I was randomly browsing the raspberrypi.org website, when I thought I'll check the community events sections and see if there are any pi jams coming up soon. To my surprise there was, the Stafford Raspberry Jam, just over an hour away from home, and at the time it was only 3 weeks away also as a bonus and to my absolute delight it was in the town where I studied at university. It would be great, nostalgic and quite fitting to go back there, since that is where I began to learning how to program. But back then (between '95-'00) its was C++ and machine code, and certainly no pi's around to play with.

So I booked a free ticket to the Stafford Raspberry Jam, and got it touch with the organiser Cerys (13), to ask about bringing some kit along so that I could demostrate my projects. On the day I took two Concept2 Indoor Rowers with PM5 consoles, a projector and external LCD monitor, a Rapsberry Pi2 and a Raspberry Pi3.

There were a few tech niggles once the pi was connected to the projector via HDMI, it took a lot of trial and error to find a resolution which was a suitable fit on the screen size. The end result was a slightly narrow picture, but at least everything was now visible from top to bottom and left to right. The stage was set and ready to go. 

The first person ever to play C2 Fishy Pi, was Oscar Harte (13), he rowed all 5 levels and achieved a final score of 2060, and the second person to play was Jack Fox (14). A few more fellow coders lined up to play as the evening progressed and they all had a great time rowing and interacting with the game, and I was delighted that so many people wanted to try it out.

I must also take the time to mention Cerys, who organised the whole jam which she plans to hold monthly, supported by her school letting her use the maths centre. She also presented the event and runs a code club at each one. She is mad keen an all things Raspberry Pi related and had just attended their huge 4th birthday weeekend event and managed to meet all the co-founders and crew behind the fantastic single board computer. She had come away from the event with lots of goodies to give away as prizes for the rest of the code club gang after they completed a series of challenges in python set by Cerys. 

I was rewarded too for my efforts and managed to bag, a calendar, a book "Adventures in Raspberry Pi" and some cool stickers. 

The evening had been a huge delight and I was so pleased to see so many youngters engaged with the technology, and eager to learn.