We and our collaborators at ESA Education are excited to announce that 17,168 programs written by young people from 26 countries have been successfully deployed on board the International Space Station (ISS) for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2021/22. And we can finally reveal the names of the two new and upgraded Astro Pi computers that Astro Pi participants have chosen.

Astro Pi is more popular than ever with young people

A record number of 28,126 young people took part across both missions in the Astro Pi Challenge 2021/22. In addition to the 299 Mission Space Lab teams who achieved flight status with the code they wrote for their scientific experiments this year, young people wrote 16,869 Mission Zero programs that were run on the new Astro Pi computers. This is an amazing 84% increase compared to Mission Zero last year.

Mission Zero is perfect for beginner coders: participants follow our step-by-step instructions and write a simple program for the Astro Pis. The program takes a humidity reading on board the ISS and displays it for the astronauts. Participants can also include code to display their own unique message on the Astro Pi LED displays. Mission Zero teams are very inventive, and the young people made great use of the Astro Pis’ LED display to create pixel art:

Every Mission Zero participant receives a unique certificate showing exactly where the ISS was on its orbital path when their program was run:

The new Astro Pi computers’ names

This year, the deployment of all the Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab programs was overseen by ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. But before he could do that, he first had an extra special task: unpacking and assembling the brand-new Astro Pi units in microgravity.

The two original Astro Pis, named Ed and Izzy, travelled to the ISS back in 2015 as part of Tim Peake’s Principia mission. Since the, these two special Raspberry Pi computers have run programs written by more than 54,000 young people. They have done an amazing job and will return to Earth later in 20 22.

This year’s European Astro Pi Challenge is the first to use the two all-new Astro Pi computers, which we sent up to the ISS in December 2021. They are packed with special features, widening young people’s possibilities for new Mission Space Lab experiments. Running this year’s 17,168 programs was the new Astro Pis’ first task. 

All young people taking part in Mission Zero this year had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: they got to suggest and vote for the names of the two new Astro Pi computers. We received nearly 7,000 name suggestions.

ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer has recorded a special message for all Astro Pi participants, revealing that the new Astro Pi computers will be named in honour of two inspirational European scientists drum roll… Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie!

The Astro Pi unit equipped with a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera that is sensitive to near-infrared light is now called Nikola, and the Astro Pi unit with a visible-light sensitive High Quality Camera is now called Marie.

Marie Curie was born in Poland in 1867 and the first person ever to win two Nobel Prizes, in Physics and Chemistry, for her contribution to pioneering work on radioactivity and the treatment of cancer. Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia in 1856, and his innovations in electrical engineering included alternating current — vital for transmitting electricity over long distances — and the induction motor.

Marie Curie and Nikola Tesla’s work continues to impact all of our lives today, and we are delighted that this year’s Astro Pi participants have democratically chosen their names for the new Astro Pi computers.

Sign up for news about the next Astro Pi Challenge

The European Astro Pi Challenge will be back again in September 2022. Subscribe to the Astro Pi newsletter on the Astro Pi website to be the first to hear when the 2022/23 missions have lift off! 

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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’s favourites

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:

• The Hardware project Oura, made by Angelina and Catherine in the United States. Oura is an indoor air quality monitoring device that is tailorable, portable, and inexpensive. Ruth especially liked this project because she saw “[s]ome great prototyping and use of data.”
• The Games project Egg Dog, made by Oakley and Alex from a Code Club in Australia. In the game, players explore for collectibles and fight off enemies as they try to find the exit for the next level. Ruth said that Egg Dog was a “[r]eally fun game, they obviously learnt a lot in the process of making the game.”
• The Web project AllerG, made by Noah from a CoderDojo in the United States. AllerG is an accessible and crowdsourced database of menu allergens for people with food allergies. Ruth said, “The whole project was very well thought out”.
• The Mobile Apps project EcoSnap, made by Uma and Bella in the United States. EcoSnap serves as an all-in-one toolkit for anyone hoping to help the environment. Ruth said, “You really thought about the user and changing perceptions.”
• The Scratch project Trash-Collector, made by Rajan in the United Kingdom. In Rajan’s game, players take on the role of a scuba diver who needs to collect trash in the ocean. Ruth said, “I can’t wait to see more levels; it’s quite addictive!”
• The Advanced Programming project Climate Change Detector, made by Arnav from a CoderDojo in India. The project is a data dashboard and platform to track pollution. Ruth said, “I love that you can change parameters and see the effect that would have.”

Shawn Brown’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:

• The Hardware project Flow On the Go, made by Donal from a Code Club in the United Kingdom. Flow On the Go is a COVID-19 lateral flow test holder with a built-in camera that takes a picture of the test results after 15 minutes and sends a photo of the results via email. Shawn said, “I’ve absolutely been late for things before because I forgot to leave time to do a lateral flow test and your invention totally solves that problem in a really clever and effective way.”
• The Games project Iron Defence, made by James in the United Kingdom. Iron Defence is a tower defence game where players defend against waves of enemies in a steampunk-themed assault. Shawn said, “Amazing work on seizing the opportunity to learn a new coding language”.
• The Web project School Management System, made by Nebyu Daniel in Ethiopia. The project is a system used to store centralised data for a school. Shawn said, “The level of detail and the amount of different areas you’ve considered is really impressive!”
• The Mobile Apps project RecyBuddy, made by Ryan in the United States. RecyBuddy is designed to assist and teach recycling to all ages. Shawn said, “I love how you’ve considered and implemented three distinct input options, giving the application a really high level of accessibility for users of a wide range of abilities and ages.”
• The Scratch project Learning Is Fun, made by Mihir Ram in India. Mihir’s project is about making learning about science and the environment more enjoyable. Shawn said, “I got pretty addicted to playing Garbage Mania, and the timing was perfect to make it just stressful enough to have to think and grab the item in the right bin in time before you miss it!”
• The Advanced Programming project Dog Smell Training Device, made by Roland in the United Kingdom. Roland’s project is designed to train dogs to identify different smells. Shawn said, “Well done on starting with achievable bitesize parts and then building it up from there”.

