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Creative Computing Club looks to the past and the future!!!
May / June 2019
History, Design & Development of Video Games
Through May and June, our evening classes looked over the History, Design & Development of Video Games from 1947 to the present day, discussing the
hardware innovations and designs styles that dominated different eras of gaming. Each week we picked one game from the period to
recreate which had us re-making PONG, Space Invaders, Pac-Man (Atari 2600) and Space Harrier to name just a few.
It was a perfect extension of the retro games wee we ran over the half-term break, and it allowed the young people to understand the
constraints the developers of the day had to work with and allowed them to appreciate just how much work went into early game development.
It was a fantastic week, and I am genuinely grateful to all our contributors as our young people got to experience a wide range of job
roles of work within the digital sector from 3D modelling to Alexa skills, from Network Monitoring to ideation and planning of software.
We hope to return later in the year with a follow-up skills week with even more hands-on experience of different digital skills.
Farlingaye High School
If May and June the students from Farlingaye High School began learning about robotics in a multi-school collaboration building the sensor elements for the robot hands for use in the sessions
with Halifax Primary School, Causton, Coneis & Trimley St. Martin and Handford Hall Primary.
They will be moving on to the robotics with a special project from Microsoft.
Halifax Primary School
The students from Halifax Primary School started to build the glove elements of the Microsoft Hacking STEM robotic hand which can be viewed here.
Causton, Coneis & Trimley St. Martin
The wonderful students at Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors and Trimley St. Martin had a great time discussing the type of robots they would like to see in the world and discussed
what jobs could be replaced and what jobs should be replaced by robots.
Handford Hall Primary
The students at Handford Hall Primary got a closer look at how their hands work and discussed how we might build robotic hands in the future.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club opens the Creative Computing Centre!
March / April 2019
We closed the doors to Creative Computing Club in March and April to deliver our biggest project yet, the Creative Computing Centre.
A two story centre dedicated to computing in all its forms. The building required a small amount of redecorating and needed a bit of infrastructure
in place to make it into Suffolks best computing centre for young people. As it was our space we were allowed to decorate how we wanted it and used this opportunity to subtley
make references to our favourite video game consoles with our choices of colour. We had a lot of help from the Creative Computing Club members and their parents and we are
really grateful for this as it allowed us to get things done so much faster. With all the work completed we let the fun begin.
For our opening week we allowed our existing members take part in our first ever "MEGA RETRO GAME EASTER WEEK" featuring over 30 retro consoles and 300 games!!!
It was great fun and lead nicely into our next course which is the "History, Design & Development of Video Games".
With our building fully BETA tested we are now ready to open the doors to the Creative Computing Centre.
Farlingaye High School
If March and April the students from Farlingaye High School thoroughly enjoyed their VR experience learning about the different aspects of design and development.
They will be moving on to the robotics with a special project from Microsoft.
Ipswich Academy
The students from Ipswich Academy got to try out the latest VR tech in their enhanced curriculum sessions and learned a lot about
how the systems may be used in other areas beside video gaming.
They too will be moving on to the robotics with a special project from Microsoft.
Causton, Coneis & Trimley St. Martin
The wonderful students at Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors and Trimley St. Martin had a wonderful time learning about code and generative computer art. Using the fantastic P5JS
language which is based on Processing. In the sessions they were able to create art based on different rules and algorithms.
Handford Hall Primary
The students at Handford Hall Primary got to a sneak peak behind the making of a commercial video game and even got to rewrite parts of it and build their own levels. They learnt
a lot about what makes a good game and the different roles available to them in the games industry.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club kicks off the new year in style!
January / February 2019
It has been a wonderful two months at Creative Computing Club, and we have gotten a lot done. The main four groups focused on web
development in preparation for learning about cloud services in 2019. They also took part in another 10hr Gaming Marathon to raise
money for Suffolk Mind raising over £300 pounds, and you can still donate here. The students of Farlingaye High School, Handford Hall
Primary School, Halifax Primary School, Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors, and Trimley St. Martin are still working with us on projects,
and we are looking forward to adding Abbots Hall Primary School to the schools we work with in January.
We were also fortunate enough to take 15 of our young people to Microsofts Headquarters in Reading for a unique Microsoft experience Day where they got to code with some of the cybersecurity team, have a Q&A with the Minecraft developers and hear from the senior staff what their journey with Microsoft has been like.
It was inspirational, and the young people involved embraced the challenges and opportunities.
