Our day at Aardman Studios

Hands up if you remember the Natwest pigs.  I always wanted to collect them and remember asking my parents to swap my savings account in order to get my hands on them.  I was certainly a child of the 80’s.  Our games console was the spectrum zx and gaming included writing out a load of code for a few hours on our BBC Computer before being able to play some tennis game.  It has certainly changed for my children but Natwest have done it again and tapped into their lifestyle and hobbies.  Not in the form of ceramic pigs but they have been looking for a new way to encourage children to save.  This has led to the launch of Pigby an interactive app on the iPad.  Clever really – they are using today’s medium of apps to teach children the benefit of saving.

During half term we were invited to Bristol to visit Aardman studios (home of Wallace and Grommit, Morph and Shaun the Sheep) who have worked with Natwest to develop Pigby.  I took Dylan and a friend knowing they were the right age to really enjoy this treat.  We were promised fun and cake, so it was a no brainer to attend, plus I really wanted to see the creative home of some of the most popular animations.

Once we arrived I was bowled over by their studio.  There were so many amazing things to see and we gawped before heading of to their mini cinema to have a presentation about Pigby.  The team explained that they looked at other popular childrens app’s before coming up with the idea of a fairground.  The app allows children to collect and save money which is then deposited in the piggy bank.

Once the app had been explained to us and the messages behind it discussed the children got a turn to play and give their feedback to the developers.  My Dylan and his friend really liked the game and Dyl has since downloaded it and played it numerous times.

Once they had played we were taken through to have the promised cake.  They were amazing and little pigs!  We were throughly spoilt!

Then came the highlight for the children (and the grown ups!).  We were taught by Aardman’s Head of Model Making how to create Pigby.  The boys each were given step by step instructions and were taught how to handle the Plasticine.  They both really enjoyed doing this and here are their Pigby’s!

We would like to thank  Natwest and Aardman for having us for the afternoon.  We had a brilliant afternoon and throughly recommend checking out the free Pigby App.

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