Dr Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor of Civic Practice, University of Derby:
So I'm Doctor Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor of Civic Practice at the University of Derby. And I'm also the founding director of SHED, which is the Social Higher Education Depot.
So behind me you can see the SHED. It's been hosting the Machines of the Future Engineering and Arts summer school that we have proudly done in partnership with UK New Artists. Over the course of a week, we've had an incredible cohort of young people aged 13 to 17, getting to experience new skills and work with new technologies.
And also put the arts as a creative flare onto how they're thinking about approaching engineering challenges. It's been amazing to see what they've come up with over the course of just five days and to be able to invite everybody to the SHED to celebrate and look at the talent and the skills that they've developed over the last few days has just been really heartwarming.
Professor Keith McLay, Provost – Learning and Teaching, University of Derby:
Well, it was a pleasure to welcome all the participants here to the Machines of the Future Creative Engineering summer school. Why was it really important to have it here at the university? It's because for two reasons, principally.
Firstly, this university’s civic agenda – it’s really important the university is civically engaged with its community. And here today we've had and over the course of the days of this week, we've had a lot of young people from our local communities engaging with this project. So that's the first important element.
The second important element is the nature of the project itself. The project, Machines of the Future seeks to blend both the engineering skills and attributes, alongside that of creativity and creative design.
And all too often in our society, there is a polarization of those two elements. On the one hand, we often say to young people, well, you're demonstrating engineering skills, so you go down that route or you're very creative, so you go down that creative, artistic route.
What this project is about is bringing those two elements together, those two disciplines together. And here at the university, that's what we do. We have engineering and we have creative arts and design.
Michelle Bowen, Director of UK New Artists:
Hi, I'm Michelle Bowen, I’m Director of UK New Artists.
UK New Artists is a nomadic organisation, supporting multidisciplinary artists to collaborate, develop their own practice, work within placemaking and develop socially engaged practices. UK New Artists is supported by three universities, including the University of Derby.
There's a long-term partnership that we've had which has grown and developed and deepened over the years. And I think, today has been the result of a beautiful collaboration between, arts departments, non-arts departments, artists, young people, the place. And bringing all of those things together is what a real celebration of that partnership is.
I think this has probably been one of, our most successful collaborations. And the change, and the growth, and the learning that has taken place with those young people has probably been the most that I've seen across all of our projects. I think working across five days has really helped. But yeah, from where I understand, the day started to what I see today. It's phenomenal.
It's simply phenomenal. So we're very proud.
Vikki Jones, Talent Development Manager, UK New Artists:
That idea was born out of a conversation that I had with a gentleman at a conference last year around the importance of connecting arts and engineering skills for young creatives.
So I think it's been interesting that on Monday, when all the young people arrived, we asked them kind of what had brought them to the project, and they all said engineering. They were all very keen on engineering and sort of from a technical point of view, one wanted to be a civil engineer and one wanted to be a mechanical engineer. That's very much kind of the remit that they were coming at.
None of them had ever used the software that we were using before. None of them had been into the university space before. And I think what's been interesting is to watch their creativity come out alongside that technical knowledge.
Putting them in computer labs with some, you know, university professionals and industry professionals and giving them a bit of freedom, one kind of teaching them the basics of that software and then giving them the freedom to go, okay, now play with it - like make something that's just out of your brain, see what happens.
Mario, UKNA/S.H.E.D Machines of the Future Participant:
First, we have some straps which will theoretically be made out of military material so that they actually can sustain and not rip. Then we have some carbon fibre steel to actually make it not too heavy, but not too fragile at the same time.
We have the bolts here to actually make the joint feel similar to a knee so that it doesn't bend wrong or make you feel uncomfortable. Just for the level design for us to actually kind of portray where it would be used, I just kind of thought about more of an Army barracks style for the design.
I couldn't really find assets specifically for Army, so I found some sci-fi kind of designs and assets to be used and found online, some free resources for a character model of the soldiers and stuff.
It felt nice getting to show people my designs and the levels I created so they could also think about creating stuff in like just Unreal Blender if they didn't know it was being used. They'll think about coding and computer art in general, which also shows them that engineering and art isn't really that different.
Muhammad Abdullah, UKNA/S.H.E.D Machines of the Future Participant:
My favourite thing was that I got to explore creative skills and merge that with engineering. So creativity wasn't actually my aspect, but engineering was. So I got to merge them, and that helped me integrate both skills in the software.
My career is actually I want to go into medicine, but I want to put AI into medicine. So, and I want to specifically go into neurosurgery, and I think that will give a new vision to the world.
My machine was the greenhouse inhaler. And the purpose of my machine is that, as you know, climate change is a big issue in the world right now, and global warming. So my machine checks the level of greenhouse gases in the air, then absorbs according to that.
And when it stores, it stores it in their stored energy system, and then it will use it towards renewable energy sources and agriculture. And I think this is a great thing, and it will come handy in the future.