The Creative Computing Club CIC also published its second Impact Report which can be read here (3.5MB), and we are very pleased with how far we have come. In 2019 we will be making some fantastic announcements with new services that we will be offering in Suffolk.
Causton Juniors
The students from Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors and Trimley St. Martin have been building IoT apps using the BBC Micro to detect temperatures in the playground. They will be moving on to generative computer art using
Processing in March.
They will be moving on to the fundamentals of Python in the next course, making simple games and some beginner data analysis.
Handford Hall Primary School
Handford Hall Primary School have finished BETA testing their video game and have moved on to creating some amazing generative computer art
using Processing which is inspiring them to create more traditional art outside of the computer room.
Halifax Primary School
Halifax Primary School have been using the graphics assets from Ubisofts Starlink to learn the fundamentals of game programming building a space shooter game in the process. They will be moving on to use the
BBC Microbit to create apps in March.
Farlingaye High School
Farlingaye High School have been learning hardware programming using the Arduino system building projects such as a fridge alarm which triggers an alarm
when opened during certain hours as well as a musical jukebox.
We will be making a huge announcement early March so stay tuned to social media to get the latest news.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club wins UK Youth Hub of the Year 2018!
November / December 2018
It has been a wonderful two months at Creative Computing Club, and we have gotten a lot done. The main four groups focused on web
development in preparation for learning about cloud services in 2019. They also took part in another 10hr Gaming Marathon to raise
money for Suffolk Mind raising over £300 pounds, and you can still donate here. The students of Farlingaye High School, Handford Hall
Primary School, Halifax Primary School, Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors, and Trimley St. Martin are still working with us on projects,
and we are looking forward to adding Abbots Hall Primary School to the schools we work with in January.
The Creative Computing Club CIC also published its second Impact Report which can be read here (3.5MB), and we are very pleased with how far we have come. In 2019 we will be making some fantastic announcements with new services that we will be offering in Suffolk.
The Stowmarket group were taken through Arduino basics at our new Stowmarket base at Orbital Media and made some fantastic gadgets.
They will be moving on to the fundamentals of Python in the next course, making simple games and some beginner data analysis.
The Under 12's did a half-terms worth of Scratch learning the basics and some of the new features included in Scratch 3 coming out in January. They made some amazing games and discovered a lot in the process.
They will be moving on to the fundamentals of Processing in the new year making simple apps and learning loads about generative computer art.
Creative Computing Club at Ipswich Academy
We have been working with 20 young people from Ipswich Academy since September providing an after school club for their students in which time they have built a video game using game maker and learnt the fundamentals of computer programming using Processing.
Next half-term we are going to look at generative computer art and further extend their knowledge of computer programming before moving on to Virtual reality and Arduino programming..
Sony Digital Schoolhouse
As the Creative Computing Club CIC is a Sony PlayStation Digital Schoolhouse, we were able to run a special project using the Starlink game assets. Starlink is a commercially available
game and using the game assets allowed the young people to focus on the code and make some great additions. You can read our full blog on it here with game resources.
In total the Creative Computing Club CIC worked with over 320 young people across Suffolk. Thanks to Digital Schoolhouse and Ubisoft UK for making it possible.
UK Youth Hub of the Year 2018
In partnership with UK Youth the Creative Computing Club CIC has worked with over 200 young people providing an introduction to
programming sessions, and as a special treat, we were invited to the Microsoft Reactor in London to meet up with other hubs from
around the UK and take part in a special hack day.
While we were there, we were awarded the UK Youth Hub of the Year 2018 from Microsoft. We look forward to working with them
again in 2019 and visiting the Microsoft head office in Reading.
We will be making a huge announcement mid-February so stay tuned to social media to get the latest news.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club and the start of a new (Academic) year!
September / October 2018
It has been an intense start to the new academic year the Creative Computing Club CIC has become and official Alternative Provision
for Suffolk County Council and we are now working with several schools all across Suffolk working with over 300 young people a week to provide worthwhile
and engaging digital skills.
Our Tuesday and Wednesday evening courses learnt about Virtual Reality
and the different types of experiences available through it. From "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", "Beat Saber", "SuperHot" and iKinema Orion full body-motion capture with the HTC Vive Trackers. It was a bit of
a treat to try out incredibly expensive, and cutting-edge tech at the start of a new term before they crack on with the hard work of web development with AWS Educate in November and December.
