Firefly Adventure Club

Last Friday, we put on our first installation, Firefly Adventure Club, as part of the Choose Yer Own festival.  It was a super busy and very successful night, but before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start from the beginning.

Claudia and I got there a bit early with our friend Kathryn to set up the maker space as well as the performance space for Covers under a Bridge III (the other Choose Yer Own event sharing our space) under the bridge in Elbow Island Park.  

Ben from Protospace also came early and lent us supplies that were very useful, as did some of the Solarbotics guys.  Despite some curious wanderers, we got set up just in the nick of time to welcome our first visitors at around 9:30 - Bryan , Katherine, Devon, and Claire.  From there, it got pretty busy pretty quickly.  Among our visitors were the amazing people from the Awesome Foundation Calgary as well as our pals from Protospace and Solarbotics, and of course all the Choose Yer Own festival goers.

In case you missed it, here’s what the experience was like:

Starting from the corner of 4th St. and 26th Ave. SW, you were greeted with a trail of LED fireflies in mason jars, leading you halfway across the bridge to a sign and a wooden staircase welcoming you onto Elbow Island and into the adventure.  Walking down the stairs, you entered into a landscape removed from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Just off the stairs, you ducked into the space under the 4th St. bridge, where a bunch of people were hanging out, making fireflies, and having a good time.

Photo: James Best

Photo: Jeff Read

We invited everyone to make firelfies with us and put them up around the park.  We had the option of making simple fireflies with an LED and a battery, which was a easy entry point for all our visitors.  These ended up making up the majority of the installation.

Photo: Dana Codding

Photo: James Best

Our more ambitious visitors had the option of soldering their own simple circuits with microcontrollers and three LEDs that more closely mimicked the true blinking of fireflies.  This second activity was super popular.  Thanks to the Protospace and Solarbotics guys for helping people put these together!

Photo: James Best

Photo: James Best

Photo: Dana Codding

The end result was a pretty magical addition to the park, and made the space feel so much more welcoming!  Below are some photos of the fireflies in the foliage and under the bridge, where rad jams happened as part of Covers under a Bridge III.

Photo: James Best

Photo: Kathryn Swanson

In the end, we estimate that about 150 people made it through the space.  We can’t acknowledge all our amazing and diverse visitors in our short blog post, but here are two people whose stories we’d like to share:

Kate heard our CBC interview, called in the host to find out the name of our blog, came down to help us light up the city, and ended up staying all night!   We’re happy to have spotted her again the next day at some other Choose Yer Own events with more friends.

We met somebody who had a couchsurfer staying with him.  For this guy from Scotland, Firefly Adventure Club was his first experience of Calgary.  Chatting with him, he was very excited that there were people who cared about making their city a better place, and mentioned that this kind of stuff didn’t happen in his hometown.  

The night turned out to be a great opportunity for people from all walks of life to come together as a community and make a small corner of their city a pretty rad place.  Looking forward to the next one!

Photo: Dana Codding

Photo: Dana Codding

PS.  If you have photos to share, let us know at collaborativeprojectsyyc@gmail.com