As a STEM ambassador, I’ve done quite a lot of practical science lessons with my children and primary age school children. There are lots of science books that you can get full of experiments that you can do at home. When they reach secondary school it’s a little more difficult without having a science lab […]

As a parent I understand how important it is to keep children entertained. This is now even harder with the country in lockdown over a sunny Easter holiday. Here are some links to useful activities. Scouts – The Great Indoors Scouts is normally considered an outdoor organisation. In fact during leader training Scout leaders are […]

This year our main holiday was at Easter. We still wanted to do something during the summer but having spent a lot on the previous holiday it needed to be something less expensive. One option was for a camping trip. Our son loved the idea, but not so much our daughter. It’s not that she […]

In the past I have run a Code Club in a mainstream first / primary school. This involved going into the school at the end of the normal school day and spending 45 minutes to an hour working on Scratch projects. This is something that I really enjoyed, watching children taking their first steps in […]

The ESA European Astro Pi Project – “Mission Zero”, involved school children creating code that actually ran on the International Space Station (ISS). My son joined with a friend (both aged 9 at the time it was submitted) to create a Python program that ran on the International Space station during February 2018. Here’s his […]

This Christmas we visited the Gloucestershare and Warwickshire Railway for the Santa Special steam train. The train was from Cheltenham Racecourse railway station. The train was fully booked, but there were enough tables for everyone to find a comfortable seat. We started with a train journey to the “North Pole” station. The carriage was decorated […]

Video and photos from our visit to the Birmingham Christmas Market in 2016.

These are some of the Halloween Projects I’ve created. Haunted House A scary haunted house, using a Raspberry Pi, home automation, electronics and scary music. Raspberry Pi Haunted House Raspberry Pi MotionSensor Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin My son’s Motion Sensor based Light Up Pumpkin project Halloween Motion Sensor Pumpkin Wizard of Oz Costume A Wizard of Oz […]

My 8 year old son has now completed another Raspberry Pi project. This project is a Halloween Pumpkin, or jack-o’-lantern, which is triggered whenever someone comes near. It uses a PIR motion sensor to detect someone entering the room and then lights up a sequence of NeoPixels. In this case these are static green and […]

Another year and another Pycon UK. For 2016 the UK’s community Python Conference was held in Cardiff, Wales. It’s also the fourth year that they’ve included a special Children’s day on the Saturday. This included a day of kids coding on Raspberry Pi computers (Pi-Top CEED) and this year each child received a micro:bit to […]