Transformers ran for the last time in 2023.
For the current holiday carrying on its work, please visit Livewires.
About half of each day at Transformers is spent in one of our technical activities. These are places where you can exercise your creativity with the help of experienced team members, working with top-notch equipment.
You can fit two different activities into the holiday, or stick with one for the whole holiday.
Photography
There’s more to photography than just point and click – learn how to take photographs like a pro so there will be less editing to do afterwards. We can teach you how to use digital cameras and compose shots, and then touch up your images using our graphics packages to make them perfect.
Transformers can provide lots of photographic opportunities such as landscapes, wildlife, portraits or still life. There may even be time to take a few sports shots or to become the official banquet photographer!
Let your pictures tell the news by producing a camp newsletter, or a fictional photo story. Or use graphics packages to create images mixing both the real and the artificial. Let your imagination run away with you and take your photos home with you at the end of the week. You can find some our past projects on Flickr.
Music Recording
Whether you want to be in front of the microphone, in music technology, or to be the songwriting genius behind it all, this is your opportunity to create your own musical masterpiece.
Work with other young people and the team to prepare an original pop, rock, dance, worship etc song. Record the vocals and instruments – if you play an instrument, please do bring it along if you can. Work on sound processing and editing to create one or more remixes.
You’ll have the opportunity to share your finished project at the end of the week. There may also be the opportunity to work with the Video activity to create a music video for your song. Find examples of previous projects on Soundcloud and YouTube.
Programming
Take control of your computer and make it obey your every whim! From absolute beginners to übergeeks we’ve the material to get you started, or the skills to help you with your own latest project.
Introductory Programming
If you’ve ever wondered how to get a computer to do what you want it to, or you’ve got a great idea for a new computer game, then you’ll need to know how to program a computer. Let it do far more than just write e-mails or letters. Let it do what you want (well, hopefully!) Learn how programs work inside, how they interact, and the challenges and possibilities facing the programmer. What steps do you need to carry out to take a design, say for a game of Pacman, and translate it into a playable program with graphics and sound effects? What decisions do you have to make, and how do you get your ideas across to the computer? And what makes a program a good one anyway? If you’d like to find out, choose Introductory Programming!
We’ll be continuing to use the Python programming language, and our own module that will help you in creating impressive games with graphics and sound effects.
Advanced Programming
If you’ve already written some programs and want to learn more, then you may be interested in our advanced programming group. For example, you can learn how to build scripted web pages, which can change each time they’re viewed or when someone fills in a form, or just make website maintenance easier. If you’ve got your own programming projects or aspirations, bring them along and our experienced team will help in whatever way we can. When completing your activity questionnaire, please give us as many details as possible about any languages or technologies you are interested in using.
Take a look at some of our previous projects on GitHub.
Video Production
Devise, shoot and edit your own movies. Every year, the young people produce a range of videos – by turns thrilling, artistic and bizarre – and we screen them at the Talent Show at the end of the camp.
Do you want to learn the basics of camera set-up, directing, acting for camera and editing? Whether you’re aiming for YouTube or Hollywood, bring your ideas and your energy, and we’ll provide everything else.
You can find a number of our previous years’ videos over here.