The Under 12's did a half-terms worth of BBC Microbit, using it to create a rock paper scissor game (on the left), a compass, a music player and a calculator. They even used apples
to create a fruit-based musical keyboard (on the right).This was the first course where we ran two groups of Under 12s, and already we are at capacity. They are great fun to work with and have some of the most imaginative ideas for the uses of technology.
For their next course, they will be going on to learn about all the new features in Scratch 3.0, which looks great and has added loads of useful and interesting extras.
Farlingaye Highschool, Woodbridge
Farlingaye High School located in Woodbridge has just short of 2000 pupils, and we are fortunate enough to work with twenty of them this first half-term, learning about video game design and what the implications are for different areas of technology in the future.
Next half-term we are going on to computer programming using python to build various types of applications even further to enhance their understanding of technology and their digital skills.
Their games will be available to play and will be featured in the next blog.
Handford Hall Primary, Ipswich
Handford Hall Primary School in Ipswich a wonderful little school of 355 pupils and we are working with 30 of them to bring their video game ideas to life, using both offline and online resources.
It was a really lovely experience to see the way they view video game narratives and to hear them discuss their ideas for the games they are making; they were very professional especially for such a young age.
Their games will be available to play and will be featured in the next blog.
Halifax Primary, Ipswich
Halifax Primary School in Ipswich has just over 400 pupils, and we are working with just under 60 of them to bring a massive video game to life. Week in and week out we have seen some fantastic ideas come to life and seen iteration after iteration of improvement to their game ideas
not only visually but also the complex narratives that they are building around their games.
We have been using a lot of "Computing Unplugged" concepts with them which we learnt from Sony and the Digital School sessions in London to maximise the pupils use of computing time.
Their games will be available to play and will be featured in the next blog.
Causton Juniors, Colneis Juniors & Trimley St. Martin, Felixstowe
With just under 800 pupils between the three schools and with them so close geographically we decided to make it a collaborative effort between the three schools working with 60 pupils.
It has been a real team effort, so much work has been achieved in such a short period of time, and they have been amazing at discussing their ideas and presenting them to others.
Their games will be available to play and will be featured in the next blog.
We have also been fortunate enough to start work with Ipswich Academy with a year long project funded by the Ipswich Borough Councils Area Committees and we will be talking about this on our next blog. Apologies for the latest of the blog but as you can see we have been quite busy.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club and the summer of Artificial Intelligence
July / August 2018
We had a great summer and we covered a lot during our July / August courses; Artificial Intelligence, Game Making, Animation
and more. Our Ipswich and Campsea Ashe groups looked at how neural nets work and finished off their courses with a hands-on experience IBM Watson to build
a chatbot.
We had a our annual games week and got to try out the Microsoft Hololens thanks to Orbital Media as well as the new Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. We also had a lot of nostalgia after playing Wii Sports Resort and Minecraft throughout the week.
The Creative Computing Club took part in the Ludum Dare 42 producing loads of interesting games based around the theme of "Running Out of Space".
We plan to take part in future Ludum Dare Games Jams as we had a lot of fun having to think fast to make a game in 48 hours.
The Friday Under 12's group has grown significantly and completed a course in animation making some amazing and hilarious animations.
They are going on to do a course using the BBC Microbit where they will be building interesting and useful apps for the fantastic little gadget.
The Monday Stowmarket group have completed their introduction to Game Maker and produced a lot of fantastic games and will shortly be moving
on to website development.
Over the summer we also ran twelve Generation Code sessions for UK Youth and Microsoft to encourage young people to try out coding, it was really good fun, and we think we have found a bunch of talented new coders.
Some of the older Creative Computing Club members who trained with UK Youth to become "Code Champions" were on hand to help out, and they did a fantastic job supporting the younger newer coders.
We are really grateful to More Bongo Limited, Sloan Squared and a number of other excellent local businesses generously purchased laptops on behalf of the Creative Computing Club allowing us to run the workshops for over 60 young people, who otherwise would not have been able to take part and for that we are genuinely grateful.
And last but not least a we were fortunate to write a guest blog for UKIE, Digital Schoolhouse you can read about it
here . We were
also recently interviewed by Tech East and you can read about that here.
It has been a busy couple of months but it is set to get even busier as the Creative Computing Club CIC has now been made an Alternative Provision by
the Suffolk County Council and we are set to begin work with eight new schools in Suffolk.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club and the Robots
May / June 2018
We have had another fantastic two months with the four groups in Ipswich focussing on Robotics, looking at several different types and
uses of robots each week. From robotic arms to drones, soft-robotics to full-size androids. We had great fun using some cutting-edge
robots to further our learning and understanding of the potential of robotics.
