Creative Brief for Sunday October 16th 2016 The theme of DesignMcr 2016 is ‘Design City’. DesignMcr is celebrating the part design plays in making Manchester and other cities great to live in. Not just our architecture, culture and world-class media, but the growth of start-ups and studios in creative tech, shops for a design-conscious generation… Continue reading

Last week, the Manchester CoderDojo volunteers got together to think about our planned events for 2016, and to also look back at all we did in 2015. We certainly want to do more projects and challenges that can be developed throughout the year. We’re also keen to build on some of the activities we tried… Continue reading

Can you believe that it’s nearly three years since our first Manchester CoderDojo? Back then, we weren’t really sure if anybody would be interested in the idea of a regular youth club for digital hacking, making & playing. 27 events, hundreds or people and thousands of lines of code later, it seems to have been… Continue reading

With back-to-school in full swing, we wanted to share some links and important news about upcoming events.. CoderDojo #26 – 18th October 2015 Not quite our usual “second Sunday” – but tickets available: First wave – Saturday 26th September at 5pm Second wave – Sunday 4th October at 5pm HackManchester Jnr – 26 & 27… Continue reading

We’re looking forward to Manchester Day tomorrow. There’s absolutely loads of things going on in the city centre, all around the theme of “Game On”… Plus we’ll have our very own corner in Central library, to create a virtual parade alongside the actual one making it’s way through the city centre. We’ll be using both… Continue reading

As we get ready for CoderDojo 22, we’re already thinking ahead to our June event. In fact, we’ve a special announcement to make – CoderDojo 23 (June 14th) will take place at the Central Library in Manchester City Centre. Why would we (temporarily) leave our spacious and brilliant home at Sharp? Well, June 14th is… Continue reading

Finally – we’ve reached issue number 42 of our newsletter, and so the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything! Our originally intention was a weekly email. Avid readers will have noticed that isn’t the current frequency – if you fancy volunteering to help us get back on track, please let… Continue reading

As we get ready for the 21st Manchester CoderDojo, we wanted to highlight a couple of international links.. On International Women’s Day on 8th March, the “Making IT Happen for Women” event has a range of speakers and workshops in the city centre. A few days later (12th March), the Sharp Project, host another Digital… Continue reading

Many thanks to all those that made our first CoderDojo of 2015 last weekend – which was also our 20th! It was also fantastic to hear from Eugene about the range of CoderDojos across the world. We also had some positive chats about getting groups going in other parts of Greater Manchester. Interested to get… Continue reading

With our 20th CoderDojo event nearly upon us, we thought we’d take a look at some of the numbers behind the nine events we held in 2014. We made this this infographic with some of the numbers. Some of the headlines were: We think just over 700 different people booked a place at a Manchester… Continue reading

A (belated) happy new year! Wishing you lots of making and coding in 2015. We’ve set the dates for Manchester CoderDojo for the next few months. As always, it will be the second Sunday of the month, 11-3pm, at The Sharp Project. To make things easier, we’ve also put all the dates for the ticket… Continue reading

As the nights draw in, it seems our newsletter is becoming less frequent :( That doesn’t mean a lack of activity though – so please accept this as bumper update… First up, congratulations to volunteer Anthony, who was awarded “The Most Dedicated STEM Ambassador” title at the House of Lords. If you’ve been to one… Continue reading

A very busy week this half term. MozFest was fantastic – we even managed to get some FirefoxOS phones to test and play with at the next CoderDojo. We also learnt a lot more about the Hive Learning Network model in cities such as New York, Chicago and Toronto – Manchester could be next on… Continue reading

This weekend, quite a few of Manchester CoderDojo volunteers, participants and supporters are at MozFest in London, to learn more about teaching, learning and building the web. It’s based in Greenwich, just as the clocks go back…. so we will try and think of something relevant for picture of the week next week! But, after… Continue reading

Arrgh – sorry everyone. I got the times and dates mixed up on the last newsletter. Tickets for Manchester CoderDojo #18 will be available as follows: wave one tickets – 5pm, Saturday 18th October wave two tickets – 9am, Saturday 25th October Again – sorry if that meant you were trying to get tickets this… Continue reading

Many thanks to all of you who made Manchester CoderDojo number 17 on Sunday. From carrot pianos to Minecraft castles, to Rube Goldberg traps and electrocuted children* – it was great fun. Before you know it, Manchester CoderDojo #18 on November 9th will be here, so we thought it best to send a newsletter out… Continue reading

Only a week before McrCoderDojo #17. As always, tickets are all gone. As ever – please, please let us know if you can’t make it… Elsewhere, some volunteers are planning to be at MozFest in London on 24-26th October. Do let us know if you’ll be there. Dave has been been working on the Minecraft… Continue reading

Thanks to all who signed up for tickets for CoderDojo #17 last week. The second wave of tickets are now available (from 9am).. As always, if you can’t no longer make the event, please please let us know. We will soon have a waiting list :( This weekend, there’s a CoderDojo in Cheadle (today) and… Continue reading

Lots of excitement this week. Following the news of Microsoft buying Minecraft, McrCoderDojo’s very own Barney was live in the CBBC Newsround studio! A new local CoderDojo starts tomorrow in Stockport – good luck! And… tickets for CoderDojo 17 (12th October) are now available…!

