Next Gen

Next Gen is running at Gloucester Library on Wednesday 9 December, an introductory technology workshop for young people. It's a single afternoon session that pulls together a few different corners of the digital world, so if you've got a teenager at home who's always tinkering with gadgets or talking about coding, this is exactly the sort of thing they'll get their teeth into.

Across the hour, the workshop covers four distinct areas. There's electronics, which is the hands-on side of things — thinking about how circuits work and how to put components together. Then there's digital art, where the focus shifts to creating on screen. 3D printing is in the mix too, so you'll see how a digital design becomes a physical object you can actually hold. And running through it all is programming, the code that makes the other three work. It's a broad spread, and the whole thing is pitched as an introduction, so you don't need to be a whiz to get involved.

It's a good way to see how these things connect rather than just picking one. The electronics and the programming are two sides of the same coin, and the 3D printing and digital art are where that technical side turns into something you can see and touch. If you've ever wondered how a piece of software ends up controlling a physical device, that's the gap this workshop bridges.

It runs from 2:00pm to 3:00pm at Gloucester Library, on Northgate Street where it meets The Oxbode, Gloucester, Gloucestershire GL1 1SQ. It's a one-hour session, so it's a low-commitment way to get a first look at how electronics, digital art, 3D printing and programming all fit together.