Our two satellite groups at the Railway Station in Campseas Ashe and the Red Gables, Stowmarket are up and running.
The Campsea Ashe
Creative Computing Club have successfully built an Automated Herb Garden, which monitors the soil temperature, air temperature, humidity, soil moisture and
tweets a message to tell us when it needs watering. The group have earned a British Science Association Bronze CREST award for their hard work. This project was funbded by the Seckford Foundation and the Alfred Williams Trust.
The Stowmarket group have completed their introduction to programming, where they learned the fundamentals of computer programming building
several different apps and games. They also learned how to take control of the web cameras do real-time image analysis and build a paint program
using processing.
The Under 11s got stuck into robotics and achieved loads, building art robots, programmed robots to deliver packages, talk and A.I. how to
recognise shapes and also got to have a hands on with cutting-edge "Soft Robotics".
Behind the scenes, we trained up several of our older Creative Computing Club members with UK Youth to become "Code Champions" to help us
deliver workshops using the BBC Microbits and generally improve the level of computer science in Suffolk.
Some of our staff also got to attend training at UKIE as the Creative Computing Club CIC has now become a Digital Schoolhouse Powered by PlayStation,
which means we will have the funding and support to bring computer science to several primary and secondary schools in the Suffolk area.
And last but not least a huge shout-out to The Seckford Foundation who have funded our Campsea Ashe Railway Station group
so we can deliver courses in the area for another six months. This will mean we can do a lot more with the young people in the area and provide them with engaging and worthwhile activities.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club and Big Data
March / April 2018
We have had an amazing March / April looking at Big Data and what perfect timing with all of the concerns over Facebook
and Cambridge Analytica. We started off by looking at Space X mission data, then weather data over the last 100 years,
then Facebook Scandal broke, and this turned our attention to scraping the last 50 tweets of elected officials and running
psychometric analysis on those. We rounded off the course looking at data taken from a FitBit over a two week period and
were able to make predictions based on the data.
In addition to analysing data, we were able to watch the Judiciary Senate Committee live and discuss what impact if any
these revelations would have on the young people and their online lives. Overall it was a great course, and we were
better able to understand and access the world of data all around us. The Ipswich groups will be moving on to Robotics
for their next course.
We also took part in Ludum Dare 41 an online game jame with thousands of other creators rushing to make a game in 72 hours.
You can see some of our games here. Gradris, Field of Skulls and War Musician.
It was great fun, we learned a lot and look forward to doing Ludum Dare 42 in four months time.
For our satellite group at The Station House, Campsea Ashe, Wickham Market they started to learn all about Game Maker
and began to make platformer games. It was the first time any of them had made a video game, and they did incredibly
well to create some fantastic worlds. They will be moving on to building an Automated Herb Garden thanks to a grant
from the Alfred Williams Trust.
In March and April, we ran three one-off courses for the home-ed community one on Safer Internet, on robotics and one on game making. It was great fun, and many of them
got to discover new digital skills they never knew they had. A few of them have now joined us for the regular weekly groups as they enjoyed the one-off sessions so much.
And last but not least a huge shout-out to two10degrees who got involved with the Creative Computing Club members sponsoring her
so she could sit her IGCSE in Computer Science with us, it is a huge boost to her confidence knowing that an amazing local tech company is looking out for her.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club Funding Update
April 2018
We have had a busy March but spreading the word about what the Creative Computing Club CIC does has really paid off. Firstly we are really please to announce.
The Creative Computing Club CIC is receiving £8500.00 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment
Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 via the StartEast Small Grant Scheme. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for the European
Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing
in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regeneration. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding .
This funding will allow us to expand our services to Stowmarket and Wickham Market setting up and expanding groups to serve more people in rural areas. It will also enable us to build our adaptive learning platform to better teach young people Computer Science in Suffolk. Finally, it will help us buy new equipment for day to day use.
We are incredibly grateful for the support and training we have received from Start East and their mentors which have helped us to look at what we offer Suffolk and how we deliver our services.
The second bit of good news comes in the form of a Community Business Trade Up Grant of £10,000.00 from the School of Social Entrepreneurs
The grant match funds any improvement of income over last year. Last year the Creative Computing Club CIC's turnover was £18k so if we make £28k this year the Community Business Trade Up Grant will match fund us up to £10k. So it encourages us to grow our business and rewards us accordingly.