Richa Shrivastava’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:

• The Hardware project EleVoc, made by Chinmayi in India. Chinmayi’s device determines the proximity and behaviour of elephants by classifying their vocalisations. Richa said, “I personally loved the project because it addressed a problem statement that you do not see in cities but is common in villages and forest areas where humans and animals inhabit together.”
• The Games project Runaway Nose, made by Harshit from a CoderDojo in Ireland. Harshit’s game uses facial recognition and players have to think (and act!) fast to score points. Richa said, “I have never played anything like this before and I can see that it can be really addictive.”
• The Web project Our Planet, Our Impact, made by Amaury from a CoderDojo in Belgium. This multilingual website calculates the user’s environmental footprint. Richa chose this project because “the calculators were a really cool way to really bring out the impact of plastic waste that we create!”
• The Mobile Apps project Watey, made by Yuuka, Akari, Otowa, and Lila from a CoderDojo in Japan. Watey helps families to save water easily and enjoyably. Richa said, “I loved the element of family bonding and competition that could motivate people to use water with scarcity.”
• The Scratch project Nature’s Savior Bilgin, made by Çağatay and Mert from a Code Club in Turkey. It’s a game to teach players about the environment. Richa said, “I personally really loved the fact that the project was focussed on the environment and also problems that we see in real life almost every other day.”
• The Advanced Programming project Jarvis, made by Siddhant in India. Jarvis is a personal assistant. Richa said, “I always wanted a personal Jarvis and this was so cool to see!” 

Elaine Atherton’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:

• The Hardware project CubeSpeedee Timer, made by Tom from a CoderDojo in the United Kingdom. Tom’s project is a DIY timing device for solving puzzle cubes. Elaine said the project was “fun, playful, creative, and challenging!”
• The Games project Ninjas, made by Jaiden and Eli from a Code Club in Australia. Ninjas is an open-world action-adventure game. Elaine said, “The transitions between the different worlds are really cool”.
• The Web project Ubex Site Creator, made by Menagi from a Code Club in Romania. Ubex makes it easy for anyone to create their own website. Elaine said, “It is clear to see how you thought about how to use your passion for coding to create something for your peers.”
• The Mobile Apps project Green Nature For You, made by Iana and Cristina in Moldova. The app lets users report when trash cans are full. Elaine said, “[Y]ou thoughtfully consider accessibility and access needs of those who may use it”.
• The Scratch project Fun Relaxing Project, made by Konstantin from a CoderDojo in Bulgaria. Konstantin’s game is to help players relax while watching beautiful geometric shapes and colours. Elaine said, “The colors and patterns are truly relaxing”. 
• The Advanced Programming project DeepFusion, made by Justin in the United States. DeepFusion is a web app that provides a graphical method for creating, training, and testing neural networks. Elaine said, “Your presentation is funny, thoughtful, and clever.”

Broadcom Coding with Commitment recognition

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.

And there’s so much more to celebrate!

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:

1. Find personalised feedback on their project
2. Request their limited-edition Coolest Projects swag

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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Connecting face to face with educators around the world is a key part of our mission at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and it’s something that we’ve sorely missed doing over the last two years. We’re therefore thrilled to be joining over 1000 computing educators in the USA at the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Annual Conference in Chicago in July.

You will find us at booth 521 in the expo hall throughout the conference, as well as running four sessions. Gemma, Kevin, James, Sue, and Jane are team members representing Hello World magazine, the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, and our other free programmes and education initiatives. We thank the team at CSTA for involving us in what we know will be an amazing conference.

Talk to us about computer science pedagogy

Developing and sharing effective computing pedagogy is our theme for CSTA 2022. We’ll be talking to you about our 12 pedagogy principles, laid out in The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy, available to download for free.

An exciting piece of news is that everyone attending CSTA 2022 will find a free print copy of the Big Book in their conference goodie bag!

We’re really looking forward to sharing and discussing the book and all our work with US educators, and to seeing some familiar faces. We’re also hoping to interview lots of old and new friends about your approaches to teaching computing and computer science for future Hello World podcast episodes.

Your sessions with us

Our team will also be running a number of sessions where you can join us to learn, discuss, and prepare lesson plans.

Semantic Waves and Wavy Lessons: Connecting Theory to Practical Activities and Back Again

Thursday 14 July, 9am–12pm: Pre-conference workshop (booking required) with James Robinson and Jane Waite

If you enjoy explaining concepts using unplugged activities, analogy, or storytelling, then this practical pre-conference session is for you. In the session, we’ll introduce the idea of semantic waves, a learning theory that supports learners in building knowledge of new concepts through careful consideration of vocabulary and contexts. Across the world, this approach has been successfully used to teach topics ranging from ballet to chemistry — and now computing.

You’ll learn how this theory can be applied to deliver powerful explanations that connect abstract ideas and concrete experiences. By taking part in the session, you’ll gain a solid understanding of semantic wave theory, see it in practice in some freely available lesson plans, and apply it to your own planning.

Write for a Global Computing Community with Hello World Magazine

Friday 15 July, 1–2pm: Workshop with Gemma Coleman

Do you enjoy sharing your teaching ideas, successes, and challenges with others? Do you want to connect with a global community of over 30,000 computing educators? Have you always wanted to be a published author? Then come along to this workshop session.

Every single computing or CS teacher out there has at least one lesson to share, idea to voice, or story to tell. In the session, you’ll discuss what makes a good article with Gemma Coleman, Hello World’s Editor, and you’ll learn top tips for how to communicate your ideas in writing. Gemma will also guide you through writing a plan for your very own article. Even if you’re not sure whether you want to write an article, doing this is a powerful way to reflect on your teaching practice.

Developing a Toolkit for Teaching Computer Science in School

Saturday 16 July, 4–5pm: Keynote talk by Sue Sentance

To teach any subject requires good teaching skills, knowledge about the subject being taught, and specific knowledge that a teacher gains about how to teach a particular topic, to their particular students, in a particular context. Teaching computer science is no different, and it’s a challenge for teachers to develop a go-to set of pedagogical strategies for such a new subject, especially for elements of the subject matter that they are just getting to grips with themselves.

In this keynote talk, our Chief Learning Officer Sue Sentance will focus on some of the 12 pedagogy principles that we developed to support the teaching of computer science. We created this set of principles together with other teachers and researchers to help us and everyone in computing and computer science education reflect on how we teach our learners. Sue will share how we arrived at the principles, and she’ll use classroom examples to illustrate how you can apply them in practice.

Exploring the Hello World Big Book of Computing Pedagogy

Sunday 17 July, 9–10am: Workshop with Sue Sentance

The set of 12 pedagogy principles we’ve developed for teaching computing are presented in our Hello World Big Book of Computing Pedagogy. The book includes summaries, teachers’ perspectives, and lesson plans for each of the 12 principles.

All CSTA attendees will get their own print copy of the Big Book, and in this practical session, we will use the book to explore together how you can use the 12 principles in the planning and delivery of your lessons. The session will be very hands-on, so bring along something you know you want or need to teach.

