Our workshops generally run on a pay-as-you-can model that fosters accessibility-to-all, as well as an invitation to have a positive impact on our continued ability to run them.
Here's a list of our upcoming workshops. If you would like to register for one of these sessions (or to be put on a waiting list for a future offering), please send an email with your full name to steamfx2024@gmail.com. If the session fills up, we'll keep you on a waiting list for future offerings.
Check back again later for summer parent-child appropriate workshops.
(none currently scheduled. We're planning to run some workshops during FAB Festival 2025.)
We are currently running these programs based on demand. Please send an email with your full name to steamfx2024@gmail.com if you would like to be placed on a waiting list. We'll email out a heads-up when we set a date for the next offering. We'll endeavor to re-run these workshops on a regular basis. When there is a high demand, we'll aim to run the workshops on a Saturday afternoon. When there's lower demand, we're likely to schedule a Wednesday from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm.
Workshop - Making a Scribble Bot:
Build and take home an artistic little robot
Date: <TBD>
Time: <TBD>
Duration: 2 hours, at an easy pace
Place: incubator13 room, Rideau High School community hub,
815 St.Laurent Boulevard
Prerequisites: none
Age range: 5 - 8 with adult accompaniment
What to expect:
In this workshop, we will take you step-by-step thru the process of making a simple robot that draws its own colourful creations using washable felt markers. Most of our materials can be found around the house. In fact, the remaining components (a toy motor, a battery holder, a switch, and a gear) could possibly be salvaged from old, worn out electronic toys. This workshop provides a hands-on experience in electricity and magnetism. But, we won't tell anyone; just enjoy.
Workshop - Visual Programming with Scratch:
Create a video game using the Scratch visual programming language
Date: <TBD>
Time: <TBD>
Duration: 2 hours, at an easy pace
Place: incubator13 room, Rideau High School community hub,
815 St.Laurent Boulevard
Prerequisites: none
Age range: Suitable for age 7+, adults and elders alike.
What to expect:
Scratch is an amazingly fun way to learn how to program a computer. This is a hands-on workshop in which we'll take you step-by-step thru the process of programming a video game using the Scratch visual programming language. Elements of a Scratch program are graphical and colour-coded in nature and virtually snap together in different, but constrained ways. The programming language was originally developed at the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab with its primary aim being to democratize coding and make programming accessible and engaging for everyone, especially children and beginners. The same approach had been used in the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System. In fact, there is now even a more affordable kind of Lego-like robotics system that uses a Scratch-like programming language that is used to program a BBC micro:bit microcontroller (a child-friendly programmable computer board) and its interactions with sensors and actuators. So, we hope that this simple introduction to computer programming becomes for you a launching point for further exploring computer programming and the world of physical computing, whereby you design your own electronics and computer-based systems that interact with the world around us. (In fact, physical computing, and the hacking and Making that often tend to go along with it, is what makes STEAMakers and STEAM-fx tick.)
The following workshops are being proposed, but have not yet been developed. These will be developed based on a sufficient level of interest. So, please send an email with your full name to steamfx2024@gmail.com if you find one or more these workshops worthwhile to attend.
Workshop - Introduction to Basic Electronics
Date: <TBD>
Time: <TBD>
Duration: 2 hours
Place: incubator13 room, Rideau High School community hub,
815 St.Laurent Boulevard
Prerequisites: none
Age range: 8+
What to expect:
How electrical current is like water current.
Identify and understand the basic workings of many of the electronic components that we tend to use regularly at STEAMakers and STEAM-fx: resistor, potentiometer, capacitor, diode, bipolar junction transistor (BJT), field effect transistor (FET), relay.
Similarly, a sampling of some electronic modules: ultrasonic distance sensor, LiDAR, motion detector.
How to read the value of a resistor and capacitor.
Using a kickback diode for a relay, a current limiting resistor for an LED.
Workshop - Spark-fx Configuration and Operation
??
Date: <TBD>
Time: <TBD>
Duration: 2 hours
Place: incubator13 room, Rideau High School community hub,
815 St.Laurent Boulevard
Prerequisites: none
Age range: 15+
What to expect:
(As we are still in the process of evolving the Spark-fx prototype (nee DMXW) ecosystem into a more productized version, the contents of this workshop are likely to morph over time. We're in the process of easing the configuration process.)
Spark-fx is an Arduino-based electronics hacker's ecosystem for creating battery operated, remote controlled stage effects. It is designed, built, and supported by the STEAM-fx Collective to be highly reusable and resource-shareable across community performing arts groups. This workshop provides instruction on how to configure the Spark-fx Maestro, the wireless controller for such stage effects. In this workshop you will learn:
Introduction to SparkNet, Spark-fx Maestro, and the Spark-fx Scene responders.
What is the SparkNet wireless network and how do stage elements communicate? (Looks like DMX-512 + configuration & troubleshooting data exchanges.)
In the legacy DMXW version of Maestro, the following are treated differently. Of particular note, the legacy prototype enforced a one-to-one mapping between a SparkNet channel address and a (scene responder number, port number) pair. The new Maestro will allow multiple pairs to respond to the same SparkNet channel. Also, in the new Maestro, mapping a DMX-512 channel address to a SparkNet address will become an independent configuration step.)
How to configure a DMX512-to-SparkNet channel address mapping on Maestro?
How to configure a Spark-fx Scene Remote board (from Maestro) to respond to a SparkNet channel.
Mapping one of a Spark-fx Scene responder's output ports to a SparkNet channel address.
Orientation for Maestro connectors and controls.
How to operate Maestro in standalone mode (manually backstage).
How to operatre Maestro in DMX-512 mode.
How to connect Maestro to a DMX-512 bus.
SparkNet troubleshooting commands on Maestro.
Using the Web interface to configure Maestro and Scene responders.
Powering Spark-fx Scene responders. (12V lead acid batteries, 9V batteries, ...)
Workshop - Hacking for Spark-fx Scene Remote
Date: <TBD>
Time: <TBD>
Duration: 2 hours
Place: incubator13 room, Rideau High School community hub,
815 St.Laurent Boulevard
Prerequisites: Knowledge of basic electronics (such as that attained in the "Introduction to Basic Electronics" workshop).
Age range: 15+
What to expect:
Spark-fx is an Arduino-based electronics hacker's ecosystem for creating battery operated, remote controlled stage effects. It is designed, built, and supported by the STEAM-fx Collective to be highly reusable and resource-shareable across community performing arts groups. This workshop provides instruction on how to hack electronics--such as various types of LED technologies, relays, and motors--to operate under the control of a battery (of some suitable sort) and the Spark-fx Scene Remote responder board.
You will learn about the various output ports on Spark-fx Scene Remote and Scene Pixel responders.
Muddling your way thru responder channels, SparkNet port numbers, and Moteino I/O pin numbers.
We'll also look at some sample circuits and test them via Spark-fx Maestro and a simple DMX-512 lighting board.