Combined with the grant comes a load of support and mentoring from the Eastern Enterprise Hub which has been a constant supporter of the organisation from its formation as a CIC.
This fund will allow us to take on support staff and pay our fulltime staff a salary.
And finally, we have very gratefully received £1500.00 from the Alfred Williams Charitable Trust to run a series of special environmental focussed technology workshops in Stowmarket and Wickham Market to engage rural people with technology. Their charity is focussed on environmental and rural issues,
so this is the first time they have ever funded anything like this, so we hope to do them proud.
So in total that is £20,000.00 in funding for 2018. It has been a long journey to get here, and we still feel we will need a bit more funding to hire additional staff a set up additional satellite groups to better serve Suffolk,
but it is certainly a massive boost to help us deliver what we do. This is the first time the Creative Computing Club CIC has received such significant funding in its six years of running in Suffolk.
We are genuinely grateful for all the support the people of Suffolk has given us and look forward to engaging more young people with technology.
A huge and sincere thanks to all the organisations involved especially Start East and the Eastern Enterprise Hub without whom this would have not been possible.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club A Great Start to a New Year
January / February 2018
We have had a busy start to the new year year in our four Ipswich groups we have been looking at the
fundamentals of computer programming with Python and Processing. We had a visit to the Government Digital Service
in London to work on a project using their development framework. We also had a chance to visit Goldman Sach investment
bank to learn a bit about how and how much teachnology they use in their daily work. Both the visits were incredibly inspiring
for our young people and for several of them it gave them a goal to focus on for their future careers.
At the end of January we had a visit by Joe Kinglake a former student, Creative Computing Club helper and games
designer (formerly Guerilla Games/ Cloud Imperium games) to talk about designing games in Games Jam environment.
It was great to catch up with him and to see how he has grown as a designer and an individual.
Febrauary marked our annual "Safer Internet Day" session and this year we took all the groups through discussion / workshop
teaching them the dangers, how to report and protect themselves while being online.
We got some amazingly thoughtful discussions from our young people, who shared their experiences and concerns about online safety.
Our 12 to 16-year-old and the adult group at the Station House, Campsea Ashe, Wickham Market "Station X" began their web development
course and have learned some introductory HTML,css and javascript culminating in the building of PONG in javascript.
All of our groups 12 - 16 and adult groups will now be moving on to Big Data and the Internet of Things, with our Under 11s moving on to
learning about video game design. We are in the middle of updating our website but if you are interested in taking part be sure to get in contact.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club Gets Ready for Lift Off
November / December 2017
An action-packed final two months of 2017 rounding off the year with an in-depth, hands-on look at
virtual reality. Throughout the course, we looked at the PSVR, the HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and
the Google Cardboard. It was an excellent way to round of the year and relax before we focus on
some intense and exciting projects in the new year.
In 2018 we will be focussing on programming, game design, Big Data & IoT, Robotics, AI, Cyber Security and AR/VR.
Alongside this we have some exciting projects with Government Digital Services,
the European Space Agency, Astro Pi as well as a few work placements and interneships
for the young people we work with. We will also be taking part in a number of games jams and attend gaming events all over
county to give our young people the opportunity to expolore all of the careers open to them.
The Under 11's have had a great year earning British Science Crest Awards, Trinity Arts Awards and ended the it by having a course on the BBC MicroBit thanks to the MicroBit Foundation.
They ended the year with an xmas party and a Mario Kart 8 tournament.
A number of the Under 11's will be moving up to the 12 to 16-year-old groups as they are growing up and need to take that next step to advance their skills.
Our 12 to 16-year-old group at the Station House, Campsea Ashe, Wickham Market "Station X" is going strong and got to try out some VR equipment while learning the fundamentals of programming. They will return in the new year looking at web development.
We will also soon be offering an adult course at the Station House on Thursday evenings, 18:30pm to 20:00pm starting on the 4th of January. The first course for adults will be looking at web development, get in contact via email if you are interested in attending.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Courses page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation CEO & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation Launch
The event was hosted by the Eastern Enterprise Hub in the Aquarium to a full house of guests from all over Suffolk. The catering was provided by Cult Cafe and staffed by volunteers from the Creative Computing Club.
It was a fantastic evening of talks and discussion about technology, education and what the Creative Computing Club CIC has been achieving with young people in Suffolk and how the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation aims to add to that.
Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation launch. We sincerely hope you found it both informative and entertaining.
You can now donate online through paypal by following the link below. We can even claim Gift Aid if you allow us to collect your postal address.