See you at CSTA in July

CSTA is now just a month away, and we can’t wait to meet old friends, make new connections, and learn from each other! Come find us at booth 521 or at our sessions to meet the team, discover Hello World magazine and the Hello World podcast, and find out more about our educational work. We hope to see you soon.

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At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we believe everyone belongs in computer science, and that it is a much more varied field than is commonly assumed. One of the ways we want to promote inclusivity and highlight the variety of skills and interests needed in computer science is through our ‘I belong’ campaign. We do this because the tech sector lacks diversity. Similarly, in schools, there is underrepresentation of students in computing along the axes of gender, ethnicity, and economic situation. (See how researchers describe data from England, and data from the USA.)

The ‘I belong’ campaign is part of our work on Isaac Computer Science, our free online learning platform for GCSE and A level students (ages 14 to 18) and their teachers, funded by the Department for Education. The campaign celebrates young computer scientists and how they came to love the subject, what their career journey has been so far, and what their thoughts are about inclusivity and belonging in their chosen field.

These people are role models who demonstrate that everyone belongs in computer science, and that everyone can bring their interests and skills to bear in the field. In this way, we want to show young people that they can do much more with computing than they might think, and to inspire them to consider how computing could be part of their own life and career path.

Meet Salome

Salome is studying Computer Science with Digital Technology Solutions at the University of Leeds and doing a degree apprenticeship with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

“I was quite lucky, as growing up I saw a lot about women in STEM which inspired me to take this path. I think to improve the online community, we need to keep challenging stereotypes and getting more and more people to join, thereby improving the diversity. This way, a larger number of people can have role models and identify themselves with someone currently there.”

“Another thing is the assumption that computer science is just coding and not a wide and diverse field. I still have to explain to my friends what computer science involves and can become, and then they will say, ‘Wow, that’s really interesting, I didn’t know that.’”

Meet Devyani

Devyani is a third-year degree apprentice at Cisco. 

“It was at A level where I developed my programming skills, and it was more practical rather than theoretical. I managed to complete a programming project where I utilised PHP, JavaScript, and phpMyAdmin (which is a database). It was after this that I started looking around and applying for degree apprenticeships. I thought that university wasn’t for me, because I wanted a more practical and hands-on approach, as I learn better that way.”

“At the moment, I’m currently doing a product owner role, which is where I hope to graduate into. It’s a mix between both a business role and a technical role. I have to stay up to speed with the current technologies we are using and developing for our clients and customers, but also I have to understand business needs and ensure that the team is able to develop and deliver on time to meet those needs.”

Meet Omar

Omar is a Mexican palaeontologist who uses computer science to study dinosaur bones.

“I try to bring aspects that are very well developed in computer science and apply them in palaeontology. For instance, when digitising the vertebrae, I use a lot of information theory. I also use a lot of data science and integrity to make sure that what we have captured is comparable with what other people have found.”

“What drove me to computers was the fact you are always learning. That’s what keeps me interested in science: that I can keep growing, learn from others, and I can teach people. That’s the other thing that makes me feel like I belong, which is when I am able to communicate the things I know to someone else and I can see the face of the other person when they start to grasp a theory.”

Meet Tasnima

Tasnima is a computer science graduate from Queen Mary University of London, and is currently working as a software engineer at Credit Suisse.

“During the pandemic, one of the good things to come out of it is that I could work from home, and that means working with people all over the world, bringing together every race, religion, gender, etc. Even though we are all very different, the one thing we all have in common is that we’re passionate about technology and computer science. Another thing is being able to work in technology in the real world. It has allowed me to work in an environment that is highly collaborative. I always feel like you’re involved from the get-go.”

“I think we need to also break the image that computer science is all about coding. I’ve had friends that have stayed away from any tech jobs because they think that they don’t want to code, but there’s so many other roles within technology and jobs that actually require no coding whatsoever.”

Meet Aleena

Aleena is a software engineer who works at a health tech startup in London and is also studying for a master’s degree in AI ethics at the University of Cambridge.

“I do quite a lot of different things as an engineer. It’s not just coding, which is part of it but it is a relatively small percentage, compared to a lot of other things. […] There’s a lot of collaborative time and I would say a quarter or third of the week is me by myself writing code. The other time is spent collaborating and working with other people and making sure that we’re all aligned on what we are working on.”

“I think it’s actually a very diverse field of tech to work in, once you actually end up in the industry. When studying STEM subjects at a college or university level it is often not very diverse. The industry is the opposite. A lot of people come from self-taught or bootcamp backgrounds, there’s a lot of ways to get into tech and software engineering, and I really like that aspect of it. Computer science isn’t the only way to go about it.”

Meet Alice

Alice is a final-year undergraduate student of Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence at the University of Brighton. She is also the winner of the Global Challenges COVID-19 Research Scholarship offered by Santander Universities.

“[W]e need to advertise computer science as more than just a room full of computers, and to advertise computer sciences as highly collaborative. It’s very creative. If you’re on a team of developers, there’s a lot of communication involved.”

“There’s something about computer science that I think is so special: the fact that it is a skill anybody can learn, regardless of who they are. With the right idea, anybody can build anything.”

Share these stories to inspire

Help us spread the message that everyone belongs in computer science: share this blog with schools, teachers, STEM clubs, parents, and young people you want to inspire.

You can learn computer science with us

Whether you’re studying or teaching computer science GCSE or A levels in the UK (or thinking about doing so!), or you’re a teacher or student in another part of the world, Isaac Computer Science is here to help you achieve your computer science goals. Our high-quality learning platform is free to use and open to all. As a student, you can register to keep track of your progress. As a teacher, you can sign up to guide your students’ learning.

And for younger learners, we have lots of fun project guides to try out coding and creating with digital technologies.

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Last summer, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology created a new research centre focusing on computing education research for young people in both formal and non-formal education. The Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is an exciting venture through which we aim to deliver a step-change for the field.

Computing education research that focuses specifically on young people is relatively new, particularly in contrast to established research disciplines such as those focused on mathematics or science education. However, computing is now a mandatory part of the curriculum in several countries, and being taken up in education globally, so we need to rigorously investigate the learning and teaching of this subject, and do so in conjunction with schools and teachers.

You’re invited to our in-person launch event

To celebrate the official launch of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, we will be holding an in-person event in Cambridge, UK on Weds 20 July from 15.00. This event is free and open to all: if you are interested in computing education research, we invite you to register for a ticket to attend. By coming together in person, we want to help strengthen a collaborative community of researchers, teachers, and other education practitioners.

