A post from Mr Raspberry Jam himself, Alan O’Donohoe.  This one promises to huge and fabulous, and the National STEM Centre is an outstanding venue. I am strangley drawn to joining the trans-Pennine convoy from Preston.

“You may have seen that we are holding a big Raspberry Jam in York on Saturday 8th June, 3 weeks today. Tickets are available here.

I’ve been working with the folks at the National STEM Centre there to help establish a presence in Yorkshire for Raspberry Jams. There are a lot of people in Yorkshire who have bought Raspberry Pi computers or who have not bought one but are interested in discovering just what you can do with them and this event is to give them a taste of the Raspberry Pi.

This event is going to be much larger than our regular Raspberry Jam events and we know that people  are travelling from far across the UK to attend. I will be travelling in a convoy of cars from Preston bringing old friends and new friends on the journey across the Pennines. Road-trips like these add an enormous amount to the whole experience.

Our busy programme of talks, demonstrations, stalls and hands-on classes is now filling up. We are delighted to have Pete Lomas of the Raspberry Pi foundation speaking and leading a workshop, he is the gentleman who actually designed the Raspberry Pi. We also have Amy Mather the 14 year old who learnt how to program Conway’s Game of Life on the Raspberry Pi, her film on YouTube has attracted over 27000 views.

If you look at our programme , you will see that we have a wide range of classes from how to switch on a Raspberry Pi to building weather stations, interfacing, networking, robotics, game making for all the family and programming in Python. David Whale will be running a workshop on how you can set up an after school Raspberry Pi club.

‘import random’, the start of great game! A Raspberry Jam programming class.

We hope to attract a diverse range of people to attend this family friendly event:

• Teachers – who want to know if the Raspberry Pi is something they can use to support the teaching of Computing
• Families – who together want to develop and nurture an interest in technology and computing
• Hobbyists – who want to meet other people with a desire to share what they have been doing with their Raspberry Pi
• Anyone – who has an interest in the Raspberry Pi at any level.

If you have never been to the National STEM centre before, this is a fantastic opportunity to come and discover what is there http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/