Jamm Labs Projects

Projects in Development Media, electronics, art, practical skills, and experimental community learning projects.

The Green and Pleasant Computer Computer Club is a community programme that helps people explore a slower, lighter, and more independent way of using computers. The club draws on Marshall McLuhan’s idea that the medium is the message and treats the early web and email era as a useful template. We focus on practices that predate attention harvesting feeds and AI driven filtering, while reviving the strengths of simple publishing and direct communication.

Project status: Delivery Ready. More work needed on documentation. Building LED powered puppets and mini-stage lighting to put on a show. These sessions mix craft skills, art practices, storytelling and some elements of programming LED lights. The process can be open in scope or themed around stories concerning environmental or social issues. See here for details of a pilot project at the Makery workshop in Todmorden

Making retro arcade games is a well explored way of learning how to code. It’s engaging, especially for people that like to play games, but just about everyone has some knowledge that will help you. This project allows you to choose your own game design features and apply them to your starting platform game to make it your own. We have extensive resources to support game making via text coding using the most common web coding language JavaScript. This course was used in Mick Chesterman’s PhD work.

Making retro games is an interesting way to explore systems thinking. MakeCode Arcade is a block based coding system similar to Scratch but especially for making retro games. This course has additions which let us explore some systems concepts using the games we create. Topics explored: Practical coding experience, systems concepts, screen time and gaming social norms.