The launch event is your opportunity to meet and mingle with members of the Centre’s research team and listen to a series of short talks. We are delighted that Prof. Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan), who many readers will be familiar with, will be travelling from the US to join us in cutting the ribbon. Mark has worked in computer science education for decades and won many awards for his research, so I can’t think of anybody better to be our guest speaker. Our other speakers are Prof. Alastair Beresford from the Department of Computer Science and Technology, and Carrie Anne Philbin MBE, our Director of Educator Support at the Foundation.

The event will take place at the Department of Computer Science and Technology in Cambridge. It will start at 15.00 with a reception where you’ll have the chance to talk to researchers and see the work we’ve been doing. We will then hear from our speakers, before wrapping up at 17.30. You can find more details about the event location on the ticket registration page.

Our research at the Centre

The aim of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is to increase our understanding of teaching and learning computing, computer science, and associated subjects, with a particular focus on young people who are from backgrounds that are traditionally under-represented in the field of computing or who experience educational disadvantage.

We have been establishing the Centre over the last nine months. In October, I was appointed Director, and in December, we were awarded funding by Google for a one-year research project on culturally relevant computing teaching, following on from a project at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Centre’s research team is uniquely positioned, straddling both the University and the Foundation. Our two organisations complement each other very well: the University is one of the highest-ranking universities in the world and renowned for its leading-edge academic research, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation works with schools, educators, and learners globally to pursue its mission to put the power of computing into the hands of young people.

In our research at the Centre, we will make sure that:

1. We collaborate closely with teachers and schools when implementing and evaluating research projects
2. We publish research results in a number of different formats, as promptly as we can and without a paywall
3. We translate research findings into practice across the Foundation’s extensive programmes and with our partners

We are excited to work with a large community of teachers and researchers, and we look forward to meeting you at the launch event.

Stay up to date

At the end of June, we’ll be launching a new website for the Centre at computingeducationresearch.org. This will be the place for you to find out more about our projects and events, and to sign up to our newsletter. For announcements on social media, follow the Raspberry Pi Foundation on Twitter or Linkedin.

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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. 

Meet Jay

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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All young people deserve meaningful opportunities to learn how to create with digital technologies. But according to UNESCO, as much as 40% of people around the world don’t have access to education in a language they speak or understand. At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we offer more than 200 free online projects that people all over the world use to learn about computing, coding, and creating things with digital technologies. To make these projects more accessible, we’ve published over 1700 translated versions so far, in 32 different languages. You can check out these translated resources by visiting projects.raspberrypi.org and choosing your language from the drop-down menu.

Most of this translation work was completed by an amazing community of volunteer translators. In 2021 alone, learners engaged in more than 570,000 learning experiences in languages other than English using our projects.

So how do we know it’s important to put in the effort to make our projects available in many different languages? Various studies show that learning in one’s first language leads to better educational and social outcomes. 

Improved access and attainment for girls

Education policy specialists Chloe O’Gara and Nancy Kendall describe in a USAID-funded guide document (1996, p. 100) that girls living in multilingual communities are less likely to know the official language of school instruction than boys, because girls’ lives tend to be more restricted to home and family, where they have fewer opportunities to become proficient in a second language. These restrictions limit their access to education, and if they go to school, they are more likely to have a limited understanding of the dominant language, and therefore learn less. Observations in research studies (Hovens, 2002; Benson 2002a, 2002b) suggest that making education available in a local language greatly increases female students’ opportunities for educational access and attainment.

Improved self-efficacy

Research studies conducted in Guinea and Senegal (Clemons & Yerende, 2009) suggest that education in a local language, which is more likely to focus on the learner’s circumstances, community, and learning and development needs, increases the learner’s belief in their abilities and skills, compared to education in a dominant language.

Improved test scores

Learning in a language other than one’s own has a negative effect on learning outcomes, especially for learners living in poverty. For example, a UNESCO-funded case study in Honduras showed that 94% of pupils learned reading skills if their home language was the same as the language of assessment. In contrast, among pupils who spoke a different language at home, this proportion dropped to 62%. Similarly, a UNESCO-funded case study in Guatemala showed that when students were able to learn in a bilingual environment, attendance and promotion rates increased, while rates of repetition and dropout rates decreased. Moreover, students attained higher scores in all subjects and skills, including the mastery of the dominant language (UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 24, February 2016).

Improved acquisition of programming concepts

A survey conducted by a researcher from the University of California San Diego showed that non-native English speakers found it challenging to learn programming languages when the majority of instructional materials and technical communications were only available in English (Guo, 2018). Moreover, a computing education research study of the association between local language use and the rate at which young people learn to program showed that beginners who learned to program in a programming language with keywords and environment localised into their primary language demonstrated new programming concepts at a faster rate, compared with beginners from the same language group who learned using a programming interface in English (Dasgupta & Hill, 2017).

You can help with translations and empower young people

It is clear from these studies that in order to achieve the most impact and to benefit disadvantaged and underserved communities, educational initiatives must work to make learning resources available in the language that learners are most familiar with.

By translating our learning resources, we not only support people who have English as a second language, we also make the resources useful for people who don’t speak any English — estimated as four out of every five people on Earth.

If you’re interested in helping us translate our learning resources, which are completely free, you can find out more at rpf.io/translate.

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From May to November 2022, our seminars focus on the theme of cross-disciplinary computing. Through this seminar series, we want to explore the intersections and interactions of computing with all aspects of learning and life, and think about how they can help us teach young people. We were delighted to welcome Prof. Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan) as our first speaker.

Mark has worked in computer science (CS) education for decades and won many awards for his research, including the prestigious ACM SIGCSE Outstanding Contribution to Computing Education award in 2019. He has written literally hundreds of papers about CS education, and he authors an extremely popular computing education research blog that keeps us all up to date with what is going on in the field.

In his talk, Mark focused on his recent work around developing task-specific programming (TSP) languages, with which teachers can add a teaspoon (also abbreviated TSP) of programming to a wide variety of subject areas in schools. Mark’s overarching thesis is that if we want everyone to have some exposure to CS, then we need to integrate it into a range of subjects across the school curriculum. And he explained that this idea of “adding a teaspoon” embraces some core principles; for TSP languages to be successful, they need to:

• Meet the teachers’ needs
• Be relevant to the context or lesson in which it appears
• Be technically easy to get to grips with

Mark neatly summarised this as ‘being both usable and useful’. 

Historical views on why we should all learn computer science

We can learn a lot from going back in time and reflecting on the history of computing. Mark started his talk by sharing the views of some of the eminent computer scientists of the early days of the subject. C. P. Snow maintained, way back in 1961, that all students should study CS, because it was too important to be left to a small handful of people.

