Inspiring Families to Explore Creative Tech at BFX Family Weekend 2017

Last weekend we partnered with Bournemouth University at the BFX Family Weekend to inspire families to explore creative technology, animation, coding, micro:bit, craft with tech and more. It was a busy weekend with over a 1000 parents, grandparents and children finding new (and old - thanks to the Computing Museum) ways to explore computers and technology.


BFX Family Weekend comes at the end of the BFX Festival hosted by the Bournemouth University. "BFX Competition identifies and encourages the next wave of talent in VFX and Animation production, while the BFX Festival is designed to raise the profile of Bournemouth as a centre of excellence for the creative industries by showcasing the very best in animation, VFX and Games from around the world."

At Tech Age Kids, we believe it's so important for children to learn new literacies and skills to be able to express themselves and understand the world around them. Events like this one help families to expose their children and teens to new and interesting technologies and career paths.

Products, Activities and Tech

We're proud to support this work and use our industry expertise to introduce families to a range of creative tech products and resources.

Some of the products, activities, and tech we showcased at the weekend included:

• Bloxels - Retro video game maker and app
• Stikbot - stop-motion animation studio
• Floor Robots - coding with Learning Resources Code and Go Mouse and Beebots
• Craft and Tech creations using Electro Mat voices recorders (if you have a unit find some inspiration for more projects here.)
• Paper electric circuits and pixel art with Simbrix
• Coding and Design games - offline activities including Code Masters, Robot Turtles, Potato Pirates and Extraordinaires.
• Greetings from Ohbot - robot head coded in Scratch
• 3D Printing using our XYZPrinting Mini Da Vinci printer
• Makey Makey game controllers

We were also delighted to share the weekend with awesome people on the same mission from Diary Zapp, Creative Kids, Computing Museum, AUB (stop motion animation workshop) and Bournemouth University.

micro:bit Workshop

We were delighted to showcase Bonus Projects for our new book micro:bit in Wonderland (available from the end of November.) Inspired by the story of Alice written by Lewis Carroll, the projects help children (and adults) explore making and coding with the micro:bit. 

The minicomputer offers a fantastic and affordable way for families to learn computing and design skills. To learn more about the book go to alice.techagekids.com. 

Mission to Inspire

Life is hectic and we know teachers and parents are stretched. We write a lot of content for the Tech Age Kids blog to help people find interesting products and projects to explore the creative side of technology and coding. If you're not signed up to our mailing list, it's the easiest way to stay informed. We send out an email once a week with all the new content and that is it! You never know, you may just discover something new that inspires you!