In the last week and a half, we have been playing with Interactive Scientific’s Nano-Glove Box and Colourstory Ltd.’s New Beta app, having interesting discussions around Bristol’s Indie Games network, getting very excited for nu desine as the AlphaSphere’s global interest continues to snowball and looking out for two brilliant new people to join the Studio team….

Applications are still open for our two Studio roles. We are looking for a Projects Coordinator, who will play a key role in supporting delivery of Watershed projects and events, and a Watershed Producer, who will produce next year’s Playable City Award and a small number of other Creative Technology or talent-development projects. If either of these roles appeal to you, find out more about them on the Watershed Jobs page.

Interactive Scientific (the brilliant team responsible for danceroomSpectroscopy) have just received funding from Innovate UK to develop next-generation teaching tools that will help young people to grasp complex science concepts through physically engaging with the subject. Residents David Glowacki, Phill Tew, Becky Sage and Tom Mitchell are combining physics, high performance computing, sound, and movement to create a 3D, interactive visualisation of the nano-scale atomic world. People will be able to place their hands into the ‘Nano-Glove Box’ and physically pull particles around. We had a good old play with some H2O yesterday, and a few of us wondered how much better we would have been in science lessons if the Nano-Glove Box had made an appearance…

The REACT funded Play Sandbox projects have all been set in motion, and some brilliant blog posts have started popping up on the Play microsite documenting the participants’ initial thoughts and processes. Visit the project pages to read musings on different kinds of swing, the balance of magic and manufacture, the pitfalls of franchise, and Amsterdam’s extraordinary Cinekid festival.

nu desine have been attracting a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks. Jason Hou’s recent YouTube video of his AlphaSphere performance has clocked up an nearly 10 million views – a pretty staggering figure! Diego made a special appearance on Made In Bristol TV recently, and the AlphaSphere was the focus of a Telegraph article last week, entitled “World’s first electro-music ball takes musical instruments into the modern age”. They are working on some exciting new products, so keep your eye out.

Last week, the DCRC partnered with Bristol Games Hub to host a Creative Territories symposium, exploring innovation in Indie Game sector. The symposium brought academics and indie game developers and stakeholders into dialogue to support the development of scholarship and creative practice within the fast-developing field of video games production.

Colourstory has launched as a beta app! It has had over ten thousand users already. The app allows you to upload any set of images and create a beautiful colour timeline out of them. Have a go, experiment, share what you make and give Arthur and the Colourstory team any feedback you think of.

Resident Ben Gwalchmai is currently diving into a glorious phase of R&D with National Theatre Wales and Dutch theatre company, PeerGrouP. They will be messing about with Raspberry Pis in mid Wales as part of an on-going series of workshops exploring the potential of emergent technology in theatre. We are really looking forward to seeing what emerges from these investigations.

Last Wednesday the Studio was host to a CreBiz workshop, which brought together Arts/Humanities and Business students to explore and develop transmedia business ideas. The DCRC’s Emma Agusita, Daredevil Project’s Paul Archer and Studio Producer Verity McIntosh talked to the students about business models for creative entrepreneurship, and the students are currently working on real briefs from Studio residents Silas Adekunle, Rik Lander, Hazel Grian and Vincent Baidoo, which they will pitch back to us on 6 December.