Lots of movement at The Lab of late

It's been a while between drinks on this blog - we've been so busy of late. So here's a short summary of some of the latest developments in Labland (that's not a bad term..should use that!):

• last week The Lab hosted a ministerial visit from the Hon Bill Shorten, Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. Minister Shorten also happens to be the local member for Maribyrnong, which is where the Lab is located. The visit saw a cast of dozens: kids and parents in Lab t-shirts, representatives from Victoria University and the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre (who organised the visit) as well as Shorten and his support staff. Minister Shorten spent much of the hour sitting down with Lab members and hearing from parents, then gave an eloquent speech on the needs of Australians with disability. The Young and Well CRC has collected some media from the event here: http://storify.com/yawcrc/bill-shorten-mp-visits-the-lab. Below is one of the pics, featuring Dermott giving the Minister a lesson in games programming:

• the week before, The Lab's video (see the homepage on The Lab website: www.thelab.org.au) and a big banner of the Lab infographic (see below) featured at a Science Week event at Parliament House in Canberra. Again, this was organised by the Young and Well CRC:

• In the last little while we (well, largely our brilliant research colleague Alberto Rizzo) have also been working on some papers about The Lab, including one for the forthcoming World Mental Health conference in Perth, one for the Australian Computer-Human Interaction conference in Melbourne, and one for a journal.

• Dale and/or Stefan have also given presentations at Flinders University in Adelaide and at the Werribee Rotary Club, where we have met some brilliant people.

• Our friends at  Just Better Care in Sydney are forging ahead with plans to start a Lab there. Start date is set at October 6! If you know anyone in Sydney who might be interested in this,or would like to be involved as a mentor or participant, please let us know via the Lab site contact form (http://www.thelab.org.au/contact) - we'd love to hear from you.

• Both the Wednesday and Thursday groups are firing along now, especially with the upcoming creative competition that's due to end in September.

• We're due to run another holiday workshop in the September holidays - will keep you posted once Dale returns from Japan and we can work out a date.