Glow Your Own (1/6)

Glow Your Own kicks off on Wednesday 14 October, the first of six online coding workshops run by IF Oxford, the city's science and ideas festival. It's a six-week course that takes you from technology trepidation to building your own moving digital lantern: a computer circuit powered by LEDs and motors, controlled by sensors. It sits right at the crossing of art and engineering, using Arduino and tools like Tinkercad.

The sessions run on Wednesdays from 5pm to 6.30pm, with an hour of teaching followed by half an hour of troubleshooting. They're all online, and each one is recorded and made available on-demand at if-oxford.com, so if you can't make the live slot, you can catch up whenever suits you. The full run goes on Wednesdays 14, 21 and 28 October, then 4, 11 and 18 November.

Once you've built your lantern, it doesn't just sit on a shelf: the finished pieces go to the Oxford Light Festival in November. The workshops themselves feed into a wider series, and eventually, the participants come together to create a collaborative artwork. It's aimed at ages 7-12, teenagers and adults, and families are encouraged to work together on it.

The course is delivered by The Oxfordshire Science Festival, a registered charity whose donations are eligible for Gift Aid. It's Pay What You Decide, with a suggested donation of £45 for the six-week course — that works out to about £7.50 per session. The first one is Wednesday 14 October, 5-6.30pm, online.