Tag: CriticalThinking

Big Lottery funded DM CIC workshops start in Peterhead

We have been fortunate to be awarded a Big Lottery grant for 5 Driverless Car workshops in the North East of Scotland! We have arranged with Peterhead Academy & Inverurie Academy to start this term, Peterhead have an Afterschool Club for S2+ and We’ll be working with the Inverurie S3 Engineering class.

We’re running the Driverless Car workshop we piloted with Northfield Academy & Transition Extreme after school clubs (funded by ACC’s U-decide (participatory Budgeting)) – so a five week course, introducing the concepts of Machine Learning & Driverless Car technology.

Week one is always relaxed, fun & creative, with the teams creating their car chassis, camera mounts and raspberry pi placements. The Peterhead pupils were fantastic, engaged, entertained, interested, enthusiastic and inquisitive, all the attributes we love to see in innovators of tomorrow!

Below are a few photos from tonight’s session, we look forward to working with the class for the next 4 weeks!

If you’d like to know more about the Driverless Car workshop, want to get us into your school, or have any other questions about our STEAM activity, do email us! we’re getting busy!

Big thanks to the Big Lottery funding, it’s been invaluable! A lot of kids that wouldn’t usually get this type of STEAM education are now, thanks to this funding.

Mission to Mars workshops

Digital Maker CIC have been working in some schools in Aberdeen, thanks to the Aberdeen City Council “U Decide” participatory funding we won last year.

We’ve just finished in Seaton & Woodside primary’s, running 7 week courses with the P6 & P7 themed around a “Mission to Mars”. During our time with the pupils, we’ve covered, Scottish Geography, Design, Electronics, Maths, Mapping, Engineering, Computing & Programming, pulling a wide range of skills & activities together, to create & manage working Rover (Robotics vehicles).

We’ve had fantastic feedback from the pupils & teachers. Below is a lovely testimonial from Ms Masters, P7 Teacher in Seaton.

I have loved having Awesome Tech in our class, and so have the children. They have helped teach skills such as resilience and applying a growth mindset, and there have been so many amazing ‘lightbulb’ moments! The children are applying skills and meeting outcomes that can be tricky for teachers to incorporate otherwise- and can be beyond our own subject knowledge! It has given confidence to pupils who find other areas of the curriculum challenging and allowed them to hone their skills in working as part of a team. It’s rare to have visitors who not only have such subject knowledge but are also so effective at working with children- my class think Martin and Phil are just the best and look forward to every visit!

Line Following robotics Rover & Raspberry Pi set up for programming