Over the years we’ve found loads of cool projects and resources for young people to explore. These aren’t teaching resources as such, and generally they’re not specifically designed for young people, but they all help develop your problem solving skills. We also think they’re quite good fun!
Listed alphabetically.
Please note: these are external links and DigiLocal is not responsible for the content of any other site.
| Advent of Code https://adventofcode.com/ You can access previous challenges (back to 2015) by appending the year to the url, e.g. https://adventofcode.com/2019 | This is a fun series of coding challenges with a Christmas theme. While you have to find the ‘right’ answer (usually a number), there is no ‘right’ way to do it. Most are nearly impossible to do manually, so you’ll need to think how to solve the challenge using code. You can solve them using basic code principles such as repeat loops, and if … then statements, or you can explore the exotic world of regex and lamda functions! Although Christmas themed, the challenges are available all year round. There is a great community of coders that take part in the challenges but this is not specifically for young people. |
 BAFTA Young Games Designer http://ygd.bafta.org/ Ask your DigiLocal Mentor for access to our YGD Classroom with all the resources and support for your competition entry. Currently closed, but the deadline is usually March | This annual competition is for young people (ages 10-14yrs and 15-18yrs) to design a new game. The winning entry receives support from a professional game studio to turn their design or prototype into a full game! As well as the competition, there are loads of resources to help structure your thinking and help design a better game. |
 NASA International Space Apps Challenge https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/ 1-3 Oct 2022 – talk you your DigiLocal Mentor about getting started on big data! | Work with NASA’s Open Source data to tackle global challenges! The challenge brings together technologists, scientists, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, and others from across the world. Since 2019 we have co-hosted the Bristol code jam weekend with the Space Exploration Society of the University of the West of England. This gives young people the opportunity to learn a little about space and satellite data, and how it can help transform our understanding of the Earth, and outer space. The challenge is a 48-hr code jam at the start of Oct. We provide additional safeguarding and mentor support for young people participating as part of DigiLocal. |
 OWASP Juice Shop https://owasp.org/www-project-juice-shop/ Note: this requires an installation on a web server. You can do this using something like heroku or ask your DigiLocal Mentor to help set it up. | A fun introduction to cyber security and online applications through the world’s most modern and sophisticated insecure web application! You get to see how modern online applications work, by trying to break it. Be aware, while this starts out quite easy it does end with exceptionally difficult challenges that even professional cyber security software engineers will struggle with. However, it’s a great way to explore online applications. |
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