Online
The launch was also a huge success online with the #CCCCFLaunch and @CCCCFSuffolk trending in Suffolk for three days and was tweeting by over 500 people and seen by over 100,000 people across the world.
We are very grateful to have these organisations as sponsors to the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation. They have have helped us tremendously as an organisation both finacially and through their considerable experience in technology and video games.
If you wish to sponsor the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation with a substantial donation or on behalf of an organisation, or sponsor the Creative Computing Club CIC please get in contact at info@creativecomputingclub.com
Thank you again for your support, let's work together to ensure that Suffolk becomes a leader in technology skills for young people.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation Founder & Trustee
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club Makes A Lot of Games
September / October 2017
September and October was all about gaming for the Creative Computing Club from making games, running a 24 Hour Games Jam to traveling to EGX in Birmingham for a massive games expo. All four 12 to 16-year-old groups took part in the games making course which included remaking
classic games from the 1980's using the excellent Game Maker software.
With the 8 week course over it was time for the Creative Computing Club to run its first 24 hour Games Jam where the young people had to design and build as much of a game as possible by the end of the 24 hours. The theme which was given at the start of the Games Jam was "Trick Or Treat" and the winning team took home a huge bundle of games a software donated by Bundle Stars / Fanatical.
The winning team made "Give Me Sweets or Die" which was a fully working demo with online leaderboard, which was incredibly impressive given the timeframe.
Meanwhile, the Under 11's have been hard at work learning the fundamentals of computer programming using Processing and
creating generative computer art.
They are now joined on Fridays by Megan, a former Creative Computing Club member and Creative Computing Clubs' first employee.
EGX, Birmingham Trip
On the 23rd of September we took a minibus of Creative Computing Club members to EGX in Birmingham to see what the game industry is up to and to play on a lot of great games old and new. They got to talk to a lot of game developers, universities and some former
Creative Computing Club members who were demoing their first commercial game "RUYA".
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Events page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club 2017 Questionnaire Summary
September 2017
The Creative Computing Club is a community interest company, therefore the positive impact we have on young people's lives, the educational and social opportunities we provide them are of more importance to us than generating a profit.
Out of the 39 young people we work with on a weekly basis, we got 25 responses from the young people and 19 completed questionnaires from the parents. A full breakdown of those
numbers can be found in the reports. Overall we are very pleased that both parents and students feel that the young people we work with are gaining more confidence, technology skills and social skills from attending the Creative Computing Club.
You can download the attendee questionnaire summary here,
and you can download the parent questionnaire summary here.
There is some lovely feedback and it has allowed us to create new goals for the Creative Computing Club.
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Events page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club Work Hard and Play Hard!
July / August 2017
We have had an incredibly busy 8 weeks over the summer which had us running an Cram Week where we worked through the fourteen
chapters in the iGCSE Computer Science coursebook.
We also had a week long gaming marathon full of retro gaming, D&D and VR check out the full gallery here.
Behind the scenes the Creative Computing Club has been busy and have had the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation approved by the charities commission. It is now registered charity number 1174658.
You can attend the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation launch event on November 24th, it is a free event and tickets are available from eventbrite here.
Finally thanks to O'reily for supporting the games week and offering up some great books as prizes!
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Events page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club, some virtual, some reality!
May / June 2017
In another action packed 8 weeks Group A & B have been trying out the HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR & PSVR on their virtual reality course. Group C & D have been playing with Lasers. Group E the Under 11s have had their animation course
be sure to check out our Youtube page here and the video below. The automated herb garden is complete so they should be receiving their certificates shortly but sadly the launch of the high altitude balloon has been delayed until later in the summer when we can get a good launch opportunity.
Behind the scenes it has been incredibly hectic. Firstly, we have started our crowdfunding campaign to build a Creative Computing Centre you can check it out here.
Secondly, we have also been busy filing paperwork for the Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation more details of that can be found here.
The Creative Computing Club Charitable Foundation helps young people aged 11 to 22 in Suffolk from low income families purchase computers and software to help with their studies.
Finally, Matthew has been successfully nominated for the BAFTA YGD Mentor for his work with the Creative Computing Club!
We will have lots of new courses listed soon, join the Facebook Page to get regular updates and
be sure to check out our Upcoming Events page and enrol early to avoid disappointment.
Matthew C. Applegate
Creative Computing Club Founder & Director
Make things, make friends, have fun.
Creative Computing Club™