The next generation(s) of high tech innovators came together on Saturday 10 March 2018 for a morning of sharing ideas, code, and enthusiasm for building cool stuff! We had representatives from Barton Hill, Bedminster, Bradley Stoke, Docklands, Malcolm X Community Centre, Redmaids, and Shirehampton clubs.
Our celebration events are an opportunity for young people from across our DigiLocal communities to gather and share their ideas and enthusiasm. Some have been working on projects guided by CodeClub materials, some have been working on their own side projects, and some on our larger Challenge project. All came on Saturday to showcase their work and learn from others.
In September 2017 we launched a major Challenge across all our DigiLocal clubs. The invitation has been for the young people to develop an idea for a business or environmental simulation / game, and to then build it in Scratch or Python. We’ve provided them with additional resources to help structure their development process. Many of the young people on Sat were exhibiting their projects and seeking testers for the next iteration.
One of the major announcements on Saturday was the launch of this year’s BAFTA Young Games Designer competition. Not by coincidence, the resources we’ve been using with our young people are from BAFTA. We expect these projects to be further enhanced over the next couple of months ready for the 25 April deadline for BAFTA. Volunteers have access to additional resources to help develop the applications and support our young people.
The second major announcement was the launch of our LINKS scheme for recognising the achievement of our young people. We want to encourage young people to 1) learn new things in their club activities; 2) put that learning into practice through our projects and challenges; and 3) to be rewarded for their achievements.
At each stage of LINKS, we review the projects our young people have undertaken, assess their commitment to their community club, and then reward them with a coloured USB wristband. As they undertake more complex projects, and become more involved through peer-mentoring, we reward them with different colours and higher capacity USB wristbands.
Alongside the LINKS scheme we’re introducing new projects, such as our Mission Mars series and our ongoing series of Challenges to give young people even more opportunities to enjoy tech and practice what they have been learning.
This will provide us with a structured approach to maintaining engagement over the long term, whilst recognising the huge contribution our young people make to their communities.
Another really positive feedback from the day was the number of parents that asked to have access to their child’s saved work folder so they can continue working from home (where they have access to a home computer). We’ll be adding that parental access over the coming weeks to encourage more participation in high tech.
We were very grateful to Redmaids’ High School for the use of their fabulous Redland Hall for the day.
Redmaids has been an early supporter of DigiLocal and their club has produced a number of fantastic projects from the girls participating.