Alan Perlis, also in 1961, argued that everyone at university should study one course in CS rather than a topic such as calculus. His reason was that CS is about process, and thus gives students tools that they can use to change the world around them. I’d never heard of this work from the 1960s before, and it suggests incredible foresight. Perhaps we don’t need to even have the debate of whether computer science is for everyone — it seems it always was!

What’s the problem with the current situation?

In many of our seminars over the last two years, we have heard about the need to broaden participation in computing in school. Although in England, computing is mandatory for ages 5 to 16 (in theory, in practice it’s offered to all children from age 5 to 14), other countries don’t have any computing for younger children. And once computing becomes optional, numbers drop, wherever you are.

Mark shared with us that in US high schools, only 4.7% of students are enrolled in a CS course. However, students are studying other subjects, which brought him to the conclusion that CS should be introduced where the students already are. For example, Mark described that, at the Advanced Placement (AP) level in the US, many more students choose to take history than CS (399,000 vs 114,000) and the History AP cohort has more even gender balance, and a higher proportion of Black and Hispanic students. 

The teaspoon approach to broadening participation

A solution to low uptake of CS being proposed by Mark and his colleagues is to add a little computing to other subjects, and in his talk he gave us some examples from history and mathematics, both subjects taken by a high proportion of US students. His focus is on high school, meaning learners aged 14 and upwards (upper secondary in Europe, or key stage 4 and 5 in England). To introduce a teaspoon of CS to other subjects, Mark’s research group builds tools using a participatory design approach; his group collaborates with teachers in schools to identify the needs of the teachers and students and design and iterate TSP languages in conjunction with them.

Mark demonstrated a number of TSP language prototypes his group has been building for use in particular contexts. The prototypes seem like simple apps, but can be classified as languages because they specify a process for a computational agent to execute. These small languages are designed to be used at a specific point in the lesson and should be learnable in ten minutes. For example, students can use a small ‘app’ specific to their topic, look at a script that generates a visualisation, and change some variables to find out how they impact the output. Students may also be able to access some program code, edit it, and see the impact of their edits. In this way, they discover through practical examples the way computer programs work, and how they can use CS principles to help build an understanding of the subject area they are currently studying. If the language is never used again, the learning cost was low enough that it was worth the value of adding computation to the one lesson.

We have recorded the seminar and will be sharing the video very soon, so bookmark this page.

Try TSP languages yourself

You can try out the TSP language prototypes Mark shared yourself, which will give you a good idea of how much a teaspoon is!

DV4L: For history students, the team and participating teachers have created a prototype called DV4L, which visualises historical data. The default example script shows population growth in Africa. Students can change some of the variables in the script to explore data related to other countries and other historical periods.

Pixel Equations: Mathematics and engineering students can use the Pixel Equations tool to learn about the way that pictures are made up of individual pixels. This can be introduced into lessons using a variety of contexts. One example lesson activity looks at images in the contexts of maps. This prototype is available in English and Spanish. 

Counting Sheets: Another example given by Mark was Counting Sheets, an interactive tool to support the exploration of counting problems, such as how many possible patterns can come from flipping three coins. 

Have a go yourself. What subjects could you imagine adding a teaspoon of computing to?

Join our next free research seminar

We’d love you to join us for the next seminar in our series on cross-disciplinary computing. On 7 June, we will hear from Pratim Sengupta, of the University of Calgary, Canada. He has conducted studies in science classrooms and non-formal learning environments, focusing on providing open and engaging experiences for anyone to explore code. Pratim will share his thoughts on the ways that more of us can become involved with code when we open up its richness and depth to a wider audience. He will also introduce us to his ideas about countering technocentrism, a key focus of his new book.

And finally… save another date!

We will shortly be sharing details about the official in-person launch event of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre at the University of Cambridge on 20 July 2022. And guess who is going to be coming to Cambridge, UK, from Michigan to officially cut the ribbon for us? That’s right, Mark Guzdial. More information coming soon on how you can sign up to join us for free at this launch event.

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Scratch Week is a global celebration of Scratch that takes place from 15 to 21 May this year. Below, we’ve put together some free resources to help get kids coding with this easy-to-use, block-based programming language. If you’re not sure what Scratch is, check out our introduction video for parents.

Visit Scratch Island on Code Club World

Code Club World is a great place to start coding for children who have never done any coding or programming before. The Code Club World online platform lets them begin their coding journey with fun activities, starting by creating their own personal avatar.

Then on Scratch Island, kids can code a game to find a hidden bug, design a fun ‘silly eyes’ app, or animate a story. No experience necessary! We’ve just added a parents’ guide to explain how Code Club World works.

Explore Scratch projects 

For kids who feel ready to move beyond the basics of Scratch this Scratch Week, our Projects site offers a catalogue of projects that further enhance kids’ coding skills as they earn badges and explore, design, and invent.

With the More Scratch path, they will create six projects to make apps, games, and simulations using message broadcasting, if..then and if..then..else decisions, and variables. Then with the Further Scratch path, they can explore the advanced features of Scratch in another six projects to use boolean logic, functions, and clones while creating apps, games, computer-generated art, and simulations.

Discover young people’s Scratch creations

Be inspired by the amazing things young tech creators worldwide code in Scratch by visiting the Coolest Projects Global 2022 showcase. Young people are showing off Scratch games, stories, art, and more. In our Coolest Projects online gallery, these creations are displayed amongst hundreds of others from around the world — it’s the ideal place to get inspired.

Learn something new with our Introduction to Scratch course 

Are you curious about coding too? If you would like to start learning so you can better help young people with their creative projects, our online course Introduction to Programming with Scratch is perfect for you. It’s available on-demand, so you can join at any time and receive four weeks’ free access (select the ‘limited access’ option when you register). This course is a fun, inspiring, and colourful starting point if you have never tried coding before. 

If you’re a parent looking for more coding activities to share with your kids, you can sign up to our parent-focused newsletter.

We hope you enjoy exploring these resources during Scratch Week. 

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Raspberry Pi Pico is a low-cost microcontroller that can be connected to another computer to be programmed using MicroPython. We think it’s a great tool for exploring physical computing in classrooms and coding clubs. Pico has been available since last year, amid school closures, reopenings, isolation periods, and restrictions for students and teachers. Recently, I spoke to some teachers in England about how their reception of Raspberry Pi Pico, and how they have found using it to teach physical computing to their learners.

This blog post is adapted from issue 18 of Hello World, our free magazine written by computing educators for computing educators.