Many thanks to all those that came to our 16th CoderDojo event today. As you’ll see from this video – it was a busy one! Before you know it, CoderDojo #17 (Sunday 12th October) will be here – so just chance to pass on the important info for ticket release: – First wave: Saturday, 20th… Continue reading

With the new school year upon us, there was quite a lot of attention on the inclusion of coding lessons. Hence, Steven was featured in a (somewhat binary) discussion on the Manchester Evening News website, whilst CoderDojo regular Johnathan regular helped BBC FiveLive presenters understand computing (go to 25mins)! Plus – a great blog from… Continue reading

The last Sunday of the summer holidays! Just time to let you all know that tickets are now out for Manchester CoderDojo #16 – to be held at The Sharp Project, 14th September (11am-3pm). If you miss the tickets today, then we’ll also have another batch out with the newsletter next week (5pm, Sat 6th… Continue reading

So – our weekly newsletter suddenly became monthly! Apologies for the absence in the past few weeks – and most probably over the August period too. We all need holiday time :) CoderDojo 15 was a great success…. Minecraft, Python, Scratch, Raspberry Pi plus the great new Code Bugs! Thanks to all those that came… Continue reading

Thanks to all those that signed up for tickets for McrCoderDojo #15, in record time again. Second wave tickets available now. Plus – we’ve also set the dates for Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec at The Sharp Project. Later this week, I’m speaking at an event organised by the BBC and Google. I’ll be on… Continue reading

What better way to celebrate the longest day of the year than the first release of tickets for Manchester CoderDojo #15 (July 13th)! We know how quickly these go – dont forget the second wave will be out next Saturday at 5pm (with this newsletter). This week, Dave edited together the video of our Rube… Continue reading

It was fantastic to see so many new and familar faces at #McrCoderDojo #14 last Sunday. The event went really well, finishing off with some manic coding and connecting .. video to follow very soon! This week, we’ve set-up the dates for CoderDojo at The Sharp Project for July, Sept, Oct, Nov and December (August… Continue reading

We’ve been preparing for McrCoderDojo #14 this week. Dave has put together a draft order for the Rube Goldberg machine on both the wiki and youtube, whilst we’ve has a few volunteer calls to discuss how Sunday will work out. So, a short newsletter – we look forward to seeing some people tomorrow, and others… Continue reading

First up – image of the week is great! Secondly – the last wave of tickets for Manchester CoderDojo #14 are now out (5pm, Saturday 31 May). As predicted, the first wave were snapped up in record time. Please consider the places you need when booking… Elsewhere, several volunteers have been busy talking and discussing… Continue reading

Yes, it’s two weeks before our next CoderDojo.. so that means (as advertised) that the first wave of tickets are out…. Still here? We’re always amazed how quickly tickets go. Apparently, we’re the biggest CoderDojo in the world. I’m not 100% sure if this would stand up to testing, but we certainly enjoy welcoming people…. Continue reading

Many thanks to all those who made to to #McrCoderDojo 13 last week. We wanted to build the World’s Largest CoderDojo Rube Goldberg Machine (in Manchester, on a Sunday). Catch up on progress: Video of Big Trak to SMS to dominoes… across the campus area of The Sharp Project… Write up by DJ on connecting… Continue reading

This weekend, we’re starting a three-month challenge. Just recently, we’ve seen hacks connecting Minecraft blocks to Scratch scripts, realworld switches to virtual lights, Raspberry Pi to .. Glockenspiels… and many many others But …. we want to connect these together! This is the Rube Goldberg machine project we’ve mentioned before. Our challenge is to build… Continue reading

Once again, we had an amazing response to the tickets for Manchester CoderDojo #13 – all gone in a few short hours…. Actually, those were not *all* the tickets. We held a few back, in an attempt to try and help those that missed the first wave. Hence, there are some more places available if… Continue reading

It’s great to announce our 13th Manchester CoderDojo. For some, 13 is an unlucky number. For us, it just isn’t the case: We’re lucky to have a great venue supporting us with logistics, security, food and wifi… We’re lucky to have a brilliant bunch of volunteers who dedicate hours to making things happen… We’re lucky… Continue reading

