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Big news for young coders and everyone who supports them: project registration is now open for Coolest Projects 2024! Coolest Projects is our global technology showcase for young people aged up to 18. It gives young creators the incredible opportunity to share the cool stuff they’ve made with digital technology with a global audience, and receive certificates and rewards to celebrate their achievements.
The Coolest Projects online showcase is open to young people worldwide. Young creators can register their projects to share them with the world in our online project gallery, and join our exciting livestream event to celebrate what they have made with the global Coolest Projects community.
By taking part in Coolest Projects, young people can join an international community of young makers, represent their country, receive personalised feedback on their projects, and get certificates and more to recognise their achievements.
Here’s how it works:
Taking part in Coolest Projects is simple:
As well as the global online showcase, Coolest Projects in-person events are held for young people locally in certain countries too, and we encourage creators to take part in both the online showcase and their local in-person event.
In 2024, creators can look forward to the following in-person events, run by us and partner organisations around the world:
More events are coming soon, so sign up to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be sure to hear about any in-person events in your country. And if there isn’t an event near you, don’t worry. The online showcase is open to any young person anywhere in the world.
Coolest Projects welcomes all digital tech projects, from beginner to advanced, and there are loads of great resources available to help you support the young people in your community to take part.
We are running a series of online calls and webinars for mentors and young people to share practical tips and help participants develop their ideas and build their creations. Sign up for the sessions here. All sessions will be recorded, so you can watch them back if you can’t join live.
You can also check out the Coolest Projects guidance page for resources to help you support young people throughout their Coolest Projects journey, including a mentor guide and session plans.
To inspire your coders, encourage them to take a look at the 2023 showcase gallery, where they can explore the incredible projects submitted by participants last year.
Our projects site is also a great place for participants to begin — there are hundreds of free step-by-step project guides to help young people create their own projects, whether they’re experienced tech creators or they’re just getting started.
There’s lots more exciting news to come, from the announcement of our VIP judges to details about this year’s swag, so sign up for email updates to be the first to know. And whether your coders have already made something fun, innovative, or amazing that they want to share, or they’re inspired to make something new, Coolest Projects is the place for them. We can’t wait to see what they create!
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In our series of community stories, we celebrate some of the wonderful things young people and educators around the world are achieving through the power of technology.
In our latest story, we’re heading to Vivek High School in Mohali, India, to meet Sahibjot, a 14-year-old coding enthusiast who has taken his hobby to the next level thanks to mentorship, Code Club, and the exciting opportunity to take part in the Coolest Projects 2023 global online showcase.
When he was younger, Sahibjot loved playing video games. His interest in gaming led him to discover the world of game development, and he was inspired to find out more and try it out himself. He began to learn to code in his spare time, using tutorials to help him develop his skills.
Keen to share the joy he had experienced from gaming, Sahibjot set himself the challenge of creating a game for his cousin. This project cemented his enthusiasm for coding and developing games of his own.
“I always felt that I have played so many games in my life, why not make one and others will enjoy the same experience that I had as a child.
For my cousin, I made a personal game for him, and he played it and he liked it very much, so once he played it, I felt that, yes, this is what I want to do with my life.” – Sahibjot
While continuing to hone his computing skills at home, Sahibjot heard that his school had started a Code Club. After initially feeling nervous about joining, his enthusiasm was bolstered by the club mentor, Rajan, talking about artificial intelligence and other interesting topics during the session, and he soon settled in.
At Code Club, with support and encouragement from Rajan, Sahibjot continued to develop and grow his coding skills. Alongside his technical skills, he also learned about teamwork and working collaboratively. He embraced the opportunity to help his peers, sharing his knowledge with others and becoming a mentor for younger club members.
“Last year, we joined this coding club together and we became friends. He’s a very friendly person. Whenever we need him, he just quickly helps us. He helps us to troubleshoot, find any bugs, or even fix our codes.” – Akshat, fellow Code Club member
The next step for Sahibjot came when Rajan introduced him and his fellow Code Club members to Coolest Projects. Coolest Projects is a celebration of young digital creators and the amazing things they make with technology. It offers participants the opportunity to share their tech creations in a global, online showcase, and local in-person events celebrating young creators are also held in several countries.
Sahibjot was eager to take part and showcase what he had made. He submitted a Python project, a ping-pong game, to the online showcase, and was very excited to then see his creation receive a special shout-out during the Coolest Projects global livestream event. He was delighted to share this achievement with his friends and family, and he felt proud to be representing his school and his country on a global stage.
“I told everyone around me that there was going to be a livestream and I possibly might be featured in that, so that was really exciting. I learned a lot about just not representing my school and myself as an individual, I learned about representing my whole nation.” — Sahibjot
Sahibjot’s passion for computing has helped shape his aspirations and ambitions. Looking to the future, he hopes to use his technology skills to benefit others and make an impact.
“Using code and technology and all of the things like that, I aspire to make effort to do something with the world, like help out people with technology.” — Sahibjot
To find out how you and young creators you know can get involved in Coolest Projects, visit coolestprojects.org. If the young people in your community are just starting out on their computing journey, visit our projects site for free, fun beginner coding projects.
For more information to help you set up a Code Club in your school, visit codeclub.org.
Join us in celebrating Sahibjot’s inspiring journey by sharing his story on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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With the rapid advances in digital technologies like artificial intelligence, it’s more important than ever that every young person has the opportunity to learn how computers are being used to change the world and to develop the skills and confidence to get creative with technology.
There’s no better way to develop those abilities (super powers even) than getting hands-on experience of programming, whether that’s coding an animation, designing a game, creating a website, building a robot buggy, or training an AI classification model. That’s what tens of thousands of young people do every day in Code Clubs all over the world.
We were absolutely thrilled to organise a Code Club at Number Ten Downing Street last week, hosted by the UK Prime Minister’s wife Akshata Murty as part of Lessons at 10.
Lessons at 10 is an initiative to bring school children from all over the UK into Number Ten Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister. Every week different schools visit to attend lessons led by education partners covering all kinds of subjects.
We ran a Code Club for 20 Year 7 students (ages 11 to 12) from schools in Coventry and Middlesex. The young people had a great time with the Silly eyes and Ghostbusters projects from our collections of Scratch projects. Both stone-cold classics in my opinion, and a great place to start if you’re new to programming.
You may have spotted in the photos that the young people were programming on Raspberry Pi computers (the incredible Raspberry Pi 400 made in Wales). We also managed to get our hands on some cool new monitors.
Mrs Murty’s father was one of the founders of Infosys, which ranks among the world’s most successful technology companies, founded in India and now operating all over the world. So it is perhaps no surprise that she spoke eloquently to the students about the importance of every young person learning about technology and seeing themselves as digital creators not consumers.
We were lucky enough to be in one of the rather fancy rooms in Number Ten, featuring a portrait by John Constable of his niece Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer. Mrs Murty reminded us that one of the lessons we learn from Ada Lovelace is that computer programming combines both the logical and artistic aspects of human intelligence. So true.
Since Code Club’s launch in April 2012, it has grown to be the world’s largest movement of free computing clubs and has supported over 2 million young people to get creative with technology.
Code Clubs provide a free, fun, and safe environment for young people from all backgrounds to develop their digital skills. Run by teachers and volunteers, most Code Clubs take place in schools, and there are also lots in libraries and other community venues.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides a broad range of projects that young people use to build their confidence and skills with lots of different hardware and software. The ultimate goal is that they are empowered to combine their logical and artistic skills to create something original. Just like Ada Lovelace did all those years ago.
All of our projects are designed to be self-directed, so young people can learn independently or in groups. That means that you don’t need to be a tech expert to set up or run a Code Club. We provide you with all the support that you need to get started.
If you want to find out more about how to set up a Code Club, visit the website here.
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Each year, young people all over the world share and celebrate their amazing tech creations by taking part in Coolest Projects, our digital technology showcase. Our global online showcase and local in-person events give kids a wonderful opportunity to celebrate their creativity with their communities, explore other young creators’ tech projects, and gain inspiration and encouragement for their future projects.
Now, visitors to the Young V&A museum in London can also be inspired by some of the incredible creations showcased at Coolest Projects. The museum has recently reopened after a large reimagining, and some of the inspiring projects by Coolest Projects 2022 participants are now on display in the Design Gallery, ready to spark digital creativity among more young people.
Many Coolest Projects participants showcase projects that they created to make an impact and solve a real-world problem that’s important to them, for example to help members of their local community, or to protect the environment.
One example on display in the Young V&A gallery is EleVoc, by 15-year-old Chinmayi from India. Chinmayi was inspired to create her project after she and her family faced a frightening encounter:
“My family and I are involved in wildlife conservation. One time we were charged by elephants even though we were only passing by in a Jeep. This was my first introduction to human–animal conflict, and I wanted to find a way to solve it!” – Chinmayi
The experience prompted Chinmayi to create EleVoc, an early-warning device designed to reduce human–elephant conflict by detecting and classifying different elephant sounds and alerting nearby villages to the elephants’ proximity and behaviour.
Also exhibited at the Young V&A is the hardware project Gas Leak Detector by Sashrika, aged 11, from the USA. Gas Leak Detector is a device that detects if a fuel tank for a diesel-powered heating system is leaking and notifies householders through an app in a matter of second.
Sashrika knew this invention could really make a difference to people’s lives. She explained, “Typically, diesel gas tanks for heating are in the basement where people don’t visit every day. Leakage may be unnoticed and lead to fire or major repair cost.”
As well as projects designed to solve problems, Coolest Projects also welcomes young people who create things to entertain or have fun.
At the Young V&A, visitors can enjoy the fun, fast-paced game project Runaway Nose, by 10-year-old Harshit from Ireland. Runaway Nose uses facial recognition, and players have to use their nose to interact with the prompts on the screen.
Harshit shared the motivation behind his project:
“I wanted to make a fun game to get you thinking fast and that would get you active, even on a rainy day.” – Harshit
We can confirm Runaway Nose is a lot of fun, and a must-do activity for people of all ages on a visit to the museum.
If you are in London, make sure to head to the Young V&A to see Chinmayi’s, Sashrika’s, and Harshit’s projects, and many more. We love seeing the ingenuity of the global community of young tech creators celebrated, and hope it inspires you and your young people.
With that in mind, we are excited that Coolest Projects will be back in 2024. Registrations for the global Coolest Projects online showcase will be open from 14 February to 22 May 2024, and any young creator up to age 18 anywhere in the world can get involved. We’ll also be holding in-person Coolest Projects events for young people in Ireland and the UK. Head to the Coolest Projects website to find out more.
Coolest Projects is for all young people, no matter their level of coding experience. Kids who are just getting started and would like to take part can check out the free project guides on our projects site. These offer step-by-step guidance to help everyone make a tech project they feel proud of.
To always get the latest news about all things Coolest Projects, from event updates to the fun swag coming for 2024, sign up for the Coolest Projects newsletter.
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The day after the successful meetup with our Global Clubs Partner organisations based in Africa, our team and some of our partners enjoyed participating in the Coolest Projects South Africa 2023 event to meet young tech creators and help out as project judges. Here are some of our impressions.
This is the fourth year of a partner-run, regional version of Coolest Projects — our world-leading showcase for young tech creators — taking place in South Africa, led by David Campey. David is Director of Coder LevelUp, one of our Global Clubs Partners growing and supporting a network of CoderDojos and Code Clubs in the country, and involved in the CoderDojo movement for a whole decade.
There was a buzz of anticipation and excitement at the Cape Town Science Centre as young coders from age 5 to 18 and various backgrounds gathered on this sunny Saturday morning to showcase their coding creations and inventions at Coolest Projects South Africa. From fun games and animations on Scratch, to cool websites created with HTML and CSS, to fantastic Python-based hardware solutions to real-world challenges — every young creator brought along a project they’d created to proudly showcase and celebrate.
While chatting with the creators and discovering what had motivated their projects, we met up with 11-year-old Luhle, who was delighted to take us through the ‘Moon conversation’ animation she had coded in Scratch.
The animation involved a Spanish conversation between two people who journeyed to the moon and back. Luhle had created her animation because of her love for languages and in response to a challenge posed to her class by her teacher: to learn 5 languages. While her mother tongue is isiXhosa, she is confident in English, is learning Afrikaans, has started teaching herself Spanish, and would love to learn Korean.
We also met with 16-year-old Kayden, who showcased a project he’d made to address a real-world challenge. He told us he had always struggled to concentrate in class — a challenge that many young people face — and he wanted to build an alternative solution to the established medications. Using vibration sensors and two microcontrollers, he created a digital device to prompt users when they are no longer paying attention in class. With his friend Carl, he successfully tested the device on a meaningful sample of Grade 1–3 learners (ages 7–9).
Kayden is now developing this low-cost innovative solution to include a heart rate monitor to help to detect when a user loses focus, and he wants this to be a solution that’s widely accessible and affordable for all South African children. One of the judges, our partner Akwabi Paul from Tech Kidz Africa in Kenya, was greatly impressed and motivated by Kayden’s work, and took time to advise Kayden on the next steps to turn his invention into a commercial product.
During the event we also met members of Mrs Hill’s coding club and learnt about Mrs Hill’s experience of nurturing a love and interest for coding and robotics at CBC St Johns Parklands in Cape Town.
Since 2020, Mrs Hills has been providing coding lessons to all school classes — learners aged 6 to 12 years — as well as an after-school coding and robotics club. She approaches her lessons by introducing and demonstrating coding skills and then presenting her learners with a problem to solve collaboratively. In her words, ‘Learners find more interest in learning practically.’
That’s why Coolest Projects is the perfect fit for her and her young people. 4 of her club members took part in Coolest Projects South Africa 2022. This year, she was proud to enter 11 participants, 3 of whom were chosen as judges’ favourites.
After the showcasing and judging, the Coolest Projects South Africa event culminated in a hearty celebration of all that the young tech creators had presented. David Campey’s passion for nurturing coding literacy, digital making skills, and innovative thinking among learners from different walks of life made the whole day a truly enjoyable, inclusive event for the young creators.
It was inspiring, no doubt, for our other African partners who participated as judges and are now keen to host Coolest Projects events back in their home countries.
If you and your young people based anywhere on the globe feel inspired to showcase digital tech creations, you can get involved in our Coolest Projects 2024 online showcase! It’s free and open to any young tech creator up to age 18.
Sign up to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be the first to hear all updates, for example when showcase registration opens on 14 February.
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Big news for young tech creators: Coolest Projects will return in 2024. The world’s leading showcase for young creators of digital tech will be open for registration in the online gallery, and we want young people worldwide to showcase their tech projects.
In 2024, we are hosting the Coolest Projects online showcase and livestream celebration for all young creators around the world, and also in-person events in the UK and Ireland for young creators who live there.
All young tech creators can take part — for free — in the Coolest Projects online showcase:
Coolest Projects is an opportunity for young tech creators to share what they have made with the world. Young people register their tech creations to show them in the Coolest Projects online showcase gallery. Alongside mentors, parents, friends, and family members in their local and global communities, they can explore the gallery and celebrate what they and their peers have made.
If your kids want to learn about creating with technology, check out our free guided coding project paths. These paths are designed to support all young people to learn how to make their own tech projects and develop their coding skills. For example:
Young creators can take a look at the Coolest Projects 2023 online showcase gallery for inspiration if they are not sure what they want to make. You can also watch the story of Zaahra and Eesa, siblings who participated in Coolest Projects 2020.
If you are a young creator in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, or the UK, then Coolest Projects is also coming to you in person in 2024. Participants will be able to meet other young tech creators, connect to their community, and celebrate each other’s creations. Young people are encouraged to take part in both the Coolest Projects global online showcase and their local in-person event.
Coolest Projects Ireland will take place at DCU St Patrick’s College Campus, Drumcondra in Dublin. It’s open to young creators in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and their families and friends are invited to come along to celebrate them and see all the incredible projects on show. Participants can apply for partial bursaries for the costs of attending the event.
Very soon we will announce the date and venue for Coolest Projects UK for all young creators in the UK. Sign up for email updates to be the first to hear about it. We will also share full details of each in-person event on the Coolest Projects website when registration opens.
If there’s not an in-person Coolest Projects event near you, you can still join in the fun: the Coolest Projects online showcase is open to any young creator aged up to 18, from anywhere in the world. We also work with brilliant partner organisations around the world to bring Coolest Projects events to their countries and communities. Sign up to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be the first to know about any in-person event in your country.
Coolest Projects registration opens soon in 2024, and young creators can start thinking of ideas and working on their projects now. Or if young people have already made something they are really proud of, they can showcase that creation once registration is open.