Extra-curricular engagement

At secondary schools, a key use of Raspberry Pi Pico was in teacher-led lunchtime or after-school clubs. One teacher from a girls’ secondary school in Liverpool described how he introduced it to his Women in Tech club, which he runs for 11- to 12-year-old students for half an hour per week at lunchtime. As this teacher has free reign over the club content and a personal passion for Raspberry Pi, his eventual aim for the club participants was to build a line-following car using Pico.

The group started by covering the basics of Pico, such as connecting it with a breadboard and making LEDs flash, using our ‘Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico’ project guide. The teacher described how walking into a room with Picos and physical computing kits grabs students’ attention: “It’s massively more engaging than programming Python on a screen… They love the idea of building something physical, like a car.” He has to remind them that phones aren’t allowed at school, as they’re keen to take photos of the flashing lights to show their parents. His overall verdict? “Once the software had been installed, [Picos are] just plug and play. As a tool in school, it gives you something physical, enthuses interest in the subject. If it gets just one person choosing the subject, who wouldn’t have done otherwise, then job done.”

“If it gets just one person choosing the subject, who wouldn’t have done otherwise, then job done.”

Teacher at a Liverpool girls’ secondary school

Another teacher from a school in Hampshire used Picos at an after-school club with students aged 13 to 15. After about six sessions of less than 50 minutes last term, the students have almost finished building motorised buggies. The first two sessions were spent familiarising students with the Picos, making LEDs flash, and using sensors. In the next four sessions, the students made their way through the Pico-focused physical computing unit from our Teach Computing Curriculum. The students worked in pairs, and initially some learners had trouble getting the motors to turn the wheels on their buggies. Rather than giving them the correct code, the teacher gave them duplicate sets of the hardware and suggested that they test each piece in turn to ‘debug’ the hardware. Thus the students quickly worked out what they needed to do to make the wheels turn.

For non-formal learning settings such as computing and coding clubs, we’ve just released a six-project learning path called ‘Introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico’ for beginner digital makers. You can check out the path directly, or learn more about how we’ve designed it to encourage learners’ independence.

Reinforcing existing computing skills

Another key theme that came through in my conversations with teachers was how Raspberry Pi Pico can be used to reinforce learners’ existing computing skills. One teacher I interviewed, from a school in Essex, has been using Picos to teach computing to 12- to 14-year-olds in class, and talked about the potential for physical computing as a pedagogical tool for recapping topics that have been covered before. “If [physical computing] is taught well, it enhances students’ understanding of programming. If they just copy code from the board, it becomes about the kit and not how you solve a problem, it’s not as effective at helping them develop their computational thinking. Teaching Python on Pico really can strengthen existing understanding of using Python libraries and subroutines, as well as passing subroutine arguments.”

“If [physical computing] is taught well, it enhances students’ understanding of programming.”

Teacher at an Essex secondary school

Another teacher I spoke to, working at a Waterlooville school and relatively new to teaching, talked about the benefits of using Pico to teach Python: “It takes some of the anxiety away from computing for some of the younger students and makes them more resilient. They can be wary of making mistakes, and see them as a hurdle, but working towards a tangible output can help some students to see the value of learning through their mistakes.”

This teacher was keen for his students to get a sense of the variety of jobs that are available in the computing sector, and not just in software. He explained how physical computing can demonstrate to students how you can make inputs, outputs, and processing very real: “Give students a Pico and make them thirsty about what they could do with it — the device allows them to interact with it and work out how to bend it to what they want to do. You can be creative in computing without just writing code, you can capture information and output it again in a more useful way.”

“Working towards a tangible output can help some students to see the value of learning through their mistakes.”

Teacher at a Waterlooville school

One of the teachers we spoke to was initially a bit cynical about Pico, but had a much better experience of using it in the classroom than expected: “It’s not such a big progression from block-based microcontrollers to Pico — it could be a good stepping stone between, for example, a micro:bit and a Raspberry Pi computer.”

Why not try out Raspberry Pi Pico in your classroom or club? It might be the engagement booster you’ve been looking for!  

Top teacher tips for activities with Raspberry Pi Pico

• Prepare to install Thonny (the software we recommend to program Pico) on your school’s or venue’s IT systems, and ask your IT technician for support.
• It takes time to unpack devices, connect them, and pack them back up again. Build this time into your plan!

Free learning resources for using Raspberry Pi Pico in your classroom or club

Teachers at state schools in England can borrow physical computing kits with class sets of Raspberry Pi Picos from their local Computing Hub. We’ve made these kits available through our work as part of the National Centre for Computing Education. The Pico kit is perfect for teaching the Pico-focused physical computing unit from our Teach Computing Curriculum.

Qualified US-based educators can still get their hands on 1 of 1000 free Raspberry Pi Pico hardware kits if they sign up to our free course Design, build, and code a rover with Raspberry Pi Pico. This course shows you how to introduce Pico in your classroom. We’ve designed the course on the Pathfinders Online Institute platform, specifically for US-based educators, thanks to our partners at Infosys Foundation USA. These Raspberry Pi Pico kits are also available at PiShop.us.

For non-formal learning settings, such as Code Clubs and CoderDojos, we’ve created a six-project learning path: ‘Introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico’. This path is for beginner digital makers to follow and create Pico projects, all the while learning the skills to independently design, code, and build their own projects. All of the components for the path are available as a kit from Pimoroni.

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Since the release of the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller in 2021, we have seen people all over the world come up with creative Pico-based inventions.

Now, thanks to our brand-new and free ‘Introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico’ learning path, young coders can easily join in and make their own cool Pico projects! This free learning path has six guided projects to help kids to independently develop their coding skills, and their skills in physical computing and electronics.

In this post, I’ll tell you about Raspberry Pi Pico, what kids can make by following our free ‘Intro to Pico’ path, and what skills they will be learning.

Meet Raspberry Pi Pico

Raspberry Pi Pico is a physical computing device that is low-cost and easy to use. It’s much smaller than any Raspberry Pi computer, and it needs much less power. That’s because it’s not a full computer but instead a microcontroller. That means Pico is a device that you program by writing code on any computer, and then sending that code to Pico via a USB cable.

In the ‘Intro to Raspberry Pi Pico’ path, we’ve designed new digital making projects specifically using Pico. By following the projects in the path, young people learn to make things with different electronic components. They’ll bring to life their own LED fireflies; they’ll make music with a sound machine and dial (a potentiometer); they’ll look after themselves and people around them by making a mood indicator and a heart rate visualiser. To find out more, visit the path, or scroll to the bottom of this post and click on ‘Details about the projects’.

