On the 4th of March I travelled out to Castle Hill with volunteers Cedric and Rachel to assist with the Family Day which are being held monthly. We meet the other MDC volunteers Gillian, Vin and Ron who were also assisting the Programs team with some really cool activities.
This month’s theme was technology and gaming. The main purpose of the Family Day was to give visitors a taste for a range of different games and some ideas on how to start making their own. Most of the activities were drop-in, like Mars First Logistics where you could create your own digital mechanised space rover to carry cargo across Mars. Then there was Pixilart, where you could create your own gaming character using PixilArt. Inspired by retro and arcade games, some of the children’s designs where amazing!
Cedric had a blast assisting with the Mars Rover Demonstrations of the quarter-scale Curiosity Mars Rover replica. Visitors loved this demo, they had a lot of questions. Did you know the rovers’ antennas are for speaking and listening?
Too Many Cooks was also on offer, it is a fast-paced, cooperative family boardgame where everyone gets to be a fussy chef. You must combine all of your characters’ culinary tastes to make a soup before time runs out.
There was also a range of workshops like a Virtual Reality experience and game workshops where you could learn design concepts to build your own game.
The highlight of my day was dancing to the beats of cosplaying DJ Jadeabella with volunteer Rachel
Karen Griffiths
Volunteer Program Officer