Sign up for email updates to always get the latest news about all things Coolest Projects, from event updates to the fun swag coming for 2024.
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In the 2023 Coolest Projects online showcase, 5801 young people from all over the world shared the wonderful, fun, and creative things they had made with technology. But that’s not all we’ve seen of Coolest Projects this year. As well as our worldwide annual online showcase, a number of in-person Coolest Projects events are taking place in countries across the globe in 2023.
Run by us or partner organisations, these exciting events create a space for young people to meet other young tech creators, connect to their community, and celebrate each others’ creations. In-person Coolest Projects events around the world had to pause over the coronavirus pandemic, and we’re delighted to see them return to engage and inspire young people once again.
On 1 July, we were super excited to host Coolest Projects Ireland, our first in-person Coolest Projects event since 2020. 63 young tech creators from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland came together in Dublin for an exciting one-day event where they shared 43 incredible creations, with engineer and STEM communicator Dr Niamh Shaw leading everyone through the day’s celebrations.
One young maker showcasing her project was Charlotte from Kinsale CoderDojo in the Republic of Ireland. Her creative storytelling project ‘Goldicat and the Three Angry Property Owners’ was chosen as a judges’ favourite in the Scratch category.
Charlotte’s story includes different games and three secret endings for the user to discover. She told us: “I know someone who made an animation based off the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel in Scratch. This inspired me to make a game based off a different fairy tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
Harshit entered the Hardware category with his amazing mini vending machine. Describing his project, he explained, “This is a recreation of a vending machine, but I have added my own twists to it to make it simple to build. You still get the full experience of an actual vending machine, but what makes it special is that it is made fully out of recycled materials.”
Young people at Coolest Projects Ireland were joined and supported by family, friends, and mentors from Code Clubs and CoderDojos. Mentors told us their favourite things about attending a Coolest Projects event in person were “the joy and excitement the participants got from taking part and discussing their project with the judges”, and “the way it was very inclusive to all children and all [were] included on stage for some swag!”
In 2023 we’re partnering with six organisations that are bringing Coolest Projects events for their communities. We’re still looking forward to the exciting Coolest Projects events planned for the rest of the year:
Back in June, more than 30 young creators participated in Coolest Projects Hungary, which was organised in Budapest by the team at EPAM Systems Inc. And April saw our partner CoderDojo Belgium organise Coolest Projects Belgium for 40 young people, who shared 25 projects across different categories from Scratch to Hardware and Advanced Programming.
The CoderDojo Belgium team shared how important the Coolest Projects event is to their community:
“Just like every year, we’ve unlocked the doors to welcome the next generation of tech enthusiasts. And this year, once again, we were absolutely amazed by the projects they brought to the spotlight. From an app predicting stock market evolution, to creatively designed games with unexpected twists, not to mention the incredible robots, and more, their ingenuity knows no bounds.”
CoderDojo Belgium
We’re excited that the Coolest Projects online showcase — open to any young creator anywhere in the world — will return in 2024. And if there isn’t a Coolest Projects in-person event in your country yet, don’t worry. We’re working with more and more partners every year to bring Coolest Projects events to more young people.
To stay up to date with news about the Coolest Projects online showcase, sign up to the newsletter.
And you can celebrate young tech creators with us year round wherever you are by following Coolest Projects on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, where we share inspiring projects from the Coolest Projects online gallery and photos from the in-person events.
We’d like to thank EPAM Systems Inc, Meta, and GoTo for supporting the Coolest Projects Ireland event. If you’re interested in partnering with us for Coolest Projects, please reach out to us via email.
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An absolutely huge congratulations to each and every single young creator who participated in Coolest Projects 2023, our digital technology showcase for young people! 5801 young people from 37 countries took part. This year’s participants made projects that entertained, inspired, and wowed us — creators showcased everything from robotic arms to platformer games.
We celebrated every project and maker in a special livestream event this Tuesday:
Each year, we invite VIP judges to pick their favourite projects. This year they had the difficult job of choosing between 4111 incredible projects young people showcased. Meet the judges and find out which projects were their favourites.
Yewande is a chartered engineer, innovator, and speaker. She has worked on projects in the UK, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, and has been named the UK Young Woman Engineer of the Year by the Institution of Engineering & Technology.
See Yewande’s favourites:
Vaishali is an Indian engineer, innovator, and revolutionary educationist. She is the co-founder of Young Tinker Academy and Young Tinker Foundation, started in 2015 to educate the less-privileged students of rural India. Her team at Young Tinker Foundation has impacted the lives of 150,000+ students.
Lella is an award-winning 18-year-old Digital Changemaker and Power of Youth Champion. Since she taught herself to code at age 8, Lella fosters purpose-driven innovation to create global industry opportunities that ensure young people are at the forefront of the ongoing digital transformation.
Lella’s favourite projects are:
Aoife is the Head of Community Development for Meta Data Centres in Europe and Asia. She and her team deliver on Meta’s commitment to playing a positive role and investing in the long-term vitality of Meta Data Centre communities in Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, and Singapore.
See Aoife’s favourite projects:
Broadcom Foundation has partnered with us for Coolest Projects to encourage young people who are solving problems that impact their communities. Broadcom Coding with Commitment™ is a special recognition for a Coolest Projects creator aged 11–14 who has learned basic coding as an essential problem-solving tool in STEM and is “thinking globally while acting locally.”
The Broadcom Coding with Commitment™ recognition goes to Smart Farm, a project by Dang, Chi, and An from Vietnam. They designed Smart Farm to help farmers in their community regulate the temperature of animals, feed them on time, and check them for diseases. The team also built a fish pond model that tests the pH of the water and a vegetable garden model that detects when vegetables are wilting, all with the aim of helping local farmers to care for their livestock and protect their livelihoods. Huge congratulations to the team!
Our judges have chosen their favourite projects — but what about yours? You can explore thousands of incredible projects for 2023 young creators in the Coolest Projects showcase gallery and discover your favourites today.
All young creators who took part will shortly receive their own unique certificate to recognise their amazing achievements. They’ll also be able to log into their Coolest Projects account to find personalised feedback on their projects from our judging team.
Support from our Coolest Projects sponsors means we can make the online showcase and celebration livestream an inspiring experience for the young people taking part. We want to say a big thank you to all of them: Allianz Technologies, Broadcom Foundation, EPAM Systems, Liberty Global, Meta, and Qube Research and Technologies.
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Computing combines a very broad mixture of concepts and skills. We work to support any school to teach students about the whole of computing and how to create with digital technologies. A key part of this support is The Computing Curriculum.
The Computing Curriculum is our complete bank of free lesson plans and other resources that offer you everything you need to teach computing lessons to all school-aged learners. It helps you cover the full breadth of computing, including computing systems, programming, creating media, data and information, and societal impacts of digital technology.
The 500 hours of free, downloadable resources within The Computing Curriculum include all the materials you need in your classroom: from lesson plans and slide decks to activity sheets, homework, and assessments. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive set of free teaching and learning materials for computing and digital skills in the world.
Our Curriculum’s resources are based on clear progression and content frameworks we’ve designed, and we continuously update them based on the latest research and feedback from practising teachers. Doing this is particularly important for computing education resources, because computing is a young subject where thoughts and understanding about the best teaching approaches are still evolving.
With The Computing Curriculum, we support educators of all levels of experience. Whether you specialise in computing, or you are a newcomer to the subject, the Curriculum will save you time and help you deliver engaging lessons.
In our 2022 survey of teachers who have used The Computing Curriculum resources:
- 91% said the Curriculum was effective or very effective at saving teachers time
- 89% said it was effective or very effective at developing teachers’ subject knowledge
- 81% said it was effective or very effective at engaging students
The resources are organised as themed units, and they support your computing lesson planning, preparation, and delivery because they are comprehensive as well as adaptable. You are free to use the resources as they are, or adjust them to your context, access to hardware, and learners’ needs and experience level.
One aspect of The Computing Curriculum that will facilitate your teaching is the progression framework on which the resources are based. In creating the resources, we have considered the learning objectives throughout each unit and year group, and throughout the entire schooling period. This progression is detailed in curriculum maps and learning graphs, and you’ll be able to use these documents to plan your lessons and to check your learners’ understanding.
You can download and use the resources for the year groups you teach computing right now. And please tell us of your experiences using The Computing Curriculum in your classroom, so that we can make the resources even better for educators around the world.
If you are interested in curriculum resources tailored for your region, please contact us via this form. You can find out how we adapted resources from The Computing Curriculum for learners living in a refugee camp in Kenya if you’d like to learn about our approach to tailoring resources.
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Young creators, it’s time to share your ideas with the world! Registration for Coolest Projects is now open.
Coolest Projects is an online showcase celebrating all young people who create with digital technology. From today, Monday 6 February, young people can register their projects on the Coolest Projects website. Registered projects will be part of the online showcase gallery, for people all over the world to see.
By entering your digital tech creations into Coolest Projects, you’ll have the chance to get personalised feedback about your project, represent your country in the online showcase, and get fun, limited-edition swag. Your project could even be selected as a favourite by our very special VIP judges.
Coolest Projects is an online celebration of young digital tech creators worldwide, their skills, and their wonderful creative ideas. We welcome all kinds of projects, from big to small, beginner to advanced, and work in progress to completed creation.
Here’s what you need to know:
If you’d like help with your idea or project, take a look at our free, step-by-step Coolest Projects workbook and coding project guides. You can also get inspired by all the creations in the 2022 showcase gallery.
You are also very welcome to register a tech project you’ve already made and want to share with the world this year.
We offer free resources to help mentors and parents support young people through the process of taking part in Coolest Projects, from imagining ideas, to creating projects, to registration.
There are loads more announcements to come, so make sure to subscribe to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be the first to find out about this year’s VIP judges, limited-edition digital swag, and much more.
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In our work, we get to meet so many super inspiring young people who make things with technology. Our series of community stories is one way we share their journeys and enthusiasm for digital making with you.
Today we’re introducing you to Adarsh from California, USA.
We first met Adarsh at the Coolest Projects USA showcase in 2019, when he was 15 years old. Adarsh was chosen as the Coolest Projects judges’ favourite in the showcase’s Hardware category for making a Smart Sprinkler System, which can serve an entire community. He was inspired to create this project by the need he saw in California to manage water during a drought. Using a Raspberry Pi computer, he built a moisture sensor–based sprinkler system that integrates real-time weather forecast data and Twitter feeds to dispense only optimum amounts of water, in compliance with city water regulations. Adarsh says:
“The world around us right now has a lot of different problems that need to be solved and so the way that I get inspired is by looking outwards.”
In 2020, Coolest Projects Global went online with young people across the world sharing their tech projects, and Adarsh created a project for the showcase to solve another real-life problem he had witnessed. When Adarsh had been in middle school, his mother had to be rushed to hospital with a sudden heart problem. The experience of seeing her hooked up to lots of vital sign monitors, with the wires hindering her movement, stayed in his memory. It led Adarsh to create another tech project: the Contactless Vital Signs Monitor. This low-cost device can be used to monitor a person’s skin temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation without needing to be in direct contact with them. Adarsh’s contactless monitor lets patients rest more comfortably and also keeps healthcare staff safer from infections.
Adarsh entered his Contactless Vital Signs Monitor in the Davidson Fellows Scholarship programme, which recognises students who have completed significant projects that have the potential to benefit society.
Adarsh has this message for other young people who think they might like to try creating things with tech:
“None of these projects, to get to the stage where they are today, were without frustration or difficulties. That’s part of the process. You should expect that. Because of all the struggles I had, the fact that I was able to build all of this is so much more rewarding to me.”
A big part of coding and digital making is problem-solving and collaboration. Adarsh told us that he had a really great mentor, Johan, who introduced him to coding and Raspberry Pi hardware, and showed him where Adarsh could ask for help online.
“[The Raspberry Pi community] is such a large and inclusive community. It welcomes young students — even older adults who are first starting to develop their interest in computer science — and we all are developing our own skills, our own projects, and our own passions together, and while doing so, we’re helping each other out.”
Now a freshman at Stanford University, Adarsh is currently doing an epidemiology-related research project about the relationship between COVID-19 mutations and environmental, health, and demographic statistics. He wants to focus either on biomedical engineering or environmental engineering in his studies.
“Really [what I’m studying at university] is going to involve engineering or computer science largely due to the Raspberry Pi and the early influence it has had on my life.”
Thanks for inspiring us, Adarsh, and for letting us share your story with the community!
Help us celebrate Adarsh and inspire other young people to discover coding and digital making as a passion, by sharing his story on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.
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Welcome to 2023. I hope that you had a fantastic 2022 and that you’re looking forward to an even better year ahead. To help get the year off to a great start, I thought it might be fun to share a few of the things that we’ve got planned for 2023.
Whether you’re a teacher, a mentor, or a young person, if it’s computer science, coding, or digital skills that you’re looking for, we’ve got you covered.
Through our collaboration with the European Space Agency, Astro Pi, young people can write computer programs that are guaranteed to run on the Raspberry Pi computers on the International Space Station (terms and conditions apply).
Astro Pi Mission Zero is open to participants until 17 March 2023 and is a perfect introduction to programming in Python for beginners. It takes about an hour to complete and we provide step-by-step guides for teachers, mentors, and young people.
Kids all over the world are already working on their entries to Coolest Projects Global 2023, our international online showcase that will see thousands of young people share their brilliant tech creations with the world. Registration opens on 6 February and it’s super simple to get involved. If you’re looking for inspiration, why not explore the judges’ favourite projects from 2022?
While we all love the Coolest Projects online showcase, I’m also looking forward to attending more in-person Coolest Projects events in 2023. The word on the street is that members of the Raspberry Pi team have been spotted scouting venues in Ireland… Watch this space.
I am sure I wasn’t alone in disappearing down a ChatGPT rabbit hole at the end of last year after OpenAI made their latest AI chatbot available for free. The internet exploded with both incredible examples of what the chatbot can do and furious debates about the limitations and ethics of AI systems.
With the rapid advances being made in AI technology, it’s increasingly important that young people are able to understand how AI is affecting their lives now and the role that it can play in their future. This year we’ll be building on our research into the future of AI and data science education and launching Experience AI in partnership with leading AI company DeepMind. The first wave of resources and learning experiences will be available in March.
With pandemic restrictions now almost completely unwound, we’ve seen a huge resurgence in Code Clubs and CoderDojos meeting all over the world. To build on this momentum, we are delighted to be welcoming Code Club and CoderDojo mentors and educators to a big Clubs Conference in Churchill College in Cambridge on 24 and 25 March.
This will be the first time we’re holding a community get-together since 2019 and a great opportunity to share learning and make new connections.
As part of our global mission to ensure that every young person is able to learn how to create with digital technologies, we have been focused on building partnerships in India, Kenya, and South Africa, and that work will be expanding in 2023.
In India we will significantly scale up our work with established partners Mo School and Pratham Education Foundation, training 2000 more teachers in government schools in Odisha, and running 2200 Code Clubs across four states. We will also be launching new partnerships with community-based organisations in Kenya and South Africa, helping them set up networks of Code Clubs and co-designing learning experiences that help them bring computing education to their communities of young people.
Over the past few years, our research seminar series has covered computing education topics from diversity and inclusion, to AI and data science. This year, we’re focusing on current questions and research in primary computing education for 5- to 11-year-olds.
As ever, we’re providing a platform for some of the world’s leading researchers to share their insights, and convening a community of educators, researchers, and policy makers to engage in the discussion. The first seminar takes place today (Tuesday 10 January) and it’s not too late to sign up.
That’s just a few of the super cool things that we’ve got planned for 2023. I haven’t even mentioned the new online projects we’re developing with our friends at Unity, the fun we’ve got planned with our very own online text editor, or what’s next for our curriculum and professional development offer for computing teachers.
You can sign up to our monthly newsletter to always stay up to date with what we’re working on.
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Young tech creators, get ready: Coolest Projects will be back in 2023, and we want to make this the year of your big idea!
Coolest Projects is the world’s leading online technology showcase for young creators across the world, and we’ll soon be inviting young people to share their creations in the 2023 gallery when project registration opens on 6 February.
For young creators, Coolest Projects is the unique opportunity to share their big ideas with the whole world. All projects in our open online showcase receive personalised feedback from judges, and all creators get some awesome limited-edition swag too. To bring all the participants together, we’ll host a live-streamed celebration event online on 6 June 2023, where we’ll also reveal the favourite projects of our very special VIP judges.
Creators who took part in 2022 told us that the coolest thing about Coolest Projects is that “so many people around the world get to see and appreciate your projects” and that “anyone can have a go”.
Coolest Projects creators make digital tech projects that matter to them and that they want to share with the world. Creators have all different levels of skill — some register their very first coding project, and others have taken part in Coolest Projects for years. We welcome every project from every young person in Coolest Projects. With six project categories from Scratch to hardware, and project topics including environment, health, and fun, creators come up with all kinds of cool ideas.
Take a look at the online showcase gallery to see the projects young makers shared in the most recent showcase, including an app about recycling, a smiley face game, a trash-collecting boat, and a game to help you eat more healthily.
Registration opens on 6 February 2023, and creators can get started on their ideas and make their projects any time.
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We are so excited to share another story from the community! Our series of community stories takes you across the world to hear from young people and educators who are engaging with creating digital technologies in their own personal ways.
In this story we introduce you to Selin, a digital maker from Istanbul, Turkey, who is passionate about robotics and AI. Watch the video to hear how Selin’s childhood pet inspired her to build tech projects that aim to help others live well.
Selin (16) started her digital making journey because she wanted to solve a problem: after her family’s beloved dog Korsan passed away, she wanted to bring him back to life. Selin thought a robotic dog could be the answer, and so she started to design her project on paper. When she found out that learning to code would mean she could actually make a robotic dog, Selin began to teach herself about coding and digital making.
Thanks to her local CoderDojo, which is part of the worldwide CoderDojo network of free, community-based, volunteer-led programming clubs where young people explore digital technology, Selin’s interest in creating tech projects grew and grew. Selin has since built seven robots, and her enthusiasm for building things with digital technology shows no sign of stopping.
One of Selin’s big motivations to explore digital making was having an event to work towards. At her Dojo, Selin found out about Coolest Projects, the global technology showcase for young people. She then set herself the task of making a robot to present at the Coolest Projects event in 2018.
When thinking about ideas for what to make for Coolest Projects, Selin remembered how it felt to lose her dog. She wondered what it must be like when a blind person’s guide dog passes away, as that person loses their friend as well as their support. So Selin decided to make a robotic guide dog called IC4U. She contacted several guide dog organisations to find out how guide dogs are trained and what they need to be able to do so she could replicate their behaviour in her robot. The robot is voice-controlled so that people with impaired sight can interact with it easily.
Selin and her parents travelled to Coolest Projects International in Dublin, thanks to support from the CoderDojo Foundation. Accompanying them was Selin’s project IC4U, which became a judges’ favourite in the Hardware category. Selin enjoyed participating in Coolest Projects so much that she started designing her project for next year’s event straight away:
“When I returned back I immediately started working for next year’s Coolest Projects.”
Selin
Many of Selin’s tech projects share a theme: to help make the world a better place. For example, another robot made by Selin is the BB4All — a school assistant robot to tackle bullying. And last year, while she attended the Stanford AI4ALL summer camp, Selin worked with a group of young people to design a tech project to increase the speed and accuracy of lung cancer diagnoses.
Through her digital making projects, Selin wants to show how people can use robotics and AI technology to support people and their well-being. In 2021, Selin’s commitment to making these projects was recognised when she was awarded the Aspiring Teen Award by Women in Tech.
Listening to Selin, it is inspiring to hear how a person can use technology to express themselves as well as create projects that have the potential to do so much good. Selin acknowledges that sometimes the first steps can be the hardest, especially for girls interested in tech: “I know it’s hard to start at first, but interests are gender-free.”
“Be curious and courageous, and never let setbacks stop you so you can actually accomplish your dream.”
Selin
We have loved seeing all the wonderful projects that Selin has made in the years since she first designed a robot dog on paper. And it’s especially cool to see that Selin has also continued to work on her robot IC4U, the original project that led her to coding, Coolest Projects, and more. Selin’s robot has developed with its maker, and we can’t wait to see what they both go on to do next.
Help us celebrate Selin and inspire other young people to discover coding and digital making as a passion, by sharing her story on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Many technology items are disposed of each year, either because they are broken, are no longer needed, or have been upgraded. Researchers from Germany have identified this as an opportunity to develop a scheme of work for Computing, while at the same time highlighting the importance of sustainability in hardware and software use. They hypothesised that by repairing defective devices, students would come to understand better how these devices work, and therefore meet some of the goals of their curriculum.
The research team visited three schools in Germany to deliver Computing lessons based around the concept of a repair café, where defective items are repaired or restored rather than thrown away. This idea was translated into a series of lessons about using and repairing smartphones. Learners first of all explored the materials used in smartphones and reflected on their personal use of these devices. They then spent time moving around three repair workstations, examining broken smartphones and looking at how they could be repaired or repurposed. Finally, learners reflected on their own ecological footprint and what they had learnt about digital hardware and software.
In the classroom, repair workstations were set up for three different categories of activity: fixing cable breaks, fixing display breaks, and tinkering to upcycle devices. Each workstation had a mentor to support learners in investigating faults themselves by using the question prompt, “Why isn’t this feature or device working?” At the display breaks and cable breaks workstations, a mentor was on hand to provide guidance with further questions about the hardware and software used to make the smartphone work. On the other hand, the tinkering workstation offered a more open-ended approach, asking learners to think about how a smartphone could be upcycled to be used for a different purpose, such as a bicycle computer. It was interesting to note that students visited each of the three workstations equally.
The feedback from the participants showed there had been a positive impact in prompting learners to think about the sustainability of their smartphone use. Working with items that were already broken also gave them confidence to explore how to repair the technology. This is a different type of experience from other Computing lessons, in which devices such as laptops or tablets are provided and are expected to be carefully looked after. The researchers also asked learners to complete a questionnaire two weeks after the lessons, and this showed that 10 of the 67 participants had gone on to repair another smartphone after taking part in the lessons.
The project drew on a theory called duality reconstruction that has been developed by a researcher called Carsten Schulte. This theory argues that in computing education, it is equally important to teach learners about the function of a digital device as about the structure. For example, in the repair café lessons, learners discovered more about the role that smartphones play in society, as well as experimenting with broken smartphones to find out how they work. This brought a socio-technical perspective to the lessons that helped make the interaction between the technology and society more visible.
Using this approach in the Computing classroom may seem counter-intuitive when compared to the approach of splitting the curriculum into topics and teaching each topic sequentially. However, the findings from this project suggest that learners understand better how smartphones work when they also think about how they are manufactured and used. Including societal implications of computing can provide learners with useful contexts about how computing is used in real-world problem-solving, and can also help to increase learners’ motivation for studying the subject.
The final aspect of this research project looked at collaborative problem-solving. The lessons were structured to include time for group work and group discussion, to acknowledge and leverage the range of experiences among learners. At the workstations, learners formed small groups to carry out repairs. The paper doesn’t mention whether these groups were self-selecting or assigned, but the researchers did carry out observations of group behaviours in order to evaluate whether the collaboration was effective. In the findings, the ideal group size for the repair workstation activity was either two or three learners working together. The researchers noticed that in groups of four or more learners, at least one learner would become disinterested and disengaged. Some groups were also observed taking part in work that wasn’t related to the task, and although no further details are given about the nature of this, it is possible that the groups became distracted.
The findings from this project suggest that learners understand better how smartphones work when they also think about how they are manufactured and used.
Further investigation into effective pedagogies to set group size expectations and maintain task focus would be helpful to make sure the lessons met their learning objectives. This research was conducted as a case study in a small number of schools, and the results indicate that this approach may be more widely helpful. Details about the study can be found in the researchers’ paper (in German).
If you’re thinking about setting up a repair café in your school to promote sustainable computing, either as a formal or informal learning activity, here are ideas on where to begin:
This article is from our free computing education magazine Hello World. Every issue is written by educators for educators and packed with resources, ideas, and insights to inspire your learners and your own classroom practice.
For more about computing education in the context of sustainability, climate change, and environmental impact, download issue 19 of Hello World, which focuses on these topics.
You can subscribe to Hello World for free to never miss a digital issue, and if you’re an educator in the UK, a print subscription will get you free print copies in the post.
PS If you’re interested in facilitating productive classroom discussions with your learners about ethical, legal, cultural, and environmental concerns surrounding computer science, take a look at our free online course ‘Impacts of Technology: How To Lead Classroom Discussions’.
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In our current series of research seminars, we are exploring how computing can be connected to other subjects using cross-disciplinary approaches. In July 2022, our speakers were Professor Yasmin Kafai from the University of Pennsylvania and Elaine Griggs, an award-winning teacher from Pembroke High School, Massachusetts, and we heard about their use of e-textiles to engage learners and broaden participation in computing.
The spaces where young people learn about computing have sometimes been referred to as clubhouses to relate them to the places where sports or social clubs meet. A computing clubhouse can be a place where learners come together to take part in computing activities and gain a sense of community. However, as Yasmin pointed out, research has found that computing clubhouses have also often been dominated by electronics and robotics activities. This has led to clubhouses being perceived as exclusive spaces for only the young people who share those interests.
Yasmin’s work is motivated by the idea of building new clubhouses that include a wide range of computing interests, with a specific focus on spaces for e-textile activities, to show that diverse uses of computing are valued.
Yasmin’s research into learning through e-textiles has taken place in formal computing lessons in high schools in America, by developing and using a unit from the Exploring Computer Science curriculum called “Stitching the Loop”. In the seminar, we were fortunate to be joined by Elaine, a computer science and robotics teacher who has used the scheme of work in her classroom. Elaine’s learners have designed wearable electronic textile projects with microcontrollers, sensors, LEDs, and conductive thread. With these materials, learners have made items such as paper circuits, wristbands, and collaborative banners, as shown in the examples below.
The hands-on, project-based approach in the e-textile unit has many similarities with the principles underpinning the work we do at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. However, there were also two specific teaching approaches that were embedded in Elaine’s teaching in order to promote equitable learning in the computing classroom:
As teachers with a set of learning outcomes to deliver, we can often feel a certain pressure to structure lessons so that our learners spend the most time on activities that we feel will deliver those outcomes. I was very interested to hear how in these e-textile projects, there was a deliberate choice to foreground the aesthetics. When learners spent time designing their artefacts and could link it to their own interests, they had a sense of personal ownership over what they were making, which encouraged them to persevere and overcome any difficulties with sewing, code, or electronics.
My personal reflection was that creating a digital textiles project based on a set template could be considered the equivalent of teaching programming by copying code. Both approaches would increase the chances of a successful output, but wouldn’t necessarily increase learners’ understanding of computing concepts, nor encourage learners to perceive computing as a subject where everyone belongs. I was inspired by the insights shared at the seminar about how prioritising design time can lead to more diverse representations of making.
Elaine told us that learners were encouraged to create a digital portfolio which included photographs of the different stages of their project, examples of their code, and reflections on the problems that they had solved during the project. In the picture below, the learner has shared both the ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ versions of their code, along with an explanation of how they debugged the error.
Yasmin explained the equity-oriented theories underpinning the digital portfolio teaching approach. The learners’ reflections allowed deeper understanding of the computing and electronics concepts involved and helped to balance the personalised nature of their artefacts with the need to meet learning goals.
Yasmin also emphasised how important it was for learners to take part in a series of projects so that they encountered computing and electronics concepts more than once. In this way, reflective journalling can be seen as an equitable teaching approach because it helps to move learners on from their initial engagement into more complex projects. Thinking back to the clubhouse model, it is equally important for learners to be valued for their complex e-textile projects as it is for their complex robotics projects, and so portfolios of a series of e-textile projects show that a diverse range of learners can be successful in computing at the highest levels.
If you’re thinking about ways of introducing e-textile activities to your learners, there are some useful resources here:
We’re having a short break in the seminar series but will be back in September when we’ll be continuing to find out more about cross-disciplinary approaches to computing.
In our next seminar on Tuesday 6 September 2022 at 17:00–18:30 BST / 12:00–13:30 EST / 9:00–10:30 PST / 18:00–19:30 CEST, we’ll be hearing all about the links between computing and dance, with our speaker Genevieve Smith-Nunes (University of Cambridge). Genevieve will be speaking about data ethics for the computing classroom through biometrics, ballet, and augmented reality (AR) which promises to be a fascinating perspective on bringing computing to new audiences.
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This post has been adapted from an article in issue 19 of Hello World magazine, which explores the interaction between technology and sustainability.
We may have had the Coolest Projects livestream, but we are still in awe of the 2092 projects that young people sent in for this year’s online technology showcase! To continue the Coolest Projects Global 2022 celebrations, we’re shining a light on some of the participants and the topics that inspired their projects.
In this year’s showcase, the themes of sustainability and the environment were extremely popular. We received over 300 projects related to the environment from young people all over the world. Games, apps, websites, hardware — we’ve seen so many creative projects that demonstrate how important the environment is to young people.
Here are some of these projects and a glimpse into how kids and teens across the world are using technology to look after their environment.
Has anyone ever told you that a small change can lead to a big impact? Check out these two Coolest Projects entries that put this idea into practice with clever inventions to make positive changes to the environment.
Arik (15) from the UK wanted to make something to reduce the waste he noticed at home. Whenever lots of people visited Arik’s house, getting the right drink for everyone was a challenge and often resulted in wasted, spilled drinks. This problem was the inspiration behind Arik’s ‘Liquid Dispenser’ project, which can hold two litres of any desired liquid and has an outer body made from reused cardboard. As Arik says, “You don’t need a plastic bottle, you just need a cup!”
Amrit (13), Kingston (12), and Henry (12) from Canada were also inspired to make a project to reduce waste. ‘Eco Light’ is a light that automatically turns off when someone leaves their house to avoid wasted electricity. For the project, the team used a micro:bit to detect the signal strength and decide whether the LED should be on (if someone is in the house) or off (if the house is empty).
“We wanted to create something that hopefully would create a meaningful impact on the world.”
Amrit, Kingston, and Henry
We love to see young people invent things to have positive changes in the community, on a local and global level.
This year, Sashrika (11) from the US shared her ‘Gas Leak Detector’ project, which she designed to help people who heat their homes with diesel. On the east coast of America, many people store their gas tanks in the basement. This means they may not realise if the gas is leaking. To solve this problem, Sashrika has combined programming with physical computing to make a device that can detect if there is a gas leak and send a notification to your phone.
Sashrika’s project has the power to help lots of people and she has even thought about how she would make more changes to her project in the name of sustainability:
“I would probably add a solar panel because there are lots of houses that have outdoor oil tanks. Solar panel[s] will reduce electricity consumption and reduce CO2 emission[s].”
Sashrika
Amr in Syria was also thinking about renewable energy sources when he created his own ‘Smart Wind Turbine’.
The ‘Smart Wind Turbine’ is connected to a micro:bit to measure the electricity generated by a fan. Amr conducted tests that recorded that more electricity was generated when the turbine faced in the direction of the wind. So Amr made a wind vane to determine the wind’s direction and added another micro:bit to communicate the results to the turbine.
We’ve also seen projects created by young people to make the world a better place for future generations.
Naira and Rhythm from India have designed houses that are suited for people and the planet. They carried out a survey and from their results they created the ‘Net Zero Home’. Naira and Rhythm’s project offers an idea for homes that are comfortable for people of all abilities and ages, while also being sustainable.
“Our future cities will require a lot of homes, this means we will require a lot of materials, energy, water and we will also produce a lot of waste. So we have designed this net zero home as a solution.”
Naira and Rhythm
Andrea (9) and Yuliana (10) from the US have also made something to benefit future generations. The ‘Bee Counter’ project uses sensors and a micro:bit to record bees’ activity around a hive. Through monitoring the bees, the team hope they can see (and then fix) any problems with the hive. Andrea and Yuliana want to maintain the bees’ home to help them continue to have a positive influence on our environment.
Some young creators use Coolest Projects as an opportunity to educate and inspire people to make environmental changes in their own lives.
Sabrina (13) from the UK created her own website, ‘A Guide to Climate Change’. It includes images, text, graphics of the Earth’s temperature change, and suggestions for people to minimise their waste. Sabrina also received the Broadcom Coding with Commitment award for using her skills to provide vital information about the effects of climate change.
Kushal (12) from India wanted to use tech to encourage people to help save the environment. Kushal had no experience of app development before making his ‘Green Steps’ app. He says, “I have created a mobile app to connect like-minded people who want to do something about [the] environment.”
These projects are just some of the incredible ideas we’ve seen young people enter for Coolest Projects this year. It’s clear from the projects submitted that the context of the environment and protecting our planet resonates with so many students, summarised by Sabrina, “Some of us don’t understand how important the earth is to us. And I hope we don’t have to wait until it is gone to realise.”
