During my end of summer trip to Anglesey I was given the unexpected opportunity to don a bee suit and help out a local bee keeper doing his hive inspection. Pete has been looking after bees for many years – certainly way before bee keeping became trendy. The plight of bees and the need to grow wild flowers to support other pollinators has received quite a bit of coverage in the press. So it was a privilege that he was willing to give me hands-on experience and indulge my love of learning on a subject that I had only previously been able to read about.

I wanted to record my experience in a series of illustrative notes. I’ve deliberately kept the facts and things learnt in a particular order, which may seen illogical to others. However, it forms a chronological record and in doing so they will help me maintain the memories from an amazing afternoon.

I didn’t take any written reminders during the process as I was too busy helping out so hopefully there aren’t too many inaccuracies. I think these illustrations are only a starting point for me to delve deeper in to the fascinating world of beekeeping. Even though there is no chance that I’ll be a beekeeping anytime soon (owning to the lack of resources!) I can understand why Pete said it could easily be an interest that becomes a full time job if one is not careful! There is so much more to learn and such a fun process too.

A big thank you to Pete for sharing his knowledge and nurturing my curious mind. I know when I deviate from my usual staple of oats to a slice of crunchy toast, it’s going to taste super sweet with a dollop honey that I helped extract.

The Study has various spaces such as make, sense, share and discover. All of which have been designed to facilitate enquiry based learning.

Image from http://www.thestudymcr.com/spaces/

There was a fantastic turn out last night. I spent a lot of time in the Make space, where there were lots of activities to choose from such as Lego, a badge maker and a box crotchet supplies. I spied some books that I’ll definitely be returning to have a read of.

I really like the signage used throughout The Study, and the blend between learning through observation and participation.

My visits to the museum usually involves a trip to The Vivarium, as the presence of living creatures in a place where there is usually only things from the past is something I’ve always found to be unique. So the new aquaponics system built by The Biospheric Foundation is definitely a welcome addition. Immediately beside the greenhouse is the Study Space, where you can delve deeper into your research.

The Study is now open to the public and awaiting your visit!
www.thestudymcr.com

Read more about Llynnon Windmill at http://t.co/SK8jE2yJtQ @ukmills @angieokchan pic.twitter.com/htPlaEyDvd

— Anglesey History (@AngleseyHist) May 8, 2015

Melin Llynnon is the only working windmill in Wales and whole wheat flour ground by the mill is available to buy in their shop. There were also two iron-age roundhouses by the mill, these replicators show how habitants of Anglesey would have lived 3000 years ago. It was possible to walk inside to feel how cold it was and have a look at the interior. I really like the textures of the thatched roofs.

We also met ‘Fred the head’, a nickname given by local children to the large wooden sculpture carved from a very old tree. There was also a beautifully carved totem pole that stood proudly in the sunshine.

I wish we had time to stop longer and to enjoy the tea room. Perhaps something to do on a future visit as I’d love to visit Anglesey again.

In the meanwhile, I’m looking forward to Heritage Open Days, which is taking place this weekend.

While I chatted to Rachel Moat (a previous speaker at one of Girl Geek Show & Tell events and a winner of Tech4Good Award) about her experience of using Arduinos, the others played card games – such as Exploding Kittens, which looked like a lot of fun. The packaging certainly made the designer in me light up as it meowed upon opening. Mini Girl Geek wasn’t able to join us, but she sent along her photo booth, which Lisa kindly transported and operated for us, so that we could each get a custom photo keyring.

We also have @MiniGirlGeek's amazing raspi-powered photo booth, making keyrings + photos! pic.twitter.com/3xAcV31nFO

— Manchester GirlGeeks (@mcrgirlgeeks) August 16, 2015

It has been years since I’ve played pass the parcel and this version of it was very different to what I remember from my childhood. When I was little – the winner takes all! However, the version we played / mashed-up involved multiple layers. Some layers had mini prizes (such as sweets), while other layers had newspaper (and a geeky joke to compensate the unlucky person who missed out on a prize).

Little did I realise when I volunteered to wrap the parcel that it would be a marathon gift wrapping session, that also involved a late Saturday night trip to the local bargain store when I suddenly ran out of paper. I think this is just a reflection of the amazing selection of items Katie picked out and the generosity of the kind individuals / companies who donated items for it. This version of pass the parcel is so much better and everyone who took part was rewarded with a small prize.

It’s always rewarding to catch up with regular Girl Geek attendees and meet a few new ones too. Credit goes to Gem for organising yet another fantastic event. It was good to see Claire settled into her dream job at Madlab. A quick thank you to all the sponsors who helped make the party come to life with amazing prizes!

