Jamm Labs Projects in Development
Jamm Labs is our intergenerational learning programme. We are developing media, electronics, art, practical skills, and experimental community learning projects.
Can You Help?
Many of these projects have already been tested successfully in practice, but creating clear guides, printable activities, videos, facilitator notes, and reusable resources takes significant additional work.
Could you help us develop some of the following projects to deliver in the following settings: Schools, community organisations, festivals, home education and alternative provision settings.
Battle Buggies
A mini robot wars project and ideal project-based learning jam material.
Participants build and customise small battling robots using simple electronics and programmable controllers. The activity combines rapid prototyping, teamwork, experimentation, and playful competition.
The project has already been successfully delivered several times in workshop settings and has proven highly engaging for mixed-age groups.
More information is available on the Noisy Toys website.
Tools used: Crumble controllers, stepped motors, sensors
Topics explored: Electronics, teamwork, rapid prototyping, coding, playful engineering
Project Status: The project has been successfully piloted multiple times. Documentation and teaching resources are partially developed, but more work is needed to make the project fully replicable as an open educational resource.
Tiny robots. Maximum chaos.
Battle Buggies in action during a public workshop
Our main aim is to develop these projects into flexible open educational resources which can support home education, alternative provision, community groups, and informal learning settings.
While the projects have been tested successfully through practical workshops, the current focus is on improving documentation, activity structures, printable resources, and facilitator guidance so they can be used more independently and remotely by others.
Buggy Battles project logo
Sketchy Robots
Using a low-cost robot base with limited ability and a slightly wonky personality, participants use beginner-friendly electronics and programmable controllers to bring a robot character to life.
The robots are intentionally imperfect and expressive. Rather than focusing purely on technical precision, the workshops encourage humour, storytelling, and social messaging through making.
Participants work in small teams to develop positive messages connected to people, communities, or the environment.
See our report on a Social action project at a Todmorden school, in which Sketchy Robots played an important role.
Topics explored: Environmental and social issues, electronics, safe tool use, collaborative design
Tools used: Crumble controllers, LEDs, stepped motors, sensors
Project Status: The project has already been successfully delivered and has strong internal workshop resources. Further work is needed to turn these into openly shareable and easily replicable educational materials.
Sketchy Robots in development
Wonky robots with surprisingly good intentions.
Future development work may include downloadable activity packs, printable templates, short facilitator videos, and modular workshop pathways for schools, festivals, and community organisations.
Retro Video News
Take advantage of older broadcast-quality cameras to make short news reports and feed them back to the community through screenings and local sharing events.
Project Status: Resources and pedagogy need updating and testing.
Tools proposed: Tape-based video cameras, Kdenlive, video projectors
Topics explored: Media literacy, non-linear video editing
Notes for Improvement: Existing resources on short video making and Kdenlive need updating.
DIY Video Reporting - Adele and Tim as part of People’s Voice Media work
Media Background
Mick’s background in DIY and community media goes back to early experiments with online video journalism and activist media projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Between 1999 and 2001 he worked with Undercurrents in Oxford, a well-known grassroots video activism project documenting environmental protests, direct action movements, and alternative culture.
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Later work in Manchester included involvement with Beyond TV and Indymedia, exploring early forms of online video publishing, citizen journalism, and internet-based activism long before mainstream social media platforms existed.
Mick later developed a content management system called ClearerChannel for the UK National Computing Centre, focused on community publishing and media sharing tools.
This community media work continued through projects with People’s Voice Media, including the Community Reporters programme and work developing social media and publishing toolsets to support community storytelling projects.
Radio & Podcasting
Pirate media, recycled technology, DIY learning, and community-made culture.
The UK has a long tradition of community radio projects creating local connection, experimentation, and participation. While traditional radio stations can require significant infrastructure and licensing, newer low-cost tools open up possibilities for more decentralised forms of community broadcasting.
Rather than only focusing on individual podcast creators, this project is interested in the idea of community podcasting, shared production, local reporting, collaborative storytelling, and media made with and for local groups.
Some artwork from a community radio project Redbrick Radio from Hulme Manchester
Using old equipment from radio stations, musicians, schools, and community groups to record podcasts, interviews, field recordings, and local audio reports.
The project explores how low-cost and reused equipment can support collaborative forms of community podcasting and local storytelling, while also introducing participants to practical audio production techniques.
Topics explored: Media literacy, interviewing, sound recording, collaborative production, non-linear audio editing
Tools used: Audacity, microphones, audio mixers, portable digital audio recorders
Project Status: Early pilot activities and background experience are already in place, but the resources and pedagogy need further development to become flexible open educational resources suitable for home education, alternative provision, and community learning settings.
Screen Printing
Screen printing is a fantastic accessible and messy technology. Using Inkscape we design our print logos, which is a great way to learn about vector graphic editing and DIY publishing processes.
Northlight Studios in Hebden Bridge are natural partners for this work as they already do screen printing.
What we can add are skills and enthusiasm for Inkscape and FLOSS approaches.
Tools used: Inkscape, screen printing kit
Project Status: Resources and pedagogy need significant development.
Prototype print and design workshops
Animation & Digital Art
Using paper, pencil, and varied software packages to develop digital art and animation projects.
This includes experimental drawing activities, simple animation workflows, collage approaches, and remixing techniques using FLOSS creative software.
Software used: Krita, GIMP, Kdenlive
Topics explored: Media literacy, drawing techniques, animation, layer-based graphical editing
Project Status: Early exploratory stages. It would be fantastic to find other people or a suitable project to develop this work with prototype workshops and resources.
Digital drawing and animation experiments
Krita grew through community support and crowdfunding into one of the world’s best free digital art tools.
Originally developed by a small open-source community of artists and programmers, Krita expanded through donations and crowdfunding support from people who believed powerful creative software should be freely available to everyone.
It works especially well with drawing tablets, making it a fantastic tool for illustration, comics, animation, and experimental digital art projects.
Test A Trade
The process of learning what would be involved in a trade is explored through hands-on experience.
This work is inspired partly by our community repair activities at the Makery workshop, where young people helped repair objects brought in by the public, and partly by Hayley’s work at Plumb Learning CiC teaching practical plumbing skills. See https://plumblearning.org
Possible pathways explored include:
- Web Designer: creating a simple website via a GitHub repository and JAMstack approach
- Graphic Designer: vector and layer-based graphic design while working to a brief
- Electrician: fuses, circuits, household wiring
- Electronics Engineer: Arduino-based electronics
There is also potential for these projects to connect with local makers, artists, tradespeople, and community organisations.
The long-term aim is to help young people build confidence, explore possible futures, and reconnect practical and creative work.
Tools used: Varied
Topics explored: Practical problem solving, creative workflows, evaluating possible professions
Project Status: Exploratory stages.
Practical and technical workshop experiments See https://plumblearning.org