The specially designed structure of our learning paths helps kids become confident and independent coders and digital makers. Through this project path, we want to show young people what is possible with Raspberry Pi Pico and inspire them to continue their digital making journey beyond the six projects. Seeing tech creations from our amazing community is super special to us, and we would love to hear about what your young coders have made with Pico. Kids can share their projects in the path gallery, or you can tag us on social media if you post photos!   

Learning skills and independence with our project paths 

While young people make all these Raspberry Pi Pico projects, they will learn the skills and independence to make and code their very own, unique creations with a Pico. We have designed our new project paths to help kids become independent digital makers. As they progress through a path, kids gain new skills, practise what they have learnt, and finally write and follow their own project brief. 

Our learning paths help kids develop many of the skills that are important to all coders and digital makers, no matter how much experience they have: 

• How to turn an idea on paper into a tech creation
• How to debug a project
• How to combine new information with what they already know about digital making 

The learning paths also encourage kids to make projects about the things that matter to them.  

Key questions answered

Who is this path for?

We have written the projects in this path with young people around the age of 9 to 13 in mind. 

Programs for Raspberry Pi Pico are written in a text-based language called MicroPython. That means a young person who wants to start the ‘Intro to Pico’ path needs to be familiar with typing on a keyboard.

If your kid has never coded in a text-based language before, they could complete our free ‘Introduction to Python‘ project path first, but this is not a prerequisite.

What will young people learn?

To help with the programming aspects of the projects, the instructions in the path tell young people about:  

• Displaying output
• Arithmetic expressions
• Importing from a library
• While loops
• Nested if statements
• Defining and calling functions
• Events

One of the great things about this project path is that it helps young people explore physical computing and electronics. In the ‘Intro to Pico’ path, they’ll use:

• Single-colour LEDs
• Multi-colour LEDs (so-called RGB LEDs)
• Buzzers
• Switches (including switches the kids will make out of craft materials!)
• Buttons
• Potentiometers (dials)

How much time is needed to complete the path?

We’ve designed the path to be completed in around six one-hour sessions, with one hour per project. However, the project instructions encourage kids to upgrade their projects and go further if they wish. This means that they might want to spend a little more time getting their projects exactly as they imagine. 

What software is needed for the projects?

Young people need a web browser so they can follow the project instructions. The first two projects in the path provide detailed instructions for how to install the free software needed for the projects. 

What hardware is needed for these projects?

The first step of each project lists what components are needed to create the project. You can purchase a kit from Kitronik or from Pimoroni that includes all of the components used in the path:

What can young people do next?

Explore Python coding with us 

If your young coders enjoy MicroPython, they’ll also love our Python learning paths: ‘Introduction to Python‘ and ‘More Python‘. Both are structured in the same way as our Pico path, and will help young people learn Python while creating their own visual designs.

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We’ve been running the Gender Balance in Computing programme of research since 2019, as part of the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) and with various partners. It’s a £2.4 million research programme funded by the Department for Education in England that aims to identify ways to encourage more girls and young women to engage with Computing and choose to study it further. The programme is made up of four separate areas of research, in which we are running a number of interventions.

The first independent evaluation report from the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) on our series of interventions has now been published. It relates to an intervention within the research area ‘Teaching Approach’, evaluating our pilot study of teaching computing to Key Stage 1 children using a storytelling approach. The evaluators from BIT found that this pilot study produced evidence of promise for the storytelling approach. They recommend conducting a full-size trial to test how effective this approach is for engaging female pupils with Computing.

Teaching computing through storytelling

Like many Computing curricula around the world, the English National Curriculum emphasises the importance of teaching Computing through a range of content so that pupils can express themselves and develop their ideas using digital tools. Our ‘Teaching Approach’ project builds on research grounded in sociocultural learning theories that suggest teaching approaches that encourage collaboration and use a variety of contexts can make Computing a more inclusive subject for all learners. Within this project, we are running three different interventions, each with learners of different ages.

Evidence indicates that gender stereotypes around Computing develop early (1). Therefore we designed a trial — the first of its kind in England — to explore a storytelling approach for teaching Computing with younger children (6- to 7-year-olds). A small body of research suggests that using storytelling as a learning context for Computing can be engaging for both boys and girls. Research results indicate that:

• Teaching computing through storytelling and story-writing is effective for motivating 11- to 14-year-old girls to learn programming (2)
• Children who write computer programs to tell stories see Computing as a subject that is equally as easy or difficult for both boys and girls (3)
• In a non-formal learning space, primary-aged girls are more likely to choose a storybook beginner electronics activity rather than open-ended beginner electronics free play (4)

The pilot study and the evaluation methods

As combining evidence from research with older students and in non-formal education is experimental, we designed this storytelling trial as a small pilot study. Our aim was to generate early evidence as to how feasible a teaching approach that uses storytelling might be in the primary Computing classroom.

We recruited 53 schools to take part in the pilot study, which ran from April to July 2021. Many schools were still facing challenges due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and we are very grateful to the teachers and learners who have taken part for their contribution to this important research.

To conduct the study, we created a free online training course, and a scheme of work, for schools to teach Computing concepts to 6- and 7-year olds using a storytelling approach. Over a sequence of the 12 lessons in the scheme of work, pupils used the ScratchJr programming environment to animate their own digital stories and learn about Computing concepts, such as sequence and repetition, linked to elements of stories, such as structure, rhyme, and speech. 

To enable the independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the storytelling approach by BIT, schools were allocated either to an intervention group, which used the training course and the storytelling scheme of work, or to a control group, which taught Computing in their usual way and was not made aware that the approach being trialled involved storytelling. For their evaluation, BIT gathered data from both groups to compare them:

• They conducted surveys measuring learners’ attitudes toward computing and their intentions to study it in the future
• They carried out observations of lessons, interviews with teachers, and discussions with learners
• They ran a survey to gather feedback about the trial from teachers

The gathered data was assessed against five categories: evidence of promise, fidelity, acceptability, feasibility, and readiness for trial.

Main findings of the evaluation team

After analysing the data collected from observations, interviews, learner discussions, pupil surveys, and teacher surveys, the key finding of the independent evaluators was that the storytelling teaching approach had evidence of promise, and that it is worthwhile scaling up our intervention for a larger trial with more schools.

The evaluators’ teacher interviews confirmed the early development of gender stereotypes in the classroom. This highlights the importance of introducing Computing to young learners in a way that engages both boys and girls. 

“I’ve really noticed how there’s already differences in views of what’s a boy, what’s a girl, the boys are getting in front of me, like, ‘I want a boy car, I don’t want a girl car’. Then we’ve got the other side where we’ve got fairy tales and princesses and, ‘Oh, I’m a bunny. Do you want to play with me?’”