Muhammad Ali, UKNA/S.H.E.D Machines of the Future Participant:
And then also I call my machine the Swiss Army. And that was because instead of holding a toolbox around with you and doing your work, this was an arm-held device that you could strap to your arm, and I would have had tools built into it.
And so it had a laser cutter, a drill machine, screwdriver, a spanner, it had welding, it had a wire cutter, and it had a saw. And it also had a charging port.
An alternative for the charging port if it didn't work was a solar panel to save energy as well. And there was also a voice option and manual button to operate.
John Whall, Digital Participation Artist:
My name is John Whall, I'm a digital participation artist based in Derby, and I've been the lead artist on this. So this week we've been engaging young people with activities ranging from digital skills, medium and 3D and immersive technologies, using creative thinking and design thinking and physical media.
We started off using virtual reality design tools, moving through to immersive tools and 3D software like Blender and Unreal Engine to kind of bring everything together to create, make creative environments. But we put that together with research and going to visits out into Masson Mill and looking at the factory setups there, just to kind of inform their thinking. So everything is kind of coming together in one kind of creative package.
So typically with a lot of young people programs, you see a very, very quiet start to the week. So very kind of talkative outcome at the end. And we certainly saw that this week. There were a lot of quiet voices, and now, like just coming into today and celebrating all their work, they were able to talk about what they've done really, really well.
To see some of them come out of their comfort zone in terms of what they thought they would come and do and what they ended up coming to do, really kind of designing things really well and using the software really well. And the fact that they only had a few days to take on immersive technology skills, the outcomes have been fantastic.
One young person yesterday was just—I don’t know if he realised he was speaking out loud or not—but he said, "I’m really proud of myself. I’ve achieved a lot." And just to hear that from a young person and have them be recognised with that as well, that was a really big highlight for me.
I just think it’s been really great to be working in Derby in this way, inspiring young people of Derby, and really kind of showing how exactly accessible immersive technology can be. And the fact that some of them have already said today they want their files so they can go home and kind of work on it at home is really great. So it’s always great to kind of see that and give not just the skills that they can take away, but the access to the technology as well.
Callum Bate, Central England Area Manager, RSA:
I am Callum Bate, I’m the RSA’s Central England regional fellowship engagement manager. And my relationship with the University of Derby has been through working collaboratively with the RSA on different projects.
And yeah, through sort of coming along as well and seeing what the university has done, particularly the civic work, because that’s a stream of work that we’re really interested in. And I think Derby sets a really good example of what that can look like in other institutions as well.
I think it’s been really fascinating because access to creative industries can be really tricky sometimes, particularly when we’re thinking about digital industries like game design, which is featured quite heavily here. Like, you need a high-powered computer, you need software packages that sometimes can be hard to navigate. So young people might not feel like it’s a route that they can go down.
But letting them access that, giving them the skills to actually be able to create stuff by themselves and to think, "This is something I can do in life," is really amazing because it breaks down that barrier to entry of having to have all this resource to then be able to pursue a career in a creative industry.
And it’s amazing to think that these young people might go on to use those skills in later life to really sort of drive their passion and might even end up studying subjects at the university in the future. So it’s a great way of getting those people on board and of sharing the resources that they need to access the industry.
Dan Webber, Events Programmer, Derby Museums:
Working in the university in terms of civic especially is unparalleled. It’s so important, and this is a great example of just how important these sessions are. These workshops are, these summer schools are, and I really hope we can work close together with my various hats and, more importantly, with the Museum of Making.
Dr Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor of Civic Practice, University of Derby:
So S.H.E.D is the university’s spin-out company. It’s been running for nearly five years now, and we’ve always been out, so it’s been really lovely that we’ve been able to bring the shed back to the university, to bring it home and celebrate our work that we are doing with other local important cultural partners and organisations, especially around youth voice and giving new opportunities for people to experience engineering and arts in this case.
So S.H.E.D only functions because of its partnership way of working. So everything we do, every project, every decision we make about what we want to do as an organisation is through working very closely with our stakeholders, making a collective decision about what are the key priorities, what are the things that we want to explore.
So whether that’s youth voice, whether that’s culture as a driver for change, whether that’s thinking about supporting wellbeing or net zero, any of those key challenges, themes, lived experiences that we hear people want to explore—that’s what we then decide to do through the work of the shed.
And it works really closely then with the university civic agreement, which has got a very clear set of goals, which are in both ethos and delivery, very aligned with the work of the shed.
On behalf of S.H.E.D, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of the partners and stakeholders who’ve worked really hard to make this summer school happen. So a huge thanks goes to the University of Derby, to UK New Artists, to all the staff, the students, and of course to the cohort and to the community that are with us today, celebrating the incredible work that’s been produced by the young people. Thank you.
Machines of the Future Showcase video
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