Preparing to publish Uncertain Eastside

I’ve given myself some time off from school projects etc to focus on getting to grips with pulling the Uncertain Eastside publication together.

Layout screenshot - Uncertain Eastside GPS drawing

One of the most challenging things has been to edit the 1000+ photos submitted by the Walk and Talk participants down to what is now a mere 84.

There have been some difficult decisions involved in trying to represent nearly 4 miles worth of varying landscape in a succinct collection of images. In very approximate terms we’re talking one photo per 75 metres. Is it possible to capture the essence of a place with so few photos? Well, I hope we have at least provided a few reference points by which the changes that will follow can be gauged.

Layout screenshot - Walk and Talk event photos

I quite often drive on the ring road along the Watery Lane – Dartmouth Circus section of the Eastside perimeter and even in the one year since I started this project several buildings have been demolished and you can see multi-storey carparks going up not far away. Makes me wonder how fast things would have changed had we not have crunched our credit.

Layout screenshot - rear cover

I’m nearly at the point where I can start sending off for proofs and ISBN numbers, so hopefully the publication will soon be ready to be released into the wild.

Curby opportunity

Having grown up in an area slightly lacking in the way of side streets, when Mark used a description of Curby as a teaching aid I was pretty much baffled. What was this strange game?

Having come across Curby/Kerby/Kirby a few times since then, I’m now prepared to concede that it is an actual real life childhood past time.

In fact, I quite fancy trying it.

Banbury Street

Bartholomew Street

For the last three days I’ve been walking around the grid of streets around the Curzon Street area collecting data for a new piece of work. This walk took me along Banbury and Bartholomew Streets (pictured above).

As you can see, both are currently closed to traffic.

As I was walking past yesterday morning, a crane was lifting yet more of the concrete blocks into position at the lower end of Banbury Street. I’ve no idea what the plans are for these two roads or the grassland next to them, but I’ve felt a fondness for them since w i d e o p e n s p a c e [video] and would like to gather people there at least one more time before the diggers move in and we lose this little oasis.

Would anyone care to join me for a game of Curby?

The rain eased.

Google Earth view of the first 3 circuits of the area around Curzon Street

Poised. Waiting for the rain to ease.

Circuit Bending 101 at Nottingham Hackspace

Circuit Bending 101 at Nottingham Hackspace

A4 poster (.pdf)

Learn how to add extra wiring to battery-operated toys to make them bleep with anticipation, howl with excitement and transcend their blinky light allowance at… Circuit Bending 101

Saturday November 6th, 12:30 -6
£30

Ticket price includes instruction, materials for three projects and some food.

Numbers are strictly limited. Sign up at
http://bit.ly/cb101Nott
to book your place.

Nottingham Hackspace
The Old Police Station
3 – 9 Station Street
[map]

Circuit bending basics: workshops in need of a home

Following on from The British Science Festival, I’ve been invited to give a circuit-bending workshop up at the Nottinghack hackspace. (Probably in November – stay tuned for further details…)

The workshop will be a day-long session covering loads of the circuit-bending basics.

The three projects we'll work on. Colours may vary. ...as will sounds!

Over three projects we will:

• Use potentiometers and light dependent resistors to change speed and pitch
• Add in blinky lights
• Use short circuits to distort sounds
• Add body contacts to distort sounds
• Loop sounds
• Add audio output sockets so you can make those distorted bleepy noises LOUDER

Here’s a quick video showing what you’ll make:

Circuit bending basics: workshops in need of a home from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

I’ve been really lucky in finding 3 toys that play nice and will allow me to cover all those techniques in some relatively simple builds, so I’ve stocked up and bought enough toys to run 3 workshops.

The workshops are intended for about ten people at a time and will last several hours, so are best suited to a Saturday or Sunday.

Nottinghack have bagsied the first workshop, who wants one of the others at their place? Contact me.

update: One workshop remaining – the other has gone to a secret location somewhere in Birmingham!

update: All gone – the third will be in Liverpool for How? Why? DIY!

The Bloop at Enter the Arena

As a sign of how busy the last few weeks have been, here’s a blog post about something that happened in August…

My game The Bloop had it’s third outing as part of the BARG event Enter the Arena.

I still feel I’m in a play-testing phase with it, with a few areas yet to be cracked.

Far fewer players this time – which I think worked a lot better – and I also moved the ribbon-tagging down to armbands rather than on the inflatable whales and requested the players played in silence. The result was described by Andrew Wilson as “like a bonkers tea dance”. Here’s some video I shot of one of the rounds:

The Bloop at Enter the Arena from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Yup! That description works for me!

I managed to take a few photos too:

Sas Taylor also got some nice action shots!

News for something you cannot see

Two news reports used in a recent school project. Many, many thanks to Ben and Kit for being superstars.

Early Morning News with Benjamin Whitehouse from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Breaking news from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Blast from the past: Emergent Game at H&S 2009

Whilst looking for something else I stumbled upon a video made by a player at the Hide&Seek Weekender in 2009.

Brilliant! The first section is a player’s-eye-view of Emergent Game – the game I ran at the event!

It’s not all fun and games though. At one point this poor young man got trapped down a mine shaft and Jeff had to fetch help…

Re-enacting a scene from Hollywood as one of the Emergent Game missions

Hair cat

Sign in Balsall Heath

I’ve been on a bit of a mission to get a photograph of this sign, first spotted a couple of weeks ago. Now seeing the slug too.