Teacher (evaluation report, p. 22)

Teachers told the evaluators that pupils enjoyed personalising their stories in ScratchJr, and that they themselves felt positive about the use of storytelling to teach computing. 

“I think [the storytelling aspect] gives them something real to work through, so it’s not… abstract… I think through the storytelling, they’re able to make it as funny or whatever they want, and it’s also their own interest. [Female student], she dotes on animals, so she’s always having giraffes and all of that, so it’s something that they can make their own connections too… Yes, I did really like the storytelling.”

Teacher (evaluation report, p. 26)

Teacher feedback provided some evidence that the storytelling lessons had equally increased both male and female pupils’ interest, confidence, and skills.

The independent evaluation team advised caution when interpreting the quantitative data from the pupil surveys, due to the small sample size in this pilot study and the high attrition rates caused by coronavirus-related disruptions. We ourselves would like to add that the study raises questions about the reliability of quantitative survey data collected from very young children using Likert scales, BIT’s chosen survey format for this evaluation. Although the evaluators have made some positive steps in creating a new survey suitable for young children, this research instrument may need further testing; the survey results would need to be interpreted in this light, and more research in this area would be recommended.

You can read the full evaluation report on the NCCE website.

Future directions

This intervention was based on one of the teaching approaches for which there was only early evidence of effectiveness, so it is a good outcome to have a larger trial recommended based on our pilot study. It’s often said that research ends up recommending more research, but in this case our small pilot project really does give robust evidence that we should trial the storytelling approach with more schools.

The independent evaluators collected feedback from both teachers and pupils that confirms the storytelling intervention we designed is feasible in the classroom. The feedback also indicates where we can make small adjustments that will refine and develop the training and scheme of work for a larger-scale study (evaluation report, p. 35), and we will consider this feedback carefully. While some teachers suggested that the training be shortened, less experienced teachers highlighted the need to ensure the training introduces teachers to all of the content covered in the lessons. This feedback helps us to better understand how Computing is taught in primary schools, and how this is influenced by the wide variety of experience and subject knowledge that teachers have. Interestingly, in the control group, some of the teachers reported that they also introduced coding to their learners by having them create stories. We would like to conduct further research into how schools introduce young learners to programming, and we’ll be continuing to reflect on how best to offer flexible content for teacher training related to our research studies.

We’re now looking at how to continue to investigate the effectiveness of the storytelling approach through a larger trial, alongside other projects in which we’re exploring female engagement in computing education through our recently established Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre.

More evaluations are on the way for our other studies in the Gender Balance in Computing programme, including:

• Two other trials of teaching approaches
• Interventions in non-formal education contexts
• Trials of approaches to building a sense of belonging in Computing
• Research into the impact of timetabling and options evenings

If you would like to stay up-to-date with the research programme, you can sign up to the Gender Balance in Computing newsletter. We will also post our reflections on the projects on this blog when the evaluations are completed.

1 Mulvey, K. L. and Irvin, M. J. (2018). Judgments and reasoning about exclusion from counter-stereotypic STEM career choices in early childhood. Early Child. Res. Q. 44, 220–230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.03.016

2 Kelleher, C., Pausch, R. and Kiesler, S. (2007). Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming. In CHI ’07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1455–1464. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240844

3 Zaidi, R., Freihofer, I. and Childress Townsend, G. (2017). Using Scratch and Female Role Models while Storytelling Improves Fifth-Grade Students’ Attitudes toward Computing. In SIGCSE ’17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 791–792. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3022451

4 McLean, M., & Harlow, D. (2017). Designing inclusive STEM activities: A comparison of playful interactive experiences across gender. In IDC ’17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, 567–574. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3078072.3084326

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We and our partners at ESA Education are excited to announce that 299 teams have achieved flight status in Mission Space Lab of the 2021/22 European Astro Pi Challenge. This means that these young people’s programs are the first ever to run on the two upgraded Astro Pi units on board the International Space Station (ISS).

Mission Space Lab gives teams of young people up to age 19 the opportunity to design and conduct their own scientific experiments that run on board the ISS. It’s an eight-month long activity that follows the European school year. The exciting hardware upgrades inspired a record number of young people to send us their Mission Space Lab experiment ideas.

Teams who want to take on Mission Space Lab choose between two themes for their experiments, investigating either ‘Life in space’ or ‘Life on Earth’. From this year onwards, thanks to the new Astro Pi hardware, teams can also choose to use new sensors and a Coral machine learning accelerator during their experiment time.

Investigating life in space

Using the Astro Pi units’ sensors, teams can investigate life inside the Columbus module of the ISS. This year, 71 ‘Life in space’ experiments are running on the Astro Pi units. The 71 teams are investigating a wide range of topics: for example, how the Earth’s magnetic field is experienced on the ISS in space, how the environmental conditions that the astronauts experience compare with those on Earth beneath the ISS on its orbit, or whether the conditions in the ISS might be suitable for other lifeforms, such as plants or bacteria.

For ‘Life in space’ experiments, teams can collect data about factors such as the colour and intensity of cabin light (using the new colour and luminosity sensor included in the upgraded hardware), astronaut movement in the cabin (using the new PIR sensor), and temperature and humidity (using the Sense HAT add-on board’s standard sensors).

Investigating life on Earth

Using the camera on an Astro Pi unit when it’s positioned to view Earth from a window of the ISS, teams can investigate features on the Earth’s surface. This year, for the first time, teams had the option to use visible-light instead of infrared (IR) photography, thanks to the new Astro Pi cameras.

228 teams’ ‘Life on Earth’ experiments are running this year. Some teams are using the Astro Pis’ sensors to determine the precise location of the ISS when images are captured, to identify whether the ISS is flying over land or sea, or which country it is passing over. Other teams are using IR photography to examine plant health and the effects of deforestation in different regions. Some teams are using visible-light photography to analyse clouds, calculate the velocity of the ISS, and classify biomes (e.g. desert, forest, grassland, wetland) it is passing over. The new hardware available from this year onward has helped to encourage 144 of the teams to use machine learning techniques in their experiments.

Testing, testing, testing

We received 88% more idea submissions for Mission Space Lab this year compared to last year: during Phase 1, 799 teams sent us their experiment ideas. We invited 502 of the teams to proceed to Phase 2 based on the quality of their ideas. 386 teams wrote their code and submitted computer programs for their experiments during Phase 2 this year. Achieving flight status, and thus progressing to Phase 3 of Mission Space Lab, is really a huge accomplishment for the 299 successful teams.

For us, Phase 2 involved putