This week, Nikki has been making fascinating GPS affected creatures, the Studio was covered in cake crumbs and arduinos for our Great British Make Off, and Verity flew to Bilbao to talk about Playable City and make some exciting connections.

Last Friday, The Great British Make Off took over our regular Lunchtime Talk slot. The event encouraged people to come along and get stuck into making. Participants got themselves into teams and chose to take part in different challenges; showstopper, technical and signature. Outcomes involved a robotic caterpillar cake that ran away every time you tried to pick it up, a celebrity recipe inventor, and an earthquake-o-meter. Verity will be writing a blog about it all soon.

It has been brilliant to see Nikki Pugh’s project, Colony in full swing at the Studio this week. She has been working with the limitations of GPS to develop an experience that invites people to move through the city differently. In built up areas, radio waves bounce off buildings, throwing calculations off and causing GPS to become glitchy. She has been developing animatronic creatures for people to carry around the city, which respond to these glitches, becoming distressed, signalling this with movement and haptic feedback when its GPS signals are disrupted. The creatures might also become distressed when they out of each others’ range. Once distressed, the carrier has seconds to get back into a safe area. Nikki is currently looking at ways in which these creatures can communicate their comfort/distress in a way that encourages its carrier to feel empathy towards it. She will be play testing in the Studio the week after next, and we’ll keep you up to date on the outcomes.

Applications are still open for the REACT Producer position. REACT are looking for an experienced producer to join their team. The post requires a collaborative approach to curating and managing events, projects and publications involving heritage, publishing, documentary, internet of things and play. The deadline is 21 July. Apply here.

Verity has been at Bilbao-Bizkaia Design and Creativity Council’s annual design forum in Spain, talking about the Studio and Playable City. The design council is looking to forge links with UK cities, and Bristol was one of the four on their list. We are hoping that Verity’s talk this week will sow the seedlings of future Bristol/Bilbao collaborations. 

Next week is Digital Innovation Week in Cardiff, and we have a number of Studio Affiliates hopping the Severn to speak there. Jo Reid from Calvium will be talking about UCAN and iBeacons, Producer Victoria Tillotson will be talking about Digital Producers, Katherine Jewkes will be talking about how digital technology changes our relationship with cultural institutions and creative processes, and Sarah Ellis will be speaking about the role of digital within live performance.

Arthur, Seth and Charlotte’s Colourstory Kickstarter campaign to help them develop a web platform that builds unique colour timelines from any set of images is well on its way. Help to push them towards their goal…