Check out the Coolest Projects showcase for even more projects about the environment, alongside other topics that have inspired young creators.
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Congratulations to the thousands of creators from 46 countries who participated in Coolest Projects Global 2022. Their projects awed and inspired us. Yesterday STEM advocate and television host Fig O’Reilly helped us celebrate each and every one of these creators in our online event. Check out the gallery to see all the amazing projects.
During the celebration, Fig also revealed which projects were picked by the special judges as their favourites from among the 2092 projects in this year’s showcase gallery. Let’s meet the special judges and check out their picks!
Ruth Amos is an inventor, entrepreneur, and EduTuber. She co-founded the #GirlsWithDrills movement and ‘Kids Invent Stuff’, a YouTube channel where 5- to 11-year-olds see their invention ideas become reality with the help of engineers.
Here are Ruth’s favourites:
Shawn Brown is an award-winning engineer, designer, and YouTuber. He’s also a practical pioneer for neurodiversity and innovation — raising awareness of learning differences and promoting science, engineering, and invention to young people. Together with Ruth, Shawn co-runs the YouTube channel ‘Kids Invent Stuff.’
Here are Shawn’s favourites:
Richa Shrivastava is the Director of Maker’s Asylum. It is India’s first community makerspace that fosters innovation through purpose-based learning, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Here are Richa’s favourites:
Elaine Atherton is Director of Scratch Education Collaborative. Elaine was first introduced to Scratch as an instructional coach while working with teachers in North Carolina. “It was amazing to see the kids so excited about what they were creating. I wanted to help them transfer that same energy to designing, making, and sharing other things, too — I wanted them to stretch their creativity.”
Here are Elaine’s favourites:
Broadcom Foundation has partnered with us for Coolest Projects Global to encourage young people who are solving problems that impact their communities. Their projects could relate to health, sanitation, energy, climate change, or other challenges set out in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Broadcom Coding with Commitment illuminates how coding is a language, skill set, and invaluable tool for college and careers.
The Broadcom Coding with Commitment recognition goes to A Guide to Climate Change, a website created by Sabrina in the United Kingdom. Sabrina’s site not only provides vital information about the effects of climate change, but also gives users a visual to show how important it is to lower our carbon footprint. Congratulations to Sabrina for using her coding skills to give people a guide to understanding climate change in an easily digestible and stylish project webpage.
You can explore all the young tech creators’ projects — games, hardware builds, Scratch projects, mobile apps, websites, and more — in our showcase gallery now.
All creators who are taking part this year can now log into their Coolest Projects accounts to:
The support of our Coolest Projects Global sponsors has enabled us to make this year’s online showcase the inspiring experience it is for the young people taking part. We want to say a big thank you to all of them!
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We love being able to share how young people across the world are getting creative with technology and solving problems that matter to them. That’s why we put together a series of films that celebrate the personal stories of young tech creators.
For our next story, we met up with young digital maker Jay in Preston, UK, who wants to share what coding and robotics mean to him.
Watch Jay’s video to see how Jay created a homemade ventilator, Oxy-Pi, and how he’s making sure people in his local community also have the opportunity to create with technology.
Jay (11) wants everyone to learn about programming. At a young age, Jay started to experiment with code to make his own games. He attended free coding groups in his area, such as CoderDojo, and was introduced to the block-based programming language Scratch. Soon Jay was combining his interests in programming with robotics to make his own inventions.
“My mission is to spread the word of computing and programming, because not many people know about these subjects.”
Jay
When he found out about Coolest Projects, our global tech showcase where young creators share their projects, Jay decided to channel his creativity into making something to exhibit there. He brought along a security alarm he had built, and he left Coolest Projects having made lots of new friends who were young tech creators just like himself.
“With robotics and coding, what Jay has learned is to think outside of the box and without any limits.”
Biren, Jay’s dad
While Jay has made many different tech projects, all of his ideas involve materials that are easily accessible and low-cost. Lots of his creations start out made with cardboard, and repurposed household items often feature in his final projects. Jay says, “I don’t want to spend much money, because it’s not necessary when you actually have an alternative that works perfectly fine.”
One of Jay’s recent projects, which he made from repurposed materials, is called Oxy-Pi. It’s a portable ventilator for use at home. Jay was inspired to make Oxy-Pi during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this project is especially important to him as his dad was hospitalised during this time. With his digital making approach, Jay is an example to everyone that you can use anything you have to hand to create something important to you.
Digital making has helped Jay express himself creatively, test his skills, and make new friends, which is why he is motivated to help others learn about digital making too. In his local community, Jay has been teaching children, teenagers, and adults about coding and robotics for the last few years. He says that he and the people around him get a lot from the experience.
“When I go out and teach, I love it so much because it’s really accessible. It helps me build my confidence, it helps them to discover, to learn, to create. And it’s really fun.”
Jay
Using tech to create things and solve problems, and helping others to learn to do the same, is incredibly important to Jay, and he wants it to be important to you too!
Help us celebrate Jay and inspire other young people to discover coding and digital making as a passion, by sharing his story on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Over the last ten years, thousands of young people from all over the world have shared their digital creations at a Coolest Projects event. This year, there are a few brand-new and exciting reasons why young people will want to get involved in Coolest Projects Global online tech showcase and share their tech creations in the online gallery, for the worldwide Coolest Projects community to discover them.
Not only will each Coolest Projects Global participant get unique feedback on their project, they’ll also receive a cool piece of limited-edition Coolest Projects swag. And young tech creators have a shot at winning a coveted Coolest Projects medal if their creation is selected as a judges’ favourite. We’ve added all of these new enhancements thanks to the thoughtful feedback we’ve received from participants in previous showcases.
Young people who’ve showcased at an in-person Coolest Projects event know how great it is to see how other people react to their project. This year, creators participating in our online showcase will automatically get reactions and feedback from our Coolest Projects staff and partners who are reviewing projects.
That means each creator will find out what’s great about their project and how they might be able to improve it. All of this feedback will be shown in the creator’s online account on coolestprojects.org after the celebratory livestream in June.
All young creators will also get limited-edition swag: a Coolest Projects poster designed by New York City-based artist Joey Rex. Creators can proudly display this memento of their participation in Coolest Projects Global 2022 on their bedroom wall, and as a digital phone or computer screen background.
The poster design was inspired by all the young makers who have participated in Coolest Projects over the last 10 years. It evokes themes of collaboration, invention, and creativity. Here’s what Joey, the artist, had to say about the design:
“This project was really exciting for me to work on, since I love geeking out over tech and building custom electronics, and I’m really grateful to the Coolest Projects team for trusting me with this vision. I hope my design can inspire the creators to keep up the great work and continue bringing their awesome ideas to reality!”
Artist Joey Rex
To claim their printed poster and backgrounds for their digital devices, creators will receive a link via email after the celebratory livestream in June.
And behold, your first look at the Coolest Projects medal:
As you may already know, VIP judges select their favourite projects in each project category. Creators of projects that are selected as favourites will receive this custom die-cast medal to commemorate their unique accomplishment. The medal hangs on a full color Coolest Projects ribbon and would be the coolest addition to any wall or trophy shelf.
Creators who want to aim for a medal should keep in mind that judges’ favourite projects are selected based on their complexity, presentation, design, and of course their coolness. See the Coolest Projects FAQs for more information.
With all these new enhancements to Coolest Projects Global, there is a multitude of reasons for young tech creators to register a project for the online showcase.
To help young people get involved in Coolest Projects, we have planned two livestreamed codealong events on our YouTube channel:
During these livestreams, you’ll also learn about the new project topics we’ve introduced for the online gallery this year. We’ll especially explore the ‘environment’ topic, sponsored by our friends at EPAM and Liberty Global.
Be sure to sign up for email updates to always be the first to hear what’s new with Coolest Projects Globa;.
That’s all of our latest news. Until next time… be cool.
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Since the inception of Code Club in 2012, teachers in Wales have been part of the Code Club community, running extracurricular Code Club sessions for learners in their schools. As of late 2021, there are 84 active clubs in Wales. With our new Code Club Community Coordinator for Wales, Sarah Eve Roberts, on board, we are thrilled to be able to offer more dedicated support to the community in Wales.
Sarah introduced herself to the Welsh education community by running a Code Club training workshop for teachers. Educators from 32 Welsh schools joined her to learn how to start their own Code Club and then tried one of the free coding projects we provide for club sessions for themselves.
The Welsh Code Club network had a chance to meet Sarah at a country-wide online codealong on 11 March, just in time to kick off British Science Week 2022. In this one-hour codealong event, we took beginner coders through the first project of our new ‘Introduction to Scratch’ pathway, Space Talk. Space Talk is a fantastic project for Code Clubs: it provides beginners with a simple introduction to coding in Scratch, and also gives plenty of opportunity for more experienced learners to get creative and make the project their own.
The codealong was fantastically popular, with 90 teachers and 2900 learners from 59 schools participating. Several of the schools shared their excitement with us on Twitter, posting pictures and videos of their Space Talk projects.
Tamasin Greenough Graham, Head of Code Club, says: “It was wonderful to see so many children and teachers from Wales coding with us. I really loved the creativity they showed in all their projects!”
Although the codealong took place in English, Space Talk and the whole ‘Introduction to Scratch’ pathway are available in the Welsh language. The pathway includes a total of six projects, bringing the total number of Welsh-language coding projects we offer to 37. It’s really important to us to offer our learning materials in Welsh, especially because we know it helps young people engage with our free coding activities.
The translation of learning materials is a collaborative effort at the Raspberry Pi Foundation: we work with a team of 1465 volunteer translators, who translate our materials into 33 languages, making them accessible for more children and educators around the world.
Two of these translators, Marcus and Julia Davage, are based in Wales. They help to make our projects accessible to Welsh-speaking learners. Marcus and Julia have been part of the community for 6 years, volunteering at Code Club and running their own club:
“I started volunteering for Code Club in 2016 when my daughter was in a Welsh-medium primary school and her teacher had started a Code Club. This lasted until 2019. Last year I started my own Code Club at the Welsh-medium primary school at which my wife Julia teaches. Since helping out, she has taught Scratch in her own lessons!”
– Marcus Davage, Code Club volunteer & Welsh translation volunteer
Marcus and Julia have translated numerous learning resources and communications for our Welsh community. Marcus describes the experience of translating:
“I noticed that several of the projects hadn’t been completely translated into Welsh, so when my company, BMC Software, promoted a Volunteering Day for all of its staff, I jumped at the opportunity to spend the whole day finishing off many of the missing translations! I must admit, I did laugh at a few terms, like ’emoji’ (which has no official translation), ’emoticon’ (‘gwenoglun’ or ‘smiley face’), and ‘wearable tech’ (‘technoleg gwisgadwy’).”
– Marcus Davage, Code Club volunteer & Welsh translation volunteer
We’re thankful to Marcus and Julia and to all the teachers and volunteers in Wales who bring coding skills to the young people in their schools.
Keen readers may have noticed that this year marks the tenth anniversary of Code Club! We have lots of celebrations planned for the worldwide community of volunteers and learners, in long-running clubs as well as in brand-new ones.
So now is an especially great time to get involved by starting a Code Club at your school, or by signing up to volunteer at an up-and-running club. Find out more at codeclub.org.
And if you’re interested in learning more about Code Club in Wales, email us at support@codeclub.org so Sarah can get in touch.
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It’s time for young tech creators to share with the world what they’ve made! Coolest Projects Global 2022 registration is NOW OPEN. Starting today, young people can register their technology creation on the Coolest Projects Global website, where it will be featured in the online showcase gallery for the whole world to see.
By registering a tech project, you’ll represent your community, and you’ll get the coolest, limited-edition swag. You may even win a prize and earn the recognition of the special project judges.
Now in its 10th year, Coolest Projects is all about celebrating young people and what they create with code. Here’s what you need to know:
Here are just a few of the reasons why young tech creators should register their project for the Coolest Projects Global showcase:
If you don’t have a tech project or an idea for one yet, you’ve got plenty of time to imagine and create, and we’re here to support you. Check out our guides to designing and building a tech creation — one that you’ll be proud to share with the Coolest Projects community in the online showcase gallery. And there’s no shortage of inspiration among the projects that young tech creators shared in last year’s showcase gallery.
We have a lot more exciting stuff to share about Coolest Projects Global in the coming months, so be sure to subscribe for email updates. Until next time… be cool, creators!
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It’s time to start your countdown! Young people from all over the world will soon be invited to share their digital creations at Coolest Projects Global 2022, our world-leading online technology showcase event for young creators. In mid-February, project registration opens for a new and improved, online-only experience.
Through Coolest Projects Global, young creators can register their digital projects to share them with the world, represent their country, get some free swag, and maybe even win recognition from our special judges. And the best thing: Coolest Projects participants join a global community of awesome young tech creators who celebrate each other’s accomplishments.
Coolest Projects is celebrating its TENTH YEAR of shining a light on young creators, so we have an extra special showcase lined up in 2022. All of these enhancements are the result of incredibly helpful feedback that past creators have shared. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can look forward to:
We asked past creators what they think makes Coolest Projects so cool, and here’s what they had to say:
Last year, creators showcased all kinds of projects, such as an earthquake early warning device, a fun math game made with Scratch, a squirrel detection system, and a website about cybersecurity. Don’t forget, Coolest Projects is for creators who are beginners, advanced, and everything in between.
Project registration opens on 14 February, but creators can start making their projects now. For inspiration, check out last year’s project gallery and then sign up to receive email updates so that you don’t miss a thing about Coolest Projects. We have many more exciting details coming in the next weeks and months, so stay tuned.
Until next time… be cool.
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Today we bring you the sixth film in our series of inspirational community stories. It’s wonderful to share how people all across the world are getting creative with tech and solving problems that matter to them.
Our next community story comes from Drogheda, Ireland, where a group of programmers set up one of the country’s very, very first CoderDojo coding clubs for young people. One of that Dojo’s attendees was Cian Martin Bohan, whose story we’re sharing today.
“I can’t create anything I want in real life, but I can create anything I want on a computer.”
Cian Martin Bohan
Watch Cian’s video to find out how this keen programmer went from his first experience with coding at his local CoderDojo as an 11-year-old, to landing a Software Engineering apprenticeship at Google.
Cian (20) vividly remembers the first time he heard about CoderDojo as a shy 11-year-old: he initially told his dad he felt too nervous to attend. What Cian couldn’t have known back then was that attending CoderDojo would set him on an exciting journey of creative digital making and finding life-long friends.
Right from the beginning, the CoderDojo gave Cian space to make friends and develop his coding skills and his curiosity about creating things with technology. He started to attend the Dojo regularly, and before long he had created his own website about the planets in our solar system with basic CSS and HTML.
“I made a website that talked about the planets, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. In fact, I actually still have that website.”
Cian Martin Bohan
In over 6 years of being part of his CoderDojo community, Cian was able to share his passion for programming with others and grow his confidence.
From meeting like-minded peers and developing apps and websites, to serving as a youth member on the Digital Youth Council, Cian embraced the many experiences that CoderDojo opened up for him. They were all of great benefit when he decided to apply for an apprenticeship at Google.
As someone who didn’t follow the university route of education, Cian’s time at CoderDojo and the mentors he met there had a profound impact on his life and his career path. His CoderDojo mentors always encouraged Cian to learn new skills and follow his interests, and in this way they not only helped him reach his current position at Google, but also instilled in him a steady desire to always keep learning.
The future is limitless for Cian, and we cannot wait to hear what he does next.
Help us celebrate Cian, and inspire other young people to discover coding and digital making as a passion, by liking and sharing his story on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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We are inviting you all to a very special event this week: the CoderDojo team is hosting a 10th birthday livestream to celebrate the CoderDojo community and all that they have achieved over the last ten years.
Everyone is welcome, so mark your diary and make sure you and your favourite young coders join us for all the fun at 18:00 BST this Thursday, 28 October!
Together we will hear stories from young people and volunteers around the world, and from James Whelton and Bill Liao, the co-founders of CoderDojo.
In July 2011, James Whelton and Bill Liao held the first-ever CoderDojo session in Cork, Ireland. They created a space for young people to learn how to create a website, design a game, or write their first program. The session was also a chance for volunteers to share their experience and time with a younger generation and their peers. It was here that the CoderDojo grassroots community came into existence, built on the values of ‘being cool’: creativity, collaboration, openness, and fun.
These values continue to inspire young people (Ninjas) and volunteers around the world to be part of their local Dojos. In 2017, the CoderDojo Foundation, which was founded to support the CoderDojo movement, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation joined forces to better support the community to bring opportunities to more young people worldwide.
