Back in January, our community went to Birmingham to see Birmingham Open Media and Impact Hub.  We didn’t know what they did or if they were anything of importance but we’d figured a day out to find out wouldn’t hurt.

During our meeting with Karen from BOM somehow we decided on a Kids Remix for August.  In January August seems so far away.

We didn’t know what it was going to look like or what would happen but we had a date, venue and brilliant creative people in our community so I never worried.  One conversation led to another and eventually we came up with the idea of remixing traditional games to digital and visa versa.  We contacted Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to see if we could use their collection for inspiration.  Slowly things were building and morphing.

Fast forward to August.  We arrived at BOM slowly looking at the space, our supplies and a few ideas.  We ran over to the Scrap Store with Chris to top up on some craft supplies.  Jas and Jenn were helping with tables and arrangements.  Within a few hours we had a room setup to look like something interesting.  Karen from BOM was incredibly trusting! We didn’t know if any kids would attend or what to expect but I knew at this point that we as a community would be ok.

We arrived 10am on Day one to prepare for 11am startup. Although over the two days we were never overwhelmed with kids we seemed to always have a steady flow.  The wonderful things I personally saw including parents amazed at their kids ability to build, make, create whether it was on the computer or with paper, scissors and glue.  We worked on getting the kids to embrace their talents and talk/learn about building and prototyping.

The two days flew by with many ‘overheads’ and funny stories.  I’m sure everyone will be sharing their own tidbits along the way but for now we have starting putting things on our OCL Tumblr page – please have a look!

Thank you to all OCL Community who attended and help create Kids Remix:

Mark Macleod, Chris Webb, Kathleen McIIvenna, Sue Palmer, Hannah Griffiths, Jasjit Kaur Atwal,  Catherine Jones, Will Robinson, Jenn Layton, and Dominic Cushnan and Sally Thompson (artist). 

We managed to get a few sponsors and partners without whom we’d never have been able to pull this off:

ATS Heritage – who sponsorship was invaluable to get our community (coming from all over the UK) to get to Birmingham.  Thank you so much for believing in us and coming to help!

Craft Council UK – not only helped with ALL the craft supplies but sent Chris to Birmingham for 2 days to help us run the crafts table.

Birmingham Open Media – Karen not only gave us the space but was around for the 3 days ensuring we had everything and anything we needed!  THANK YOU!

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery / Think Tank – not only did they sponsor loan boxes for our event, they sent two educational officers each day to help run the idea station.

Code Club for Kids West Midlands – for two days ran a Coding Club area teaching kids Scatch and other popular games.

Mixed Reality Studio – our tech partner for our community on all our events.  Thanks Frasier and Dom!

For more information on OCL please see our website:

Open Community Lab is is a community of experts in their field who offer an intervention to areas where there is a customer experience. Recent projects have included museum displays and the ambition is to also work with health sector and projects involving young people.
The community is composed of technologists, designers, marketers, historians, curators, programmers and project specialists. they are experienced in their fields and each event involves a different team make up ensuring innovative ideas and free thinking in high tech products or low tech craftwork.