Manchester Girl Geeks will be at The Shed next month with Dr Suze Kundu (Materials Scientist and Nanochemist) as guest speaker, and they’re back at Manchester Science Festival with a Girl Geek Dinner. Time to make more event stickers!

Image credit: @GregorioFaralli (team facilitator)

In June, I participated in The City Infrastructure Lab held by FutureEverything in partnership with New Economy Manchester. We explored how open data could provide opportunities in the development of new civic innovation.

On day one, Paul Graham Raven (futurist and researcher) set about disrupting the way we think about infrastructure. He talked about the relationship between interface and the infrastructure beneath. We were encouraged to be bold in our thinking and question the systems around us.

A successful civic innovation already in operation is the Biosphere Foundation. CEO Vincent Walsh shared his aims of turning Manchester into the first biotechnological city. He reminded us of an already successful project in Salford where his team were growing mushrooms using the waste generated from making coffee. This premium product was being sold to high end restaurants in the city. They are also currently work in partnership with Manchester Museum on The Study, an exciting project that will see the top floor of the museum turn into an interactive learning space in conjunction with various local organsations / community groups, which will be launching in September.

Under the guidance of mentors, we spent the rest of the afternoon finding and framing the problem our team was going to investigate. We concluded Day One with the aim of providing people with access to linked data in a visual way. This needed a little refining on morning of Day Two as we realised that it was a huge topic to tackle in an afternoon.

The ‘Flow of People’
In our discussion about the flow of people and how we might direct them to better use of resources, a particular group in society emerged – the elderly.

We decided to focus on this demographic and how we might empower them with knowledge of local transport options that would allow them to access cultural hubs / activities that were outside of their immediate community. I was pleased that we were veering on going down this route as it was an area of interest to me. There were two news stories that brought attention to this topic recently:

• Eunice Wardle, a lonely pensioner who felt ‘invisible’ in Northenden – Manchester Evening News
• Greater Manchester will be tackling loneliness and isolation among its elderly in a five year project funded by the Big Lottery Ageing Better Fund.

While there may be issues regarding loneliness suffered by the elderly in our local area, I shared with the group my awareness of Manchester’s status as UK’s first city to be recognised as age-friendly by the World Health Organisation.

• Manchester – the UK’s first ‘age-friendly’ city – BBC News
• Manchester City Council’s Age-friendly Manchester Plan

The art and culture institutes in our city, such as the Whitworth Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery also hosts age friendly events. With the former recently recruiting for a Age Friendly Culture Coordinator.

I was really keen to enable the elderly the ability to get to these event or generally to have an increased engagement with culture. Often participation in the arts can increase a sense of community and improve wellbeing. Unfortunately, strong opposition within the group pointed out that mobility was a stronger factor in preventing the elderly from making the most of GM transport options.

With this in mind we decided to address the following problem:
How might we give the elderly access to visual linked data that allows them to make the most of the transport system.

Exploration of Solutions
Through a series of design and prototyping exercises, some of them inspired by The Hyper Island Toolbox, we proposed some solutions that would overcome the barriers and enable the flow of the elderly within the GM transport system. Key considerations and concepts included:

• Factors that prevented the elderly travelling included: fear of crime, the inability to get help if they found themselves in trouble (fall or get lost), the weather, lack of transport information, lack of motivation because they don’t have a destination to go / look forward to.
• Using the TV to transmit transport data to our target group, as this was an interface they were already familiar with.
• Encourage the elderly to travel in groups, so as to overcome anxiety and increase a feeling of safety.
• A facility that allowed the elderly to phone their local bus stop and register their interest to travel with others registered on the system

Our Solution: The Ryder
Our wristband product, The Ryder, was to provided the elderly with real time travel information that allowed them to make the most of their local bus services. We identified that the datasets we would need for it were those relating to transport and the rights of way.

The wristband would be activated by pushing the one button on it and users would input their request by speaking to the built in mic. The information, generated from our identified datasets, would be provided back to them in an audible format, an interaction our target group was already familiar with. The product aims to empower its users and allows them to remain independent by giving them the specific travel information that they want.

Utilising #transport #data to bridge the #digitaldivide #futrlab #TheRyder pic.twitter.com/o7tqjTIBap

— Rebecca Riley (@RileyResearch) June 5, 2015

It was a very engaging two days exploring the potential use of open data. The workshop wasn’t designed to be a technical hackathon or a competition, but it made me see the appeal of those kinds of events. A special thank you to Kevin Smith at FutureEverything for sorting out my last minute attendance, and Gregorio Faralli for expertly facilitating our talkative team to produce some actual prototypes.

The Greater Manchester Open Data Infrastructure Map that we were exploring is available at: http://mappinggm.org.uk/gmodin/