The tenth year of the movement is an especially important time for us to celebrate the volunteers who have put so much into CoderDojo. As well as the livestream celebration on 28 October, the CoderDojo team has put together free digital assets to get volunteers and Ninjas in the birthday spirit, and a special birthday giveaway for Ninjas who are coding projects to mark this momentous anniversary.
In celebration of the CoderDojo movement’s 10th birthday, here’s a list of some of our favourite things about the CoderDojo community.
Whether you’re working together in person or online, you are always having a blast!
The pandemic has been an extremely difficult time for Dojos. It has also been a time of adaptation. We have been so impressed by how community members have switched their ways of running with positivity and commitment to 6. do what is best for their clubs.
Every day, Dojo volunteers support each other locally and globally to sustain the movement and help Ninjas learn — from sharing how they run sessions when social distancing is necessary, to translating online resources and web pages so that more people around the world can join the CoderDojo community.
“We know that we’re not out there alone, that there’s a whole world of people who are all collaborating with the same mission in mind is really thrilling as well.”
Nikole Vaughn, CoderDojo Collaborative in San Antonio, Texas
Filling in surveys, emailing the CoderDojo team here, attending webinars, sharing your insights — these are all the ways you’re great at communicating your Dojo’s needs. We love supporting you!
We love to hear about how CoderDojo volunteers help young people to create and learn with technology, and to become mentors for their peers. Recently we shared the stories of Avye, Laura, and Toshan, three incredible digital makers who, thanks to CoderDojo, are using technology to shape the world around them.
From coding for the CoderDojo 10th birthday giveaway to the European Astro Pi Challenge, CoderDojo members love to put themselves to the test!
Coolest Projects is the world-leading technology fair for young people, and it originated in the CoderDojo community!
This year, in its ninth year running, Coolest Projects again was a platform for fantastic tech projects from Ninjas, including an AI bicycle app and a glove that makes music.
CoderDojo is a space for everyone to create and learn with technology. We love that Dojos get involved in projects such as the ‘Empowering the future’ guide to getting more girls involved in coding, and the CoderDojo Accessibility Guide to making Dojo sessions accessible for young people of all abilities and neurodiversity.
Over the last ten years, more than 3900 Dojos in 115 countries have run sessions for over 270000 young people and have been regularly supporting 100000 young coders! You’ve certainly brought the movement a long way from that very first session in Cork.
All the volunteers who have put their time and energy into CoderDojo have made the movement what it is today, and we’d like to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you.
So prepare your favourite celebratory food and join us for the birthday livestream on Thursday 28 October at 18:00 BST! Take this chance to say hi to community members and celebrate everything that they have achieved in the last ten years.
Set a reminder for the livestream, and tell us how you are celebrating CoderDojo’s 10th birthday using the hashtag #10YearsOfCoderDojo on Twitter.
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Today we bring you the fourth film in our series of inspirational community stories! Incredible young people from the community have collaborated with us to create these videos, where they tell their tech stories in their own words.
Watch the new film to meet a “mischievous” tech creator who is helping other young people in his community to use technology to bring their ideas to life.
Toshan’s story takes place in his hometown of Bangalore, India, where his love for electronics and computing sent him on a journey of tech discovery!
Toshan (16) first encountered coding aged 12, thanks to his computing teacher Miss Sonya. Describing his teacher, he says: “The unique thing is, she just doesn’t stop where the syllabus ends.” The world of digital making and Raspberry Pi computers that Miss Sonya introduced him to offered Toshan “limitless opportunities”, and he felt inspired to throw himself into learning.
“If we help people with their ideas, they might bring something new into the world.”
Toshan
Having found help in his local community and the online Raspberry Pi Foundation community that enabled him to start his tech journey, Toshan decided to pass on his skills: he set up a CoderDojo for other young people in Bangalore when he was 14. Toshan says, “I wanted to give something back.” Mentoring others as they learn coding and digital making helped his confidence grow. Toshan loves supporting the learners at his Dojo with problem-solving because “if we help people with their ideas, they might bring something new into the world.”
Supported by his mum and dad, Toshan’s commitment to helping others create with technology is leading him to extend his community beyond the city he calls home. Through his YouTube channel, he reaches people outside of Bangalore, and he has connected with a worldwide community of like-minded young tech creators by taking part in Coolest Projects online 2020 with an automated hand sanitiser he built.
Toshan’s enthusiasm and love for tech are already motivating him to empower others, and he has only just begun! We are delighted to be a part of his journey and can’t wait to see what he does next.
Help us celebrate Toshan by liking and sharing his story on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook!
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We love seeing all the wonderful things people are doing in the community — that’s why we’re sharing our new series of short films documenting some of the incredible journeys of community members in all corners of the globe!
Today we bring you the third wonderful film in this series of community stories. For the series, we’ve been super lucky to collaborate with digital makers all over the world, and today’s story exemplifies how truly global the community is.
Watch our video to find out how this ambitious young digital maker’s passion for creating with technology has propelled her around the world!
Laura’s journey began in her hometown of Timișoara, Romania. In Laura’s words: “I joined my local CoderDojo, and it changed my life.”
Laura (17) started attending her CoderDojo coding club four years ago because she loves problem-solving and wanted to learn more about how digital technology works. Her biggest discovery at CoderDojo, however, was the other young people there, who were just as passionate about technology as she was. Laura says, “I had the opportunity to meet people with the same interests. Everybody was working, exchanging ideas, having fun!”
Laura and the new friends she made worked together to solve problems in their local community: they built an autonomous waste-collecting robot and a drone-mounted air pollution monitor.
“I want to bring a change to the world.”
Laura
But Laura’s tech journey did not stop there. In 2017, she travelled to Dublin to present her latest project — a Raspberry Pi-powered, mind-controlled robot! — at Coolest Projects International, which introduced her to a global community of digital makers. And since then she’s even taken part in a robotics competition at MIT!
Working alongside like-minded peers and connecting with a global community of young tech creators has had a profound impact on Laura. She says, “I never imagined that I would have so many opportunities to travel, expand my horizons, and meet so many people. It’s thanks to CoderDojo and Coolest Projects that I’ve been able to build an amazing network of friends, and together we’re ready to take on the world.”
We are so excited to see what Laura will do next. Help us celebrate Laura by liking and sharing her story on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook!
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We’re excited to share another incredible story from the community — the second in our new series of inspirational short films that celebrate young tech creators across the world.
These stories showcase some of the wonderful things that young people are empowered to do when they learn how to create with technology. We hope that they will inspire many more young people to get creative with technology too!
This time, you will meet an accomplished, young community member who is on a quest to encourage more girls to join her and get into digital making.
For as long as she can remember, Avye (13) has enjoyed creating things. It was at her local CoderDojo that seven-year-old Avye was introduced to the world of robotics. Avye’s second-ever robot, the Raspberry Pi–powered Voice O’Tronik Bot, went on to win the Hardware category at our Coolest Projects UK event in 2018.
Coding and digital making have become an integral part of Avye’s life, and she wants to help other girls discover these skills too. She says, “I believe that it’s important for girls and women to see and be aware of ordinary girls and women doing cool things in the STEM world.” Avye started running her own workshops for girls in their community and in 2018 founded Girls Into Coding. She has now teamed up with her mum Helene, who is committed to helping to drive the Girls Into Coding mission forwards.
I want to get other girls like me interested in tech.
Avye
Avye has received multiple awards to celebrate her achievements, including the Princess Diana Award and Legacy Award in 2019. Most recently, in 2020, Avye won the TechWomen100 Award, the Women in Tech’s Aspiring Teen Award, and the FDM Everywoman in Tech Award!
We cannot wait to see what the future has in store for her. Help us celebrate Avye and inspire others by liking and sharing her story on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook!
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Today we are launching an exciting series of impact stories from the community, to shine a spotlight on some of the young people who are learning and creating with technology through our educational initiatives.
These stories get to the heart of our mission: to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world.
Designed in close collaboration with families across the world, our new series of short inspirational films showcases some of the wonderful things that young people are empowered to do when they learn to use technology to address the issues that matter to them.
We are incredibly proud to be a part of these young people’s journeys — and to see the positive impact of engaging with our free programmes, coding clubs, and resources. We can’t wait to share their unique experiences and achievements with you as we roll out the series over the next few months.
And we invite you to celebrate these young people by liking and sharing their stories on social media!
The first story takes you to a place not far from our home: London, UK.
Zaahra (12) and Eesa (8) are a sister and brother coding team and live in East London. For the last four years they’ve been learning about computing and digital making by attending regular sessions at their local Code Club. Zaahra and Eesa love working as a team and using technology to solve problems around them. When they found it difficult to communicate with their grandparents in their first language, Sylheti, the siblings decided to code a language learning app called ‘Easy Sylheti’. Eesa says, “We wanted to create something that was helpful to us, but also to our family and the community.”
When Zaahra and Eesa decided to take part in the Coolest Projects online tech showcase with their app, they never expected that it would be picked as a favourite by Coolest Projects special judge Eben Upton, CEO and co-inventor of Raspberry Pi!
“I’ve discovered that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought.”
Zaahra
Describing the effect of learning to create with technology and seeing the success of their app, Zaahra declares, “I’ve discovered that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought.” And she’s using her new-found confidence to continue helping her community: Zaahra has recently taken up a role as youth member on the Newham Youth Empowerment Fund Panel.
Help us celebrate Zaahra and Eesa by liking and sharing their story on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook!
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Wow, we haven’t stopped smiling since yesterday’s live Coolest Projects celebration! Hosts Maddie Moate and Greg Foot led us through a live online event jam-packed with stories from participants, cool tech creations, and inspiring messages from our special judges. AND they revealed whose projects the judges picked as their favourites from among all of this year’s projects — congrats to the favourites’ creators, and to everyone who has participated in Coolest Projects online 2021!
1385 young tech creators from 47 countries are part of this year’s Coolest Projects online, and they have shared 1168 wonderful projects with the world in the showcase gallery! For yesterday’s celebration live stream, the whole Coolest Projects community came together to applaud all the creators for their dedication, creativity, and love for making things with tech.
So which projects did the special judges choose as their favourites from among all these amazing creations? Here are this year’s favourites, and why the judges have chosen them!
Colin Furze is a British YouTube personality, presenter, inventor, and five-time Guinness world record holder from Lincolnshire, England. See all his favourites:
Melissa Pickering is Head of Product at LEGO Education, leading a cross-functional team to design and develop learning through play experiences for kids globally. See all her favourites:
Fionnghuala O’Reilly is an Irish-American model, beauty pageant titleholder, engineer, and NASA Datanaut. Fig is a passionate advocate for women and diversity in STEM subjects. See all her favourites:
James Whelton is a coder, entrepreneur, and co-founder of CoderDojo. At 16, James gained worldwide recognition for discovering a hack for the iPod Nano. See all his favourites:
Coolest Projects wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors, and because they love this global tech showcase and admire all the participants, they’ve chosen their favourite projects too!
You can explore all the young tech creators’ projects — games, hardware builds, Scratch projects, mobile apps, websites, and more — in our showcase gallery now.
The support of our Coolest Projects sponsors has enabled us to make this year’s online showcase the inspiring experience it is for the young people taking part. We want to say a big thank you to all of them!
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Young tech creators from more than 40 countries have already registered to take part in this year’s Coolest Projects online showcase! To help us celebrate this year’s wonderful group of participants, we’re lucky to have brought on board Colin Furze, Melissa Pickering, James Whelton, and Fig O’Reilly as special judges.
“Since the first Coolest Projects in 2012, I’ve been continually inspired seeing thousands of young creators sharing their projects with the world. Building websites, apps, games, and hardware around something they’re passionate about, solving problems they face or just doing something cool, year on year Coolest Projects shows the magic of technology.”
James Whelton
Colin Furze is a British YouTube personality, presenter, inventor, and five-time Guinness world record holder from Lincolnshire, England. Colin’s YouTube channel has over 10 million subscribers. Colin left school at 16 to become a plumber, a trade which he pursued until joining the Sky1 TV programme Gadget Geeks. He has used his engineering experience to build many unconventional contraptions, including a homemade hoverbike, a jet-powered bicycle made with pulsejet engines, and the world’s fastest dodgem vehicle for Top Gear. Colin has completed three Star Wars–themed challenges in partnership with eBay: in 2016, he completed a giant AT-AT garden playhouse, followed in 2017 by a full-size Kylo Ren Tie Silencer. In 2019 he completed a moving Landspeeder from Star Wars: A New Hope; the vehicle was auctioned off on eBay, with all of the funds going to BBC Children in Need.
Melissa Pickering is Head of Product at LEGO Education, leading a cross-functional team to design and develop learning through play experiences for kids globally. She has worked in the field of interactive kids’ products for 15 years, from innovating theme parks as a Disney Imagineer to founding an edtech startup. In her six-year LEGO career she has built up and led design teams to innovate LEGO products through digital experiences, with a key focus of using technology to inspire hands-on play.
Fionnghuala O’Reilly is an Irish-American model, beauty pageant titleholder, and engineer. The 27-year-old recently made history as the first woman of colour to represent Ireland at the international Miss Universe pageant. Since getting her degree in Systems Engineering from the George Washington University, O’Reilly, who goes by Fig, has gone on to become a NASA Datanaut, working within the agency’s Open Innovation programme comprised of engineers and scientists who engage with NASA’s open data to create new thinking, processes and products. Fig has joined the two-time Emmy-nominated science television series Mission Unstoppable as the newest correspondent. She is also the founder and CEO of Reach Productions which is the host of NASA’s Space Apps Challenge in Washington DC. In 2020, Fig was named an Ambassador for Engineers Ireland, Ireland’s leading governing body for professional engineers. Fig is a passionate advocate for women and diversity in STEM subjects.
James Whelton is a coder, entrepreneur, and co-founder of CoderDojo. At 16, James gained worldwide recognition for discovering a hack for the iPod Nano. In response to the lack of opportunities to learn computing at school, he co-founded CoderDojo in 2011, a global community of code clubs for young people where they can learn to build websites, apps and games, and explore technology in an informal, creative, and social environment. James has developed apps and systems with over a million users around the world. He is currently developing an online platform that helps its users achieve their personal goals and build healthier, happier habits and behaviours.
These four fabulous people will choose their favourites from among all of this year’s projects — a unique honour that the young tech creator in your life could receive if they take part! We hope this will be a big boost of motivation for them to register their project for the Coolest Projects showcase before the 3 May deadline.
We’ll be announcing the special judges’ favourite projects as part of our big live-streamed Coolest Projects celebration on 8 June!
Everyone up to age 18 can register for Coolest Projects, and we welcome all projects, all experience levels, and all kinds of projects, made with any programming language or any hardware. Through Coolest Projects, young people are able to show the world something they’ve made with tech that they love, and the projects are as diverse as the participants!
Discover all the support we offer young people to help them create something with tech that they will be proud of.
You can explore the projects of the young tech creators who’ve already registered if you visit the Coolest Projects online showcase gallery! Which one is your favourite project so far?
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In our free Coolest Projects online showcase, we invite a worldwide community of young people to come together and celebrate what they’ve built with technology. For this year’s showcase, we’ve already got young tech creators from more than 35 countries registered, including from India, Ireland, UK, USA, Australia, Serbia, Japan, and Syria!
Everyone up to age 18 can register for Coolest Projects to become part of this community with their own tech creation. We welcome all projects, all experience levels, and all kinds of projects, from the very first Scratch animation to a robot with machine learning capacity! The beauty of Coolest Projects is in the diversity of what the young tech creators make.
Young people can register projects in six categories: Hardware, Scratch, Mobile Apps, Websites, Games, and Advanced Programming. Projects need to be fully registered by Monday 3 May 2021, but they don’t need to be finished then — at Coolest Projects we celebrate works in progress just as much as finished creations!
To learn more about the registration process, watch the video below or read our guide on how to register.
Here are the different ways we’re supporting your young people — and you — with project creation!
Download the free Coolest Projects workbook that walks young people through the whole creation process, from finding a topic or problem they want to address, to idea brainstorming, to testing their project:
Explore more than 200 free, step-by-step project guides for learning coding and digital making skills that your young people can use to find help and inspiration! For more ideas on what your young people can make for Coolest Projects, have a look around last year’s online showcase gallery.