With April / Easter holidays making it impractical to host a CoderDojo, we’ve been busy planning for May, June and July! Ever heard of a Rube Goldberg Machine? You’ve probably seen or even made one – such efforts as the Honda advert or OK Go video are very popular. So – our theme for Manchester… Continue reading

Third week running and we have royalty in the newsletter! This week the Duke of York launched the “Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award“: to support more than one million young people to pursue their own ideas, develop their digital skills and get to grips with the reality of business. And then, the Raspberry Pi Education Fund… Continue reading

Another week, another member of Manchester CoderDojo meets a royal. This week, Amy met Princess Anne and talked about doing stuff at FabLab! Elsewhere, it’s great to see Lisa and folks get CoderDojo Cheadle together – the first meetup will be on 17th May. Since Manchester CoderDojo started, Wilmslow, Bolton, Cheadle and Warrington have established…. Continue reading

We’ve had 12 CoderDojos in 15 months, and now 12 newsletters in the past 15 weeks! So, we thought it might be a good time to look at some data. At CoderDojo events, we’ve had 1060 places booked in total. Of these, 543 have been for young people. For the newsletter, we’ve had 3828 successful… Continue reading

After a fantastic CoderDojo last week, we’re already looking forward One thing we’re really keen to progress is “what happens between CoderDojos” – so we’ve started to post some projects ideas on our wiki. Dave has shared an idea on building a Rube Goldberg type project – involving both physical and virtual worlds. Anyone interested?… Continue reading

As ever, we’re looking forward to our event at The Sharp Project tomorrow. All the spaces have long gone – if you can’t make it then please please let us know… This is our tenth weekly newsletter. Alongside this, some of the Manchester CoderDojo community have been busy writing words: Dave introduces the visual programming… Continue reading

Whilst preparing for CoderDojo 12, we’ve had some fun trying to see how things stick together. Often, we have different tables for Minecraft, Python, Raspberry Pi, Scratch and other stuff. Of course, things crossover, but we’re hoping to start to see more – like the idea of turning a real world light on and off… Continue reading

Woah – people really seem to love Manchester CoderDojo. All the places for CoderDojo #12 went in record time… we were amazed. It does mean that some people are on the waiting list though. Please please let us know if you can’t make it so we can share a place with others… Aside from our… Continue reading

Wow  – you all showed up! Many thanks to all 142 of you that attended  CoderDojo #11 last week – it was great! We’ve now got the tickets up for the next one: Sunday March 9th (11-3pm) We’ve also been busy getting some stuff online: DJ has blogged about the Scratch workshops from CoderDojo #11 Chris from… Continue reading

Whilst we’re gearing up for the CoderDojo at The Sharp Project next weekend, we noticed that tomorrow (Sunday 2nd Feb) is Groundhog Day AND the Superbowl. One is about animal that apparently predicts the future. The other is something everyone wants to predict! We’ve searched around for code projects that bring these together – think… Continue reading

This week we got a call from the BBC! There was a big education technology conference taking place in London, with some announcements about computing education in schools. We talked about how our Manchester CoderDojo has grown in the past year, and possible reasons for this. The outcome: we were featured on BBC news…. “Teenage… Continue reading

Two great things this week! First of all, thanks to everyone who signed up to the next CoderDojo on 9th Feb. All tickets were registered inside FOUR DAYS! Wow – we’ve had to create another waitlist. So – if you can’t make it, or use all places you’ve booked then please let us know as… Continue reading

Get your calendars ready as we’ve some dates to share! We’re happy to confirm Manchester CoderDojo at the Sharp Project on: 9th Feb 9th March 11th May 8th June 6th July To get us started, we’ve setup the tickets for the first event on Sunday 9th February (11am-3pm): https://mcrcoderdojo11.eventbrite.co.uk. Please book your places. But please… Continue reading

Wishing you all a happy new year – let’s make some great things in 2014. We’re just getting back into things – stay tuned next week for dates and tickets for the next set of CoderDojo events. In the meantime, we hope some of these links of stuff that might be of interest….

It’s that time between christmas and new year. There’s loads to do – but where to start? That new project you thought of a while back? Or something new? Thankfully, there’s plenty of guides, tutorials and suggestions in communities such as DIY.com, Instructables, Makezine and many others… We spent a bit of time finding stuff… Continue reading

It’s the last full week of the first full year of Manchester CoderDojo. What better time to send our first newsletter! It’s been a great year. We’re close to getting dates set-up for 2014. What we really need to know is what you want Manchester Coder Dojo to be. Please fill out our survey for… Continue reading

Around 150 people came along to our 10th CoderDojo on Sunday – a year to the day since our very first!  It’s been an amazing year – many thanks to all those who’ve attended and supported us by hacking, playing, volunteering and (in the early days) making tea! We’re really looking forward to 2014.  Alongside… Continue reading