The decs are out and the tree is up – its twinkling lights contending with Studio resident Tom Metcalfe’s new 3D printer, humming away in the corner of the Studio. With smells of mulling spices drifting from the Watershed café/bar, we are certainly geared up for Christmas, but this festive bubble has not held up activity as we rocket towards the holiday.

In our last blog, we mentioned VRGO’s Kickstarter campaign. Joe Ryan of VRGO was overwhelmed by the response, and they smashed the target with a total of £22,100 raised. The next stage will be to start building the 101 ordered chairs that allow you to navigate hands-free through virtual reality. The success may not have been possible without Joe’s roadshow of 8 separate events in the lead up to the end of the campaign, spreading the word and giving demonstrations – well done Joe!

To conclude this year’s programme of talks, the This Happened Bristol team (consisting of the Studio’s own Verity McIntosh, Tom Metcalfe, and Molly Price) brought a slice of seasonal celebration to the new Loco Klub located under Bristol Temple Meads train station last Friday. Their latest event, entitled Hygge, invited four fantastic speakers to discuss their forays into interactive technology, and was followed by grog and a dance-inducing dj set from resident Sabrina Shirazi. Keep your eyes peeled for a write-up of the event that will be posted on the This Happened blog.

One such speaker at the aforementioned event, was Ben Alun-Jones of UNMADE, a knitwear brand working through collaboration and curation to create designs that can be digitally customised by the consumer, before being 3D printed/knitted by their industrial knitting machine. Tom Metcalfe has recently spent three and a half months with Ben, designing and building the latest concept store on Floral Street in London. If you’re local to London, pop in to see the fruits of their labour, or if it's a touch too far you can view a video displaying the new store below:

Unmade x The Floral Street Collection from Ellie King on Vimeo.

Chloe Meineck has been trialling ten Troves with adopted children and their families and getting great feedback. Trove is a variation of Chloe's Music Memory Box product for dementia sufferers. It enables children in care to record a story to a precious object, and then trigger the story when the object is played with - with the aim of helping the child maintain memories and mementos as they journey towards a permanent home. She hopes to find out how they benefit children and how to better the next model.

Never one to take a day off, James Wheale of Understory has been collaborating with his head researcher Annie Zimmerman to explore the concept of portion control. Annie has found that defining dietary behaviours outside of a lab is hard to gauge, so herself and James have come up with a way of combining computer tasks and projection mapping techniques to replicate the external control environment of their subjects. You can get an idea of how this works by watching the video below:

With our Urbanimals in hibernation following the installation in Bristol as the winning project of this year’s Playable City award, we have a chance to review the impact of the project. It appears that over 26,000 people played with the eight animals dotted around the city! You can read more of our reflections and outcomes on the Playable City blog. 

Michael Johnson of Pocket Spacecraft was in London this week for Principia Lates at the Science Museum. In his workshop, he demonstrated his open-source spacecraft system and discussed the latest low-cost route to space exploration. This is ahead of a planned lunar mission for all current Pocket Spacecraft purchases, happening in 2016. 

Heidi Hinder’s project, Money No Object, initially developed during a Craft and Technology residency at Watershed, is due to be displayed in the Money Gallery at The British Museum from later this month until May 2016. The project explores currency and value, and uses wearable technology and touch to exchange money in a more sociable way. A handshake, high-five, hugs or a tap dance can transfer sums through gloves, rings, badges or shoes. It was launched as a prototype wearable donations system at the V&A's Digital Design Weekend 2014. 

Alongside a display of the project, Heidi has also been working with the British Museum's education programme, and a group of young people from New Horizon Youth Centre to explore identity and payments. In a recent workshop, the participants designed and made their own coins, representing the role that money plays in their lives. These personal tokens will form part of the Money No Object display.

Nominet Trust have released their 100 list – celebrating 100 inspiring people and organisations using digital technology to change the world for the better.  This year, Studio resident Sammy Payne’s company Open Bionics who create 3D 

printed bionic arms won a spot on the list. This comes at an exciting time for Open Bionics, who have recently created a bionic arm to tie-in with the release of the latest Star Was movie, and have just begun a collaboration with Konami to recreate the ‘Phantom Limb’ from their Metal Gear Solid game. A documentary is set to come out next year.

Watch this space for more exciting Studio news in 2016. Merry Christmas!