This Wednesday 3 March at 19:00 GMT / 14:00 ET, young people can join a special Digital Making at Home live stream about capturing ideas for projects. We’ll share practical tips and inspiration to help them get started with building a Coolest Projects creation:
On Tuesday 23 March, 16:00 GMT / 11:00 ET, young people can join the Coolest Projects team on a live stream to talk to them about all things Coolest Projects and ask all their questions! Subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on notifications to be reminded about this live stream.
Join our free online workshops where you as an educator or parent can learn how to best support young people to take part:
Getting creative with technology is truly empowering for young people, and anything your young people want to create will be celebrated by us and the whole Coolest Projects community. We’re so excited to see their projects, and we can’t wait to celebrate all together at our big live stream celebration event in June! Don’t let your young people miss their chance to be part of the fun.
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It’s official: idea registration is finally open for Coolest Project 2021!
Our Coolest Projects online showcase brings together a worldwide community of young people who make things with technology. Everyone up to age 18, wherever they are in the world, can register for Coolest Projects to become part of this community with their own tech creation! We welcome all ideas, all experience levels, and all kinds of projects.
So let all the young people in your family, school, or coding club know, because Coolest Projects is their chance to be part of something amazing this year!
Taking part is free, and projects will be displayed in the Coolest Projects online gallery for people all across the globe to see! And getting involved is super easy: young creators can start by registering their idea for a project now, leaving them plenty of time — until May — to build the project at home.
To celebrate the passion, effort, and creativity of all the tech creators, we will host a grand live-streamed finale event in June, where our fabulous, world-renowned judges will pick their favourites from among all the projects!
Last year, young tech creators from 39 countries took part in the Coolest Projects online showcase. This year, we hope young people from even more places will share their tech creations with the world!
Coolest Projects is a powerful motivator for young people to develop skills in:
…and they will have lots of fun, be inspired by their peers, and feel like they are part of a truly international community.
Through the Coolest Projects online showcase, young people get the opportunity to explore their creativity and realise their tech ambitions! Whatever they come up with as a project idea, we want them to register so the Coolest Projects community can celebrate it.
To help you support young people to create their projects, we’re running a free online workshop called ‘How to design projects with young people’ on 25 February.
We can’t wait to see the wonderful, imaginative things young tech creators in this global community are going to share with the world!
Sign up for the Coolest Projects newsletter to never miss the latest updates about our exciting online showcase, including the free online support sessions for participants.
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The year is drawing to a close, and we are so excited for 2021!
More than 700 young people from 39 countries shared their tech creations in the free Coolest Projects online showcase this year! We loved seeing so many young people shine with their creative projects, and we can’t wait to see what the world’s next generation of digital makers will present at Coolest Projects in 2021.
Coolest Projects is the world-leading technology fair for young people! It’s our biggest event, and we are running it online again next year so that young people can participate safely and from wherever they are in the world.
Through Coolest Projects, young people are empowered to show the world something they’re making with tech — something THEY are excited about! Anyone up to age 18 can share their creation at Coolest Projects.
On 1 February, we will open registrations for the 2021 online showcase. Mark the date in your calendar! All registered projects will get their very own spot in the Coolest Projects online showcase gallery, where the whole world can discover them.
If a young person in your life — your family, your classroom, your coding club — is making something with tech that they love, we want them to register it for Coolest Projects. It doesn’t matter how small or big their project is, because the Coolest Projects showcase is about celebrating the love we all share for getting creative with tech.
Everyone who registers a project becomes part of a worldwide community of peers who express themselves and their interests with creative tech. We will also have special judges pick their favourite projects! Taking part in Coolest Projects is a wonderful way to connect with others, be inspired, and learn from peers.
So if you know a tech-loving young person, get them excited for taking part in Coolest Projects!
“We are so very happy to have reached people who love to code and are enjoying projects from all over the world…everyone’s contributions have blown our minds…we are so so happy ️
– mother of a participant in the 2020 online showcase
Want inspiration for projects? You can still explore all the wonderful projects from the 2020 showcase gallery.
Everyone is invited to take part in Coolest Projects — the showcase is for young people with any level of experience. The project they register can be whatever they like, from their very first Scratch animation, to their latest robotics project, website, or phone app. And we invite projects at any stages of the creation process, whether they’re prototypes, finished products, or works-in-progress!
To be the first to know when registration opens, you only have to sign up for our newsletter:
We will send you regular news about Coolest Projects to keep you up to date and help you inspire the young tech creator in your life!
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We’re proud to show our support for This is Engineering Day, an annual campaign from the Royal Academy of Engineering to bring engineering to life for young people by showcasing its variety and creativity. This year’s #BeTheDifference theme focuses on the positive impact engineering can have on everyday life and on the world we live in. So what better way for us to celebrate than to highlight our community’s young digital makers — future engineers — and their projects created for social good!
We’re also delighted to have special guest Dr Lucy Rogers on our This Is Engineering–themed Digital Making at Home live stream today at 5.30pm GMT, where she will share insights into her work as a creative inventor.
In July, we were lucky enough to have Dr Hayaatun Sillem, CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), as a judge for Coolest Projects, our technology fair for young creators. Dr Hayaatun Sillem says, “Engineering is a fantastic career if you want to make a difference, improve people’s lives, and shape the future.”
In total, the young people taking part in Coolest Projects 2020 online presented 560 projects, of which over 300 projects were made specifically for social good. Here’s a small sample from some future engineers across the world:
“Our project is a virtual big eye doorman that detects if you wear a mask […] we chose this project because we like artificial intelligence and robotics and we wanted to help against the coronavirus.”
“I want people to put trash in the correct place so I made this AI trash can. This AI trash can separates the trash. I used ML2 Scratch. I used a camera to help the computer learn what type of trash it is.”
“As we know, burglary cases are very frequent and it is upsetting for the families whose houses are burglarised and [can] make them feel fearful, sad and helpless. Therefore, I tried to build a system which will help everyone to secure their houses.”
Professor Lucy Rogers PhD is an inventor with a sense of fun! She is a Fellow of the RAEng, and RAEng Visiting Professor of Engineering:Creativity and Communication at Brunel University, London. She’s also a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Adept at bringing ideas to life, from robot dinosaurs to mini mannequins — and even a fartometer for IBM! — she has developed her creativity and communication skills and shares her tricks and tools with others.
Here Dr Lucy Rogers shares her advice for young people who want to get involved in engineering:
A goal or a useful problem will help you get over the steep learning curve that is inevitable in learning about new pieces of technology. Your goal does not have to be big: my first Internet of Things project was making a LED shine when the International Space Station was overhead.
To me “engineering” is really “problem-solving”. Find problems to solve. You may have to make something, program something, or do something. How can you make your own world a little better?
Learn how to fail safely: break projects into smaller pieces, and try each piece. If it doesn’t work, you can try again. It’s only at the end of a project that you should put all the “working” pieces together (and even then, they may not work nicely together!)
Dr Lucy Rogers will be joining our Digital Making at Home educators on our This is Engineering-themed live stream today at 5.30pm GMT.
This is your young people’s chance to be inspired by this amazing inventor! And we will take live questions via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch, so make sure your young people are able to get Dr Lucy’s live answers to their own questions about digital making, creativity, and all things engineering!
To get inspired about engineering right now, your young people can follow along step by step with Electricity generation, our brand-new, free digital making project on the impact of non-renewable energy on our planet!
While coding this Scratch project, learners input real data about the type and amount of natural resources that countries across the world use to generate electricity, and they then compare the results using an animated data visualisation.
The data we’ve made part of this project was compiled by the International Energy Agency.
To find out more about This is Engineering Day, please visit www.ThisisEngineering.org.uk.
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Picture the scene: you have a Raspberry Pi configured to run on your network, you power it up headless (without a monitor), and now you need to know which IP address it was assigned.
Matthias came up with this solution, which makes your Raspberry Pi blink its IP address, because he used a Raspberry Pi Zero W headless for most of his projects and got bored with having to look it up with his DHCP server or hunt for it by pinging different IP addresses.
A script runs when you start your Raspberry Pi and indicates which IP address is assigned to it by blinking it out on the device’s LED. The script comprises about 100 lines of Python, and you can get it on GitHub.
The power/status LED on the edge of the Raspberry Pi blinks numbers in a Roman numeral-like scheme. You can tell which number it’s blinking based on the length of the blink and the gaps between each blink, rather than, for example, having to count nine blinks for a number nine.
Short, fast blinks represent the numbers one to four, depending on how many short, fast blinks you see. A gap between short, fast blinks means the LED is about to blink the next digit of the IP address, and a longer blink represents the number five. So reading the combination of short and long blinks will give you your device’s IP address.
You can see this in action at this exact point in the video. You’ll see the LED blink fast once, then leave a gap, blink fast once again, then leave a gap, then blink fast twice. That means the device’s IP address ends in 112.
Luckily, you usually only need to know the last three numbers of the IP address (the last octet), as the previous octets will almost always be the same for all other computers on the LAN.
The script blinks out the last octet ten times, to give you plenty of chances to read it. Then it returns the LED to its default functionality.
On a Raspberry Pi Zero W, the script uses the green status/power LED, and on other Raspberry Pis it uses the green LED next to the red power LED.
Once you get the hang of the Morse code-like blinking style, this is a really nice quick solution to find your device’s IP address and get on with your project.
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Three things we like: Blade Runner, robots, and cocktails. That’s why we LOVE Donald Bell‘s Raspberry Pi–packed ‘VK-01 Off-World Bartender‘ cocktail making machine.
This machine was due to be Donald’s entry into the Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge, an annual event in San Francisco. By the time the event was cancelled, he was too deep into his awesome build to give up, so he decided to share it with the Instructables community instead.
Donald wanted users to get as much interaction and feedback as possible, rather than simply pressing a button and receiving a random drink. So with this machine, the interaction comes in four ways: instructions provided on the screen, using a key card to bypass security, placing and removing a cup on the tray, and entering an order number on the keypad.
In addition to that, feedback is provided by way of lighting changes, music, video dialogue, pump motors whirring, and even the clicks of relays at each stage of the cocktail making process.
The keypad allows people to punch in a number to trigger their order, like on a vending machine. The drink order is sent to the Hello Drinkbot software running on the Raspberry Pi 3B that controls the pumps.
In order for the machine to be able to tell when a vessel is placed under the dispenser spout, and when it’s removed, Donald built in a switch under a 3D-printed tray. Provided the vessel has at least one ice cube in it, even the lightest plastic up is heavy enough to trigger the switch.
Cocktail machine customers are asked to scan a special ID card to start. To make this work, Donald adapted a sample script that blinks the card reader’s internal LED when any RFID card is detected.
This bit is made possible by MP4Museum, a “bare-bones” kiosk video player software that the second Raspberry Pi inside the machine runs on boot. By connecting a switch to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO, Donald enabled customers to advance through the videos one by one. And yes, that’s an official Raspberry Pi Touch Display.
Donald used the Python-based Hello Drinkbot software as the brains of the machine. With it, you can configure which liquors or juices are connected to which pumps, and send instructions on exactly how much to pour of each ingredient. Everything is configured via a web interface.
Via a bank of relays, microcontrollers connect all the signals from the Touch Display, keypad, RFID card reader, and switch under the spout.
Donald shared an exhaustive kit list on his original post, but basically, what you’re looking at is…
And finally, check out the Raspberry Pi–based Hello Drinkbot project by Rich Gibson, which inspired Donald’s build.
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When taking photos, most of us simply like to press the shutter button on our cameras and phones so that a viewable image is produced almost instantaneously, usually encoded in the well-known JPEG format. However, there are some applications where a little more control over the production of that JPEG is desirable. For instance, you may want more or less de-noising, or you may feel that the colours are not being rendered quite right.
This is where raw (sometimes RAW) files come in. A raw image in this context is a direct capture of the pixels output from the image sensor, with no additional processing. Normally this is in a relatively standard format known as a Bayer image, named after Bryce Bayer who pioneered the technique back in 1974 while working for Kodak. The idea is not to let the on-board hardware ISP (Image Signal Processor) turn the raw Bayer image into a viewable picture, but instead to do it offline with an additional piece of software, often referred to as a raw converter.
The raw image is sometimes likened to the old photographic negative, and whilst many camera vendors use their own proprietary formats, the most portable form of raw file is the Digital Negative (or DNG) format, defined by Adobe in 2004. The question at hand is how to obtain DNG files from Raspberry Pi, in such a way that we can process them using our favourite raw converters.
Many readers will be familiar with the raspistill application, which captures JPEG images from the attached camera. raspistill includes the -r option, which appends all the raw image data to the end of the JPEG file. JPEG viewers will still display the file as normal but ignore the (many megabytes of) raw data tacked on the end. Such a “JPEG+RAW” file can be captured using the terminal command:
Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi) 
raspistill -r -o image.jpgUnfortunately this JPEG+RAW format is merely what comes out of the camera stack and is not supported by any raw converters. So to make use of it we will have to convert it into a DNG file.
This Python utility converts the Raspberry Pi’s native JPEG+RAW files into DNGs. PyDNG can be installed from github.com/schoolpost/PyDNG, where more complete instructions are available. In brief, we need to perform the following steps:
git clone https://github.com/schoolpost/PyDNG
cd PyDNG
pip3 install src/. # note that PyDNG requires Python3PyDNG can be used as part of larger Python scripts, or it can be run stand-alone. Continuing the raspistill example from before, we can enter in a terminal window:
python3 examples/utility.py image.jpgThe resulting DNG file can be processed by a variety of raw converters. Some are free (such as RawTherapee or dcraw, though the latter is no longer officially developed or supported), and there are many well-known proprietary options (Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom, for instance). Perhaps users will post in the comments any that they feel have given them good results.
Now, one of the bugbears of processing Raspberry Pi raw files up to this point has been the problem of getting sensible colours. Previously, the images have been rendered with a sickly green cast, simply because no colour balancing is being done and green is normally the most sensitive colour channel. In fact it’s even worse than this, as the RGB values in the raw image merely reflect the sensitivity of the sensor’s photo-sites to different wavelengths, and do not a priori have more than a general correlation with the colours as perceived by our own eyes. This is where we need white balancing and colour matrices.
Correct white balance multipliers are required if neutral parts of the scene are to look, well, neutral. We can use raspistill‘s guesstimate of them, found in the JPEG+RAW file (or you can measure your own on a neutral part of the scene, like a grey card). Matrices and look-up tables are then required to convert colour from ‘camera’ space to the final colour space of choice, mostly sRGB or Adobe RGB.
My thanks go to forum contributors Jack Hogan for measuring these colour matrices, and to Csaba Nagy for implementing them in the PyDNG tool. The results speak for themselves.
Previous attempts at raw conversion are on the left; the results using the updated PyDNG are on the right.
For those familiar with DNG files, we include links to DCP (DNG Camera Profile) files (warning: binary format). You can try different ones out in raw converters, and we would encourage users to experiment, to perhaps create their own, and to share their results!
Note, however, that these files come with a few caveats. Specifically:
So there remains room for improvement. Nevertheless, results across a number of modules have shown these parameters to be a significant step forward.
My thanks again to Jack Hogan for performing the colour matrix calibration with DCamProf, and to Csaba Nagy for adding these new features to PyDNG.
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8 Bits and a Byte created this automatic bubble machine, which is powered and controlled by a Raspberry Pi and can be switched on via the internet by fans of robots and/or bubbles.
They chose a froggy-shaped bubble machine, but you can repurpose whichever type you desire; it’s just easier to adapt a model running on two AA batteries.
Before the refurb, 8 Bits and a Byte’s battery-powered bubble machine was controlled by a manual switch, which turned the motor on and off inside the frog. If you wanted to watch the motor make the frog burp out bubbles, you needed to flick this switch yourself.
After dissecting their plastic amphibian friend, 8 Bits and a Byte hooked up its motor to Raspberry Pi using a relay module. They point to this useful walkthrough for help with connecting a relay module to Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins.
Now the motor inside the frog can be turned on and off with the power of code. And you can become controller of bubbles by logging in here and commanding the Raspberry Pi to switch on.
To let the internet’s bubble fans see the fruits of their one-click labour, 8 Bits and a Byte set up a Raspberry Pi Camera Module and connected their build to robot streaming platform remo.tv.
The only remaining question is: what’s the best bubble soap recipe?
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We’re delighted to announce that our special judges — Eben Upton, Hayaatun Sillem, Limor Fried, Mitch Resnick, and Tim Peake — have chosen their favourite projects from the Coolest Projects online showcase!
Young tech creators from 39 countries are part of the showcase, including from Ireland, Australia, Palestine, UK, USA, India, and Indonesia. In total, you’ll find an incredible 560 projects from 775 young creators in the showcase gallery.
