Thanks very much to Hi Shunda Creek Hostel in Canada for having me as their first artists-in-residence in Canada.

I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to working with you guys.

Check our their Facebook page:

Making is easy for some and hard for others but I honestly believe we all have the capacity to be makers.

• Inspiration: The world, life, people, and love are all amazing and are just a few examples of good places to find inspiration. Make sure to stop off regularly and just absorb the goodness.
• Learn: Gain knowledge through reading, YouTube, and conversation. Become an expert in the things that inspire you.
• Tools: Discover and learn to use the tools that you need and enjoy.
• Collaborate: Share and discuss your thoughts and your work and celebrate the connections you make with others.

Raspberry Pi (Zero): a computer about half the size of a credit card and the brains behind a lot of our robot, sound, and light creations.

Poi: a small light ball of woven flax, swung rhythmically on the end of a string in Maori songs and dances.

Combine the two and you get a spinning light show that uses persistence of vision to display images in thin air.

At least that’s the theory and we are at stage 2 of finding out exactly how awesome it will be.

The workshop bench is complete.

I built this to be better organised in the workshop and to give some extra workspace. The bottom shelf is removable for wheelchair access but will likely be home to scrap wood until needed.

All the materials were purchased from the Masters closing down sale so it cost all of $35 to make.

Wahooo!

I just finished building the benches for the tech workspace. There’s another bench in progress only this one will be used for wood crafting (update coming soon).

The gaming and video editing rig now has a central monitor flanked by vertical touch screen panels. There is a fourth monitor for the Raspberry Pi and Arduino experiments.

This is part of a plan to upgrade Rant’s services so that by early next year we will be providing sessions in:

• Game Maker: We have invested in the Game Maker Studio Master Collection which is a software toolkit that offers an easy entry to game development and deployment to pretty much any platform (PC, iPhone, Android, etc). Great for beginners to learn the fundamentals of game development.
• Raspberry PI: We have also setup a Raspberry Pi 3 workstation which is a platform for teaching and learning the fundamentals of computing, programming, and electronics.
• Makey Makey: Already a core technology that we use on a regular basis so we thought it was about time we offered some group sessions with a focus on sculpture and music.

And of course, these technologies will be mixed in with our regular sessions of art, photography, film making, and technology.

For the first installment of “A Week @ Rant” we thought we might introduce you all to some of the creative excercises that we run with our crew. Not a week goes buy without someone creating something new that makes us step back with pride and say WOW!!!. The guys are so passionate about their crafts and creativity it is hard to not become engaged and to rejoice in the satisfaction of creating (or facilitating) something new.

• Josh and Chrissy have been busy designing some ceramic mosaics utilising iconography to represent the things that they feel are meaningful in their lives. Josh in particular has really taken to expressing his indigenous heritage through design and art and he looks forward to completing the work so he can show you all.
• Zac got creative in the workshop as he and Anthony upcycles a discarded pallette into a new Xbox shelf (to be continnued).
• Courtney made some amazing abstract coasters by taking some photogrpahs (with Rachael) using milk, food colouring, and oil. The photos were then transfered using a sublimation process and the results have to be seen in person to be truly appreciaited. Keep an eye out for her work as she is starting to sell and will sell out quick.
• Katie has also been busy making wonderful heat molded plastic art. She is starting on making some with a Pokemon theme so we bet they will be popular too.
• Jono and Anthony have gotten creative building little geocaches to hide around the region.

All in all, a busy yet typical week at Rant.

Yesterday was fun and it was great to meet lots of awesome people. “The Unseen Machine” was very popular and people really loved the experience.

We really enjoyed meeting lots of fun and interesting  people especially the kids transitioning from school. The Rant crew hope to work with some of them next year.

A big thank you to Karina and Co as well as everyone that worked so hard to make yesterday such a success!

Rach x0x

Zac and Anthony solve the issue of dirty dishes:

Chrissy and Anthony have been very busy working on the wheelchair mounted game controller.

Check out the latest update on Chrissy’s blog