We have been showered in surprising and delightful applications to our Playable City Award, and we now have a shortlist! We also observe some lovely projects being soldered/stitched together, and read Victoria’s wonderful blog about the legacy of the Recife: The Playable City cultural exchange.

It has been difficult, but after much temple rubbing and tea drinking, we have whittled down the 78 Playable City Award applications, which came in from all corners of the earth, to a shortlist of eight projects. We received a fantastic range of ideas and reflections, and we were delighted by the offer of so many unique perspectives on what makes a playable city. The shortlist includes sharks that lurk in puddles, footstep-powered poetry, security cameras with a mind of their own and streetlamps that remember your shadow. Have a look at the full list of projects, and use the comment section to tell us what you think, and ask the project proposers questions to help unfurl their ideas further.

On the subject of The Playable City theme, Victoria, who arrived back from Recife: The Playable City cultural exchange along with other UK participants this month, has just written a post about the legacy of the UK and Brazil labs, and the ripple of connections and ideas that have emerged from them. Have a read.

There has been a fair bit of tinkering in the Studio this week. Kaspar has been designing the main board for Harry Gee’s Raspberry Pi robot kit for kids, Pi Bot. Pete Bennett has been whirring away on the sewing machine, stitching RFIDs into fabric to prototype a Tangible Memories project, which will enable you can capture and listen to songs embedded in a blanket with a handheld device.

Patrick Crogan's AHRC Creative Territories Research Networking Project has just launched its website, hosted by the DCRC. The project has the Bristol Games Hub as a partner and is holding its first big workshop at the Hub on May 20th. Josh Jarrett, DCRC’s resident Ph D researcher is blogger superior for the project. Have a look.