Birmingham seems to have come up from nowhere in the last week or so in STEAM bulletins with two major STEAM happenings this week alone.
In one we popped up to the Big Bang Fair at the NEC to see if they spell STEM with an 'A'.
The film below shows a few highlights of the day including an X-Box Kinect-powered sandpit, the BBC Micro:bit, a bike powered drawing machine and salt powered cars!
“Bankers have traditionally been at the heart of the community, supporting people with their finances, and helping local businesses to grow" : Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays UK at the opening of their Eagle Lab Maker Space in Brighton.
Read about the amazing work that Barclays are doing in the community.
On BBC Micro:bit being for everyone, connecting the unconnected, talk by world famous inventor and why we spell STEM with an A.
Well the BBC had to start somewhere and by giving every Year 7 child in the UK one of their micro:bit computer devices they're sure to start another revolution.
But what about primary children?
We've gone all 'Particularly proud to be British' this week as Designer, Inventor and STEAM Co. Inspirator Dominic Wilcox flies out to New York to appear on the Stephen Colbert Late Show (nee David Letterman's) to showcase UK Creativity.
Seth Godin says: "Art is what we call it when what we do might connect people". We are all artists. There is something for everyone to help on before and on a STEAM Co. Day.
Do you care. Will you help us somehow to make #INSPIRANATION happen. Can you pop down on the day and roll your sleeves up and/or contirute to our Kickstarter campaign to put some icing on the cake we've baked?
One of the most significant aspects of our upcoming event, #INSPIRANATION at The Sunday Times Festival of Education is the support we've had from the business community and companies like Barclays, BMW, Dell, Google and National Grid. We're particularly looking forward to a short talk from Dame Julia Cleverdon, Vice President of Business in the Community.
Here come the Mods.
How a talk on YouTube and reading the first half of a couple of books opened my eyes.
What do YOU think?
A special day out with 'the blob', Mr Blobby and a pat on the back from a couple of people who probably know better..
How the 'world's biggest community powered brand' has helped power STEAM Co. and connect us with people already.
And how it could help us in Liverpool.
If in doubt ask a cabbie!
Talking about walking the talk.
With help from Naomi Klein, 50,000 people on a walk in London, HRH The Duke of Cornwall, and tomorrow's news from The Guardian.
It's several decades now since Sir Ken Robinson reported on creativity, culture and education when he was at Warwick University before he emigrated to LA, his TED talk has since been watched by 28 million people and we kicked off a storm in our own tea cup when we observed the UK's Creativity Crisis on the week Apple's Jony Ive came to town and took a STEAM Co. Inspirator invitation back to California, but the icing on the cake came today:
The Warwick Commission (The University of Warwick) published a report on the Future of Cultural Values. A vague title but its content and findings are pretty explosive and the headlines from The Guardian and the BBC speak for themselves.
After 4 year's thinking, planning, talking and a bit of doing, its time.
We're finally ready to inspire, to power, to connect a community to walk the talk, to inspire their children with creativity by telling them all about what we've been doing at STEAM Co. for 4 years now and giving them all they need to take and run their own STEAM Co. Days.
And we've chosen Liverpool, or did Liverpool choose us? We're certainly not arguing about it.
An exciting package arrived at STEAM Co. HQ just before Christmas from the USA covered in green polka dots and, on Christmas morning, proved to be what we’d hoped it was.
STEAM Co. Days are school days like no other and this was a STEAM Co. Day like no other.
At the top of the BT Tower. Believe it!
Yes, we were blown away when BT found us in their favourite search engine and asked us to help them launch and celebrate National Inventors Day to pay tribute to the creativity and pioneering spirit of UK inventors.
A 2 minute film of Nick's pitch to Fellows of The Royal Society of Arts the other week.
Britain’s creativity crisis
Time to start spelling STEM with an ‘A’
What a week it’s been for Creative Britannia, if it’s still at all vaguely acceptable to use that phrase. If indeed it ever was.
We were delighted to be invited with a whole load of other makers and doers to Nesta's 'Inspiring Young Digital Creators' event at the Houses of Parliament hosted by Andrew Miller MP, who has a well known interest in science and technology and a long time supporter of the great work Nesta do.
We're absolutely delighted that the mighty Wired magazine in the UK have picked up on our antics again by writng about the last STEAM Co Day held at St Saviour's School in Paddington, London.