Our judges have been amazed and inspired by all the young creators’ projects, and they want to highlight a few as their favourites!
Eben Upton is a founder of our organisation, one of the inventors of the Raspberry Pi computer, and CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading. Watch Eben’s favourites.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem is the CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which brings together the UK’s leading engineers and technologists to promote engineering excellence for the benefit of society. Watch Hayaatun’s favourites.
Limor Fried is an MIT-trained engineer and the founder and owner of Adafruit Industries. Watch Limor’s favourites.
Mitch Resnick is Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, and his Lifelong Kindergarten research group develops and supports the Scratch programming software and online community! Watch Mitch’s favourites.
Tim Peake is a British ESA astronaut who spent 186 days in space on the International Space Station. He’s also a passionate advocate for STEM education. Watch Tim’s favourites.
You can explore all the young tech creators’ projects — games, hardware builds, Scratch projects, mobile apps, and more — in our showcase gallery now.
This year’s Coolest Projects online showcase wouldn’t be possible without the support of our Coolest Projects sponsors — thank you!
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We are thrilled that five fantastic people will contribute to the Coolest Projects online showcase: Tim Peake, Limor Fried, Mitch Resnick, Hayaatun Sillem, and Eben Upton are going to be our special judges and choose their favourite projects from among all the entries from young tech creators in our global community.
Tim Peake is a British ESA astronaut and a passionate advocate for STEM education. Tim played a huge part in the first Astro Pi Challenge in 2015, and he has helped us spread the word about the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation ever since.
“By taking part in Coolest Projects, young creators get to share their ideas with the world, and their peers. Whether it’s creating something for home, the planet, or for their school or community — it’s a great opportunity to share their hopes and dreams for the future!” — Tim Peake
Limor ‘Ladyada’ Fried is an MIT engineer and the founder and owner of Adafruit, a company that creates hardware and educational resources for anyone interested in digital making. Limor personally selects, tests, and approves all the tools, equipment, and electronics on offer by Adafruit.
“Coolest Projects is a fantastic opportunity for young people to take part in the world’s leading technology showcase and to celebrate all the hard work and ideas from the community — all from home!” – Limor Fried
Mitch Resnick is Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, and his Lifelong Kindergarten research group develops the Scratch programming software and online community! His life’s passion is developing new technologies and activities to engage young people in creative learning experiences.
Hayaatun Sillem is the CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which brings together the UK’s leading engineers and technologists to promote engineering excellence for the benefit of society. She also has a PhD in cancer research!
Eben Upton is a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and one of the inventors of the Raspberry Pi computer. As the CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd, he oversees the company, including the development of all our hardware.
If a young person you know is making anything with technology — and we mean anything, from robot to smartphone app to video game to Scratch animation to web page about their favourite food — then we invite them to take part in the Coolest Projects online showcase.
We welcome all works-in-progress and finished projects from anyone aged up to 18!
To find out more and register a project by the 28 June deadline, visit coolestproject.org.
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We’re thrilled that Coolest Projects is taking place this summer as an online showcase, and registration opens today!
Our world-leading technology fair usually takes place as a free face-to-face event, with thousands of young people coming together to showcase projects they’ve created. After making the tough decision to cancel the Coolest Projects 2020 events in Dublin and Manchester, we began building a solution that would allow us to host our tech showcase for young people online this year.
As so many young people are currently at home all over the world, we wanted to create an online space where they can share their tech projects, be inspired by their peers, and celebrate each other’s achievements as a community.
Coolest Projects is a great opportunity for young people to get creative, have fun, learn from others, and be a part of something truly special.
To get involved in Coolest Projects, all that young people need is an idea that involves tech, and the enthusiasm to bring it to life. If they’re looking for inspiration, they can explore our Digital Making at Home series of free, weekly code-along videos and step-by-step project guides. We’ve also got support for parents who want to learn more about the tools and programs their children could use to create a tech project.
Coolest Projects is open to anyone up to the age of 18, and young people can join wherever they are in the world. Creators at all levels of experience are encouraged, with projects from beginner to advanced, and it doesn’t matter whether the project is a work in progress, a prototype, or a finished product — every participant and every project are welcome!
All submitted projects will be showcased for the whole world to see in the new Coolest Projects online gallery, so that we can all celebrate the effort, enthusiasm, and creativity of young people who have turned an idea into reality using tech.
In the online gallery, you’ll be able to filter projects and explore at your leisure. We’ve enlisted some special judges to help us pick out favourites!
Estela Liobikaitė from Strokestown, Co. Roscommon in Ireland took part in Coolest Projects International last year. She began coding at school with her teacher, Ms Gilleran, and developed a love for animation. Estela talks about the possibilities coding gives young people:
“I like coding because it is very entertaining to play to learn about technology. Coding gives a person many opportunities and possibilities.”
Estela at Coolest Projects International 2019
Sofia and Mihai, both aged 9, also took part in Coolest Projects International 2019. They travelled to the Dublin event from Slatina in Romania, where they attend a Code Club in their community. Sofia and Mihai both love animals and created their project, Friendship Saves Endangered Species, to raise awareness about the fragile ecosystem.
Sofia and Mihai at Coolest Projects 2019
Their advice for other young people thinking of getting involved in Coolest Projects is: “Follow your dream, put your ideas into practice, because Coolest Projects is a great opportunity!”
If you know a young person who has made a digital creation, then encourage them to register it for Coolest Projects, be it an animation, website, game, app, robot, or anything else they’ve built with technology. Projects can be registered in the following categories: Hardware; Scratch; Mobile Apps; Websites; Games; Advanced Programming.
To register a project or find out more about taking part, visit coolestprojects.org. Registration closes on 28 June 2020.
PS This year’s Coolest Projects online showcase wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors — thank you!
Facebook, BNY Mellon, Liberty Global, Blizzard Entertainment, EPAM
Workday, Twitter
PayPal
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In this blog post, I want to share an update on how the Raspberry Pi Foundation is responding to the novel coronavirus and what it means for our work to support people all over the planet to change their world through technology.
The situation is changing rapidly, and we’ll update this blog as our response develops.
Update: on this web page, you will find advice we’ve collected from the community on how to continue engaging with your Code Club, CoderDojo, or Raspberry Jam members.
The main guidance to our teams, partners, and community members is that they should follow the local public health advice in the country or region where they are based.
The spread of the virus is at different stages in different parts of the world. That’s one reason why the public health advice differs so much depending on where you are. This is a new threat and there are competing theories about the best course of action. We see that in the different approaches that are being taken by different governments around the world.
To state what I am sure is obvious, we aren’t epidemiologists or public health experts. That’s why our approach is to follow the local public health advice.
We’ve been working closely with venues, partners, sponsors, and community members to keep our programme of events under review. There aren’t currently any restrictions on events that affect the specific dates and places where our events are being held. The problem really is one of uncertainty.
Until now, we’ve taken a ‘wait and see’ approach for events, following the local public health guidance closely and working on the assumption that we will go ahead as planned, unless the local advice is to cancel. However, over the past couple of days, we have become increasingly concerned that we are asking people to book travel and make practical arrangements when we think that there is a high likelihood that we will have to cancel events at the last minute.
We have therefore taken a number of very difficult decisions about our events programme.
We have decided to hold the Research Symposium as an online-only event. Plans for this are well developed, and we are looking forward to bringing together an amazing community of researchers, academics, and practitioners to discuss cutting-edge research on how young people learn computing and computer science. Registration remains open and we will provide updates on the event via the symposium web page.
We have decided to cancel both upcoming Coolest Projects events. This was a really tough decision. In both cases, there is just too much uncertainty for us to continue to ask young people, parents, mentors, and volunteers to make travel and other arrangements. We are exploring options for providing an online experience that will enable the young creators to still showcase their amazing projects, so please don’t stop work on your project. We will provide further updates on the Coolest Projects website.
We have issued guidance to the tens of thousands of brilliant human beings that organise Code Clubs, CoderDojos, Raspberry Jams, and other community-led events all over the world. Our message is that they should follow the local public health advice in their country or region and take decisions on whether to cancel their club or event in consultation with the venues that host them. If you are a club leader or an event organiser and you have a concern, please contact us in the usual way, or email us at events@raspberrypi.org.
We are working with community members and partners to increase our support for online learning, and we are collecting guidance for the community on this web page. For now, clubs (and everyone else) can access all of our free learning resources online as usual.
As a organisation with a global supply chain that makes and sells products all over the world, we have been working with our partners to minimise the impact of the pandemic on the availability of our products, and on the wellbeing of those involved in our supply chain and distribution network. At this stage, I am delighted to report that Raspberry Pi products are still available in all of the usual places and we’re working very hard to make sure that this continues.
We have implemented a range of actions to support our colleagues wherever they work. This has included restricting non-essential international travel, encouraging and supporting flexible and home working, improving the cleaning and hygiene facilities at our offices, and putting in place extra support for colleagues who have increased caring responsibilities because of government or other institutions taking actions to control the spread of the virus, like school closures.
We are following local public health guidance on self-isolation and, for anyone who is unwell, we will provide sick pay as normal. We have committed that none of our employees will be out of pocket because of actions we take to prevent the spread of the virus.
We have encouraged colleagues to consider moving face to face meetings online, including job interviews. So if you’re due to meet anyone at the Foundation, they’ll check in with you about your preferences and agree the best approach with you.
One of the best things about Raspberry Pi is the amazing community that we have the privilege to work with everyday. That includes our teams, partners and funders, educators, volunteers, businesses, and millions of incredible young digital makers.
Whatever happens over the coming days, weeks, and months, it feels increasingly likely that everyone in this community will be affected in some way. Hopefully, for most people that will be nothing more than being inconvenienced.
Personally, I am finding the uncertainty one of the hardest things to deal with. I’ve really appreciated all of the messages of support and offers of help that I’ve received over the past few days. This has always been an organisation and a community where people genuinely care about and support each other. Let’s all double down on that now.
Philip Colligan
CEO Raspberry Pi Foundation
The post How the Raspberry Pi Foundation is responding to the novel coronavirus appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
At Raspberry Pi, we’re interested in all things to do with technology, from building new tools and helping people teach computing, to researching how young people learn to create with technology and thinking about the role tech plays in our lives and society. Today, I’m writing about our habit of replacing devices with newer versions just for the sake of it.
Technology is involved in more of our lives than ever before: most of us carry a computer in our pocket everywhere we go. On the other hand, the length of time for which we use each individual piece of technology has grown very short. This is what’s referred to as upgrade culture, a cycle which sees most of us replacing our most trusted devices every two years with the latest products offered by tech giants like Apple and Samsung.
How we got to this point is hard to determine, and there does not seem to be a single root cause for upgrade culture. This is why I want to start a conversation about it, so we can challenge our current perspectives and establish fact-based attitudes. I think it’s time that we, as individuals and as a collective, examine our relationship with new technology.
Digital technology is still so new that there is really no benchmark for how long digital devices should last. This means that the decision power has by default landed in the hands of device manufacturers and mobile network carriers, and for their profit margins, a two-year lifecycle of devices is beneficial.
Where do you see your role in this process as a consumer? Is it wrong to want to upgrade your phone after two years of constant use? Should phone companies slow their development, and would this hinder innovation? And, if you really need to upgrade, is there a better use for your old device than living in a drawer? These questions defy simple answers, and I want to hear what you think.
As with all our behaviours as consumers, the impact that upgrade culture has on the environment is an important concern. Environmental issues and climate change aren’t anything new, but they’re currently at the forefront of the global conversation, and for good reason.
Mobile devices are of course made in factories, and the concerns this raises have been covered well in many other places. The same goes for the energy needed to build technology. This energy could, at least in theory, be produced from renewable sources. Here I would like to focus on another aspect of the environmental impact device production has, which relates to the materials necessary to create the tiny components that form our technological best friends.
Some components of your phone cannot be created without rare chemical elements, such as europium and dysprosium. (In fact, there are 83 stable non-radioactive elements in the periodic table, and 70 of them are used in some capacity in your phone.) Upgrade culture means there is high demand for these materials, and deposits are becoming more and more depleted. If you’re hoping there are renewable alternatives, you’ll be disappointed: a study by researchers working at Yale University found that there are currently no alternative materials that are as effective.
Then there’s the issue of how the materials are mined. The market trading these materials is highly competitive, and more often than not manufacturers buy from the companies offer the lowest prices. To maintain their profit margin, these companies have to extract as much material as possible as cheaply as they can. As you can imagine, this leads to mining practices that are less than ethical or environmentally friendly. As many of the mines are located in distant areas of developing countries, these problems may feel remote to you, but they affect a lot of people and are a direct result of the market we are creating by upgrading our devices every two years.
Many of us agree that we need to do what we can to counteract climate change, and that, to achieve anything meaningful, we have to start looking at the way we live our lives. This includes questioning how we use technology. It will be through discussion and opinion gathering that we can start to make more informed decisions — as individuals and as a society.
You probably also have that one friend/colleague/family member who swears by their five year old mobile phone and scoffs at the prices of the newest models. These people are often labeled as sticklers who are afraid to join the modern age, but is there another way to see them? The truth is, if you’ve bought a phone in the last five years, then — barring major accidents — it will most likely still function and be just as effective as it was when it came out of the box. So why are so many consumers upgrading to new devices every two years?
Again there isn’t a single reason, but I think marketing departments should shoulder much of the responsibility. Using marketing strategies, device manufacturers and mobile network carriers purposefully make us see the phones we currently own in a negative light. A common trope of mobile phone adverts is the overwrought comparison of your current device with a newly launched version. Thus, each passing day after a new model is released, our opinion of our current device worsens, even if it’s just on a subconscious level.
This marketing strategy is related to a business practice called planned obsolescence, which sees manufacturers purposefully limit the durability of their products in order to sell more units. An early example of planned obsolescence is the lightbulb, invented at the Edison company: it was relatively simple for the company to create a lightbulb that lasted 2500 hours, but it took years and a coalition of manufacturers to make a version that reliably broke after 1000 hours. We’re all aware that the lightbulb revolutionised many aspects of life, but it turns out it also had a big influence on consumer habits and what we see as acceptable practices of technology companies.
The final aspect of the impact of upgrade culture that I want to examine relates to the digital divide. This term describes the societal gap between the people with access to, and competence with, the latest technology, and the people without these privileges. To be able to upgrade, say, your mobile phone to the latest model every two years, you either need a great degree of financial freedom, or you need to tie yourself to a 24-month contract that may not be easily within your means. As a society, we revere the latest technology and hold people with access to it in high regard. What does this say to people who do not have this access?
Inadvertently, we are widening the digital divide by placing more value on new technology than is warranted. Innovation is exciting, and commercial success is celebrated — but do you ever stop and ask who really benefits from this? Is your new phone really that much better than the old one, or could it be that you’re mostly just basking in feeling the social rewards of having the newest bit of kit?
Obviously, this blog post wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t share our perspective as a technology company as well. So here’s Raspberry Pi Trading CEO Eben Upton:
“Raspberry Pi tries very hard to avoid obsoleting older products. Obviously the latest Raspberry Pi 4 runs much faster than a Raspberry Pi 1 (something like forty times faster), but a Raspbian image we release today will run on the very earliest Raspberry Pi prototypes from the summer of 2011. Cutting customers off from software support after a couple of years is unethical, and bad for business in the long term: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The best companies respect their customers’ investment in their platforms, even if that investment happened far in the past.”
“What’s even more unusual about Raspberry Pi is that we aim to keep our products available for a long period of time. So you can’t just run a 2020 software build on a 2014 Raspberry Pi 1B+: you can actually buy a brand-new 1B+ to run it on.”
“We’re constantly working to reduce the environmental footprint of Raspberry Pi. If you look next to the USB connectors on Raspberry Pi 4, you’ll see a chunky black component. This is the reservoir capacitor, which prevents the 5V rail from dropping too far when a new USB device is plugged in. By using a polymer electrolytic capacitor, from our friends at Panasonic, we’ve been able to avoid the use of tantalum.”
“When we launched the official USB-C power supply for Raspberry Pi 4, one or two people on Twitter asked if we could eliminate the single-use plastic bag which surrounded the cable and plug assembly inside the box. Working with our partners at Kuantech, we found that we could easily do this for the white supplies, but not for the black ones. Why? Because when the box vibrates in transit, the plug scuffs against the case; this is visible on the black plastic, but not on the white.”
Raspberry Pi power supply with scuff mark
“So for now, if you want to eliminate single-use plastic, buy a white supply. In the meantime, we’ll be working to find a way (probably involving cunning origami) to eliminate plastic from the black supply.”
