This year for Manchester After Hours, MadLab’s Make Stuff and Fred Aldous are joining forces to host an evening of DIY digital innovation, art and craft.

Across the three floors of Fred Aldous, you will get the chance to explore the juncture between Art, Science and Technology through free hands-on workshops, activities and demonstrations. See if you can bring a bit of ‘Odd Coupling’ into your creative practice.

PatternCraft and PatternBeats

Taking inspiration from textile and computing heritage PatternCraft lets you experiment with physical coding. Using binary code and a DIY punchcard reader you will get to create a digital sculpture and make music.

Photobooths

A scientific innovation of the late 19th Century, wet chemistry photo booths had almost disappeared from the public realm until dedicated ‘boothers’ brought them back to popularity. Step in, strike four poses and capture your photo booth portrait using this 127-year-old technology.

VR: From Manchester to the Milky Way

Let Make Stuff transport you out of Fred Aldous and stand atop Mount Everest; take a look around at the breathtaking views. Then voyage to the Milky-Way and beyond. You are no longer on the outside looking in, get up walk around, peek around corners, interact with the world with your virtual hands.

Wearable Tech

What will fashion of the future look like? Explore futuristic materials and see how they can be applied to clothing. In this drop-in workshop, you will get to make your very own flashing LED tote bag and solder a light-up badge to take home.

3 Minute Portraits

The Fred Aldous "3 Minute Portraits" are back! Inspired by the length of time it takes a photobooth to develop a picture; sit down, relax and let one of the talented artists draw your portrait, to take home, in three minutes.

Collaborative Conductive Canvas

Painting with conductive paint, you will have to work collaboratively to make an electric current. Make your mark light up!

Arduino Traffic Lights

Arduino is an open source electronics platform which can be used to create interactive projects. Explore its creative potential by learning to make traffic lights using an Arduino circuit board and a little bit of code.

3D Portraits & 3D Printer Demo

Get a first-hand opportunity to see a 3D printer in action and get a scan of yourself in 3D!

Coding with Raspberry pi-topCEED

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny and affordable computer that can be used to learn to program. Using a Raspberry pi-topCEED and Minecraft Make Stuff will teach you basic programming commands so you can build, explore and create.

Fred Aldous and Cloudwater have kindly supplied drinks for the evening.