Blast

The BBC Blast truck has been parked in Gloucester Park for a few days now, and with the typical British Summer producing typically wet weather both of my children have spent an enjoyable couple of days working with some top talent at the BBC exploring their creative abilities.

The Blast truck is on tour around the UK bringing opportunities for teenagers to experience a wide range of activities ranging from low tech recycling of old fashion, through to high tech animation and film making.

Running workshops in the truck, and out and about giving the teenagers full creative control over their own projects.

The events are well managed and well staffed. Judging from the results I saw today everyone involved has a lot of fun, and the results are suitably impressive.

So far this week my son has had a session with a seasoned travel photographer getting to grips with his digital SLR and spent an entertaining afternoon learning about stop frame animation.

His confidence has improved and he is full of a renewed enthusiasm for photography.

My Daughter spent the day working with musicians from the Babyheads, culminating in the writing and performing of an original powerful rock melody with hard hitting lyrics.

The "Free Spirits" as the group of teenagers, who before today had never played together called themselves did a superb job and it was worth the wait in the wet conditions to hear the band, and to see the rest of the work that has taken place over the last couple of days, including the dance routines, photographs, short documentary and the numerous animations.

This is a worthwhile scheme that it would seem could do with being much better publicised, and hopefully if the Blast Truck returns, it will be.

This article is an external contribution and expresses a personal opinion, not necessarily the views of the BBC.

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