Perse pupils launch hackathons for potential programmers
Matthew (Year 10) and Delana (Year 9) are aiming to encourage more young people across the country to get into coding after setting up a series of ‘hackathons’.
They recently established Youthacks, a non-profit organisation delivering coding events – ‘hackathons’ – for youngsters of secondary and Sixth Form age, as well as offering support and advice to others wishing to get their own initiatives off the ground in the UK.
Youthacks have already held two successful events in Cambridge and London and will be hosting their next 12-hour hackathon, Cool as Hack, at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Cambridge, on Saturday (24 May).
Those previous events were run in collaboration with an international organisation, Hack Club, which provides funds for new hackathons, but this weekend’s gathering has been arranged with the Raspberry Pi Foundation as part of their Coolest Projects programme.
Matthew said: “Hackathons are social and collaborative and there’s a lot of demand for these types of events. There are hackathons for university students and interestingly even for primary school ages, but there’s that gap in between for secondary-aged students.
“There’s a huge interest in it – both hackathons we’ve run before now have been over-subscribed and we have people from as far away as Spain and Romania coming over for our next event.”
Delana added: “Our hackathons are 12 hours long and during that time, people will work together and make friends, so they’re essentially just creative and fun events with a particular theme in which you work on one project which you submit at the end.
“At our last hackathon, ‘Scrapyard’ was the theme. It was all about having a bit of a laugh making useless inventions, such as an AI algorithm that would rate your smile!”
The Cool as Hack event will see teams come together on the day to produce a variety of digital technology creations, which will be entered into the international Coolest Projects competition.
Participants will also gain inspiration from a guest speaker from the world of computer science and design and technology.
Matthew said: “Some people might make a physical project, some might make an app or website, but a lot of it is about meeting new people and making things you enjoy. At the end, everyone will record a video of what they made which will be submitted to the competition.
Delana added: “We aren’t just trying to encourage people who do coding to this event, but also people who like art and DT. If you don’t know how to code you can still come and learn and have fun, and we need people who are good at art and DT to make projects look aesthetically pleasing.”
For more information on taking part in the Cool as Hack hackathon, please click here.