned how to work with the Photo Shop application.

Thirty young people spent the day at the lab, showcasing the work they had achieved over the summer period. The work will go on display to an evening audience at a cinema in Cambridge later this year.

Some of the young people were tasked with making a DVD containing all of the work, this process was done using Apple’s iDVD.

Click here to read about the first time the group of young people were at Ultralab for their training session and challenge setting exercise.

Click here to read about the First Day of the Summer School on August 3rd.

Here is the DVD art created by the groups, while at Ultralab, to reflect the content of their completed films:

Magic Bicycle DVD Case End of the World DVD Case
Dude on the Run DVD Case Dr Who DVD Case
Curse of the Mushrooms DVD Cover

Click to expand the images.

Some of the groups also completed a DVD Disc image:

dude_on_run_Dvd.jpg Magic Bicycle DVD Disc Dr Who DVD Disc

The Summer Challenge, which is set by Ultralab was called “Outside the Box”.

We invite the young people on the project to add comments below to introduce their work before we actually post their completed projects here on the site.

Well done everyone, exceptional work.