Time for you to discuss! I want to hear from you about upgrade culture.
Share your thoughts in the comments!
Upgrade culture is one of the topics for which we offer you a discussion forum on our free online course Impact of Technology. For educators, the course also covers how to facilitate classroom discussions about these topics, and a new course run has just begun — sign up today to take part for free!
The Impact of Technology online course is one of many courses developed by us with support from Google.
The post Is upgrade culture out of date? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Have you ever considered attaching your Raspberry Pi 4 to an Apple iPad Pro? How would you do it, and why would you want to? Here’s YouTuber Tech Craft to explain why Raspberry Pi 4 is their favourite iPad Pro accessory, and why you may want to consider using yours in the same way.
We’ve set the video to start at Tech Craft’s explanation.
My Favourite iPad Pro Accessory: The Raspberry Pi 4
The Raspberry Pi 4 is my favourite accessory to use with the iPad Pro. In this video, learn more about what the Pi can do, what gear you need to get running with one, how to connect it to your iPad and what you’ll find it useful for.
Having installed Raspbian on Raspberry Pi and configured the computer to use USB-C as an Ethernet connection (read Ben Hardill’s guide to find out how to do this), Tech Craft could select it as an Ethernet device in the iPad’s Settings menu.
So why would you want to connect your Raspberry Pi 4 to your iPad? For starters, using your iPad instead of a conventional HDMI monitor will free up desk space, and also allow you to edit your code on the move. And when you’ve connected the two devices like this, you don’t need a separate power lead for Raspberry Pi, because the iPad powers the computer. So this setup is perfect for train or plane journeys, or for that moment when your robot stops working at a Raspberry Jam, or for maker conventions.
You can also use Raspberry Pi as a bridge between your iPad and portable hard drive, for disk management.
Tech Craft uses the SSH client Blink to easily connect to their Raspberry Pi via its fixed IP address, and with Juno Connect, they connect to a running Jupyter instance on their Raspberry Pi to do data science work.
For more information on using Raspberry Pi with an iPad, make sure you watch the whole video. And, because you’re a lovely person, be sure to subscribe to Tech Craft for more videos, such as this one on how to connect wirelessly to your Raspberry Pi from any computer or tablet:
Mobile Raspberry Pi with ANY iPad. No USB-C needed.
Following on my from earlier video about pairing the Raspberry Pi 4 with the iPad Pro over USB-C, this video show how to pair any iPad (or iPhone, or Android tablet) with a Pi4 or a Pi3 over WiFi.
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What, your Christmas tree ISN’T touch-enabled?
Capacitive Touch Christmas Tree How To | Raspberry Pi | Bare Conductive Pi Cap
Turn your Christmas tree into a capacitive touch-interactive musical instrument using a Raspberry Pi and a Bare Conductive Pi Cap. You’ll be rocking around the Christmas tree in no time! /* Bare Conductive */ Pi Cap: https://www.bareconductive.com/shop/pi-cap/ Touch Board: https://www.bareconductive.com/shop/touch-board/ Code: https://github.com/BareConductive/picap-touch-mp3-py #RasberryPi #BareConductive #Christmas
Using the Bare Conductive Pi Cap, Davy Wybiral hooked up his fairy lights and baubles to a Raspberry Pi. The result? Musical baubles that allow the user to play their favourite festive classics at the touch of a finger. These baubles are fantastic, and it’s easy to make your own. Just watch the video for Davy’s how-to.
The code for Bare Conductive’s Pi Cap polyphonic touch MP3 utility can be found in this GitHub repo, and you can pick up a Pi Cap on the Bare Conductive website. Then all you need to do is hook up your favourite tree decorations to the Pi Cap via insulated wires, and you’re good to go. It’s OK if your decorations aren’t conductive: you’ll actually be touching the wires and not the ornaments themselves.
And don’t worry about touching the wires, it’s perfectly safe. But just in this instance. Please don’t make a habit of touching wires.
Make sure to subscribe to Davy on YouTube (we did) and give him a like for the baubles video. Also, leave a comment to tell him how great it is, because nice comments are lovely, and we should all be leaving as many of them as we can on the videos for our favourite creators.
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I’m currently (re)learning how to knit. Here are some textile-themed Raspberry Pi projects for the yarn-curious.
Loom Operation
The general sequence of events for running my Raspberry Pi controlled loom. The project was really a proof of concept idea rather than an actual production model. This video is intended to supplement my blog at www.photographic-perspectives.com Sorry, there is not audio with this.
Fred Hoefler has taken a desktop loom and added a Raspberry Pi to automate it. Read more in our blog post.
Knitting Printer! (slowest speed)
Printing a scarf on a Brother KM950i knitting machine from the 1980’s. To do this I have a Brother Motor arm to push the carriage back and forth and a homemade colour changer that automatically selects the colour on the left (the white and purple device with the LED).
The moment we saw Sarah Spencer‘s knitted Stargazing tapestry, we knew we needed to know more. A couple of emails later, and here’s Sarah with a guest blog post telling you all you need to know about her hacking adventure with a 1980s knitting machine and a Raspberry Pi.
Hendrix College Raspberry Pi Bake-Off
Uploaded by Hendrix College on 2014-04-08.
Cyndi Minister runs The Twisted Purl, a yarn company in Arkansas. She’s also a bit of a geek, and when her ankles became sore from too much work at the treadle, she hit on the idea of making a Raspberry Pi-powered spinning wheel for her hand-made yarn. Read more.
Loom Computer (Jacquard Simulator)
Raspberry Pi based Jacquard Loom simulator on display at Macclesfield Silk Museum (http://http://www.silkmacclesfield.org.uk).
Next time you’re out shopping for curtain fabric, or buying intricately woven cushion covers, step back for a moment and think about the computing history you’re holding in your hands. Computing’s everywhere. Find out more here.
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When we invited Estefannie Explains It All to present at Coolest Projects International, she decided to make something cool with a Raspberry Pi to bring along. But being Estefannie, she didn’t just make something a little bit cool. She went ahead and made Raspberry Pi Zero-powered Jurassic Park goggles, or, as she calls them, the world’s first globally triggered, mass broadcasting, photon-emitting and -collecting head unit.
Make your own Jurassic Park goggles using a Raspberry Pi // MAKE SOMETHING
Is it heavy? Yes. But these goggles are not expensive. Follow along as I make the classic Jurassic Park Goggles from scratch!! The 3D Models: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3732889 My code: https://github.com/estefanniegg/estefannieExplainsItAll/blob/master/makes/JurassicGoggles/jurassic_park.py Thank you Coolest Projects for bringing me over to speak in Ireland!! https://coolestprojects.org/ Thank you Polymaker for sending me the Polysher and the PolySmooth filament!!!!
Estefannie’s starting point was the set of excellent 3D models of the iconic goggles that Jurassicpaul has kindly made available on Thingiverse. There followed several 3D printing attempts and lots of sanding, sanding, sanding, spray painting, and sanding, then some more printing with special Polymaker filament that can be ethanol polished.
Estefannie soldered rings of addressable LEDs and created custom models for 3D-printable pieces to fit both them and the goggles. She added a Raspberry Pi Zero, some more LEDs and buttons, an adjustable headgear part from a welding mask, and – importantly – four circles of green acetate. After quite a lot of gluing, soldering, and wiring, she ended up with an entirely magnificent set of goggles.
Here, they’re modelled magnificently by Raspberry Pi videographer Brian. I think you’ll agree he cuts quite a dash.
Estefannie wrote a Python script to interact with Twitter, take photos, and provide information about the goggles’ current status via the LED rings. When Estefannie powers up the Raspberry Pi, it runs a script on startup and connects to her phone’s wireless hotspot. A red LED on the front of the goggles indicates that the script is up and running.
Once it’s running, pressing a button at the back of the head unit makes the Raspberry Pi search Twitter for mentions of @JurassicPi. The LEDs light up green while it searches, just like you remember from the film. If Estefannie’s script finds a mention, the LEDs flash white and the Raspberry Pi camera module takes a photo. Then they light up blue while the script tweets the photo.
All the code is available on Estefannie’s GitHub. I love this project – I love the super clear, simple user experience provided by the LED rings, and there’s something I really appealing about the asynchronous Twitter interaction, where you mention @JurassicPi and then get an image later, the next time googles are next turned on.
If you read the beginning of this post and thought, “wait, what’s Coolest Projects?” then be sure to watch to the end of Estefannie’s video to catch her excellentCoolest Projects mini vlog. And then sign up for updates about Coolest Projects events near you, so you can join in next year, or help a team of young people to join in.
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On my holidays this year I enjoyed a walk in the Brecon Beacons. We set out nice and early, walked 22km through some of the best scenery in Britain, got a cup of tea from the snack van on the A470, and caught our bus home. “I enjoyed that walk,” I thought, “and I’d like to do one like it again.” What I DIDN’T think was, “I’d like to do that walk again, only I’d like it to be nearly three times as long, and it definitely ought to have about three times more ascent, or else why bother?”
Alan Peaty is a bit more hardcore than me, so, a couple of weekends ago, he set out on the Brecon Beacons 10 Peaks Ultramarathon: “10 peaks; 58 kilometres; 3000m of ascent; 24 hours”. He went with his friend Neil and a Raspberry Pi Zero in an eyecatching 3D-printed case.
“The brick”, nestling on a backpack, with sunlit Corn Du and Pen y Fan in the background
The Raspberry Pi Zero ensemble – lovingly known as the brick or, to give it its longer name, the Rosie IoT Brick or RIoT Brick – is equipped with a u-blox Neo-6 GPS module, and it also receives GPS tracking info from some smaller trackers built using ESP32 microcontrollers. The whole lot is powered by a “rather weighty” 20,000mAh battery pack. Both the Raspberry Pi and the ESP32s were equipped with “all manner of additional sensors” to track location, temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude, and light level readings along the route.
Where the route crosses over itself is the most fervently appreciated snack van in Wales
Via LoRa and occasional 3G/4G from the many, many peaks along the route, all this data ends up on Amazon Web Services. AWS, among other things, hosts an informative website where family members were able to keep track of Alan’s progress along windswept ridges and up 1:2 gradients, presumably the better to appreciate their cups of tea and central heating. Here’s a big diagram of how the kit that completed the ultramarathon fits together; it’s full of arrows, dotted lines, and acronyms.
Alan, Neil, the brick, and the rest of their gear completed the event in an impressive 18 hours and one minute, for which they got a medal.
Well earned
You can follow the adventures of this project, its antecedents, and the further evolutions that are doubtless to come, on the Rosie the Red Robot Twitter feed. And you can find everything to do with the project in this GitHub repository, so you can complete ultramarathons while weighed down with hefty power bricks and bristling with homemade tracking devices, too, if you like. Alan is raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK with this event, and you can find his Brecon Beacons 10 Peaks JustGiving page here.
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Chris Aviles, aka the teacher we all wish we’d had when we were at school, discusses how his school is in New Jersey is directly linking data with life itself…
Over to you, Chris.
Every year, our students take federal or state-mandated testing, but what significant changes have we made to their education with the results of these tests? We have never collected more data about our students and society in general. The problem is most people and institutions do a poor job interpreting data and using it to make meaningful change. This problem was something I wanted to tackle in FH Grows.
FH Grows is the name of my seventh-grade class, and is a student-run agriculture business at Knollwood Middle School in Fair Haven, New Jersey. In FH Grows, we sell our produce both online and through our student-run farmers markets. Any produce we don’t sell is donated to our local soup kitchen. To get the most out of our school gardens, students have built sensors and monitors using Raspberry Pis. These sensors collect data which then allows me to help students learn to better interpret data themselves and turn it into action.
In the greenhouse, our gardens, and alternative growing stations (hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics) we have sensors that log the temperature, humidity, and other important data points that we want to know about our garden. This data is then streamed in real time, online at FHGrows.com. When students come into the classroom, one of the first things we look at is the current, live data on the site and find out what is going on in our gardens. Over the course of the semester, students are taught about the ideal growing conditions of our garden. When looking at the data, if we see that the conditions in our gardens aren’t ideal, we get to work.
If we see that the greenhouse is too hot, over 85 degrees, students will go and open the greenhouse door. We check the temperature a little bit later, and if it’s still too hot, students will go turn on the fan. But how many fans do you turn on? After experimenting, we know that each fan lowers the greenhouse temperature between 7-10 degrees Fahrenheit. Opening the door and turning on both fans can bring a greenhouse than can push close to 100 degrees in late May or early June down to a manageable 80 degrees.
Turning data into action can allow for some creativity as well. Over-watering plants can be a real problem. We found that our plants were turning yellow because we were watering them every day when we didn’t need to. How could we solve this problem and become more efficient at watering? Students built a Raspberry Pi that used a moisture sensor to find out when a plant needed to be watered. We used a plant with the moisture sensor in the soil as our control plant. We figured that if we watered the control plant at the same time we watered all our other plants, when the control plant was dry (gave a negative moisture signal) the rest of the plants in the greenhouse would need to be watered as well.
This method of determining when to water our plants worked well. We rarely ever saw our plants turn yellow from overwatering. Here is where the creativity came in. Since we received a signal from the Raspberry Pi when the soil was not wet enough, we played around with what we could do with that signal. We displayed it on the dashboard along with our other data, but we also decided to make the signal send as an email from the plant. When I showed students how this worked, they decided to write the message from the plant in the first person. Every week or so, we received an email from Carl the Control Plant asking us to come out and water him!
If students don’t honour Carl’s request for water, use data to know when to cool our greenhouse, or had not done the fan experiments to see how much cooler they make the greenhouse, all our plants, like the basil we sell to the pizza places in town, would die. This is the beauty of combining data literacy with a school garden: failure to interpret data then act based on their interpretation has real consequences: our produce could die. When it takes 60-120 days to grow the average vegetable, the loss of plants is a significant event. We lose all the time and energy that went into growing those plants as well as lose all the revenue they would have brought in for us. Further, I love the urgency that combining data and the school garden creates because many students have learned the valuable life lesson that not making a decision is making a decision. If students freeze or do nothing when confronted with the data about the garden, that too has consequences.
The other major way we use data in FH Grows is to spot trends and make predictions. Different to using data to create the ideal growing conditions in our garden every day, the sensors that we use also provide a way for us to use information about the past to predict the future. FH Grows has about two years’ worth of weather data from our Raspberry Pi weather station (there are guides online if you wish to build a weather station of your own). Using weather data year over year, we can start to determine important events like when it is best to plant our veggies in our garden.
For example, one of the most useful data points on the Raspberry Pi weather station is the ground temperature sensor. Last semester, we wanted to squeeze in a cool weather grow in our garden. This post-winter grow can be done between March and June if you time it right. Getting an extra growing cycle from our garden is incredibly valuable, not only to FH Grows as business (since we would be growing more produce to turn around and sell) but as a way to get an additional learning cycle out of the garden.
So, using two seasons’ worth of ground temperature data, we set out to predict when the ground in our garden would be cool enough to do this cool veggie grow. Students looked at the data we had from our weather station and compared it to different websites that predicted the last frost of the season in our area. We found that the ground right outside our door warmed up two weeks earlier than the more general prediction given by websites. With this information we were able to get a full cool crop grow at a time where our garden used to lay dormant.
We also used our Raspberry Pi to help us predict whether or not it was going to rain over the weekend. Using a Raspberry Pi connected to Weather Underground and previous years’ data, if we believed it would not rain over the weekend we would water our gardens on Friday. If it looked like rain over the weekend, we let Mother Nature water our garden for us. Our prediction using the Pi and previous data was more accurate for our immediate area than compared to the more general weather reports you would get on the radio or an app, since those considered a much larger area when making their prediction.
It seems like we are going to be collecting even more data in the future, not less. It is important that we get our students comfortable working with data. The school garden supported by Raspberry Pi’s amazing ability to collect data is a boon for any teacher who wants to help students learn how to interpret data and turn it into action.
Issue 10 of Hello World magazine is out today, and it’s free. 100% free.
Click here to download the PDF right now. Right this second. If you want to be a love, click here to subscribe, again for free. Subscribers will receive an email when the latest issue is out, and we won’t use your details for anything nasty.
If you’re an educator in the UK, click here and you’ll receive the printed version of Hello World direct to your door. And, guess what? Yup, that’s free too!
What I’m trying to say here is that there is a group of hard-working, passionate educators who take the time to write incredible content for Hello World, for free, and you would be doing them (and us, and your students, kids and/or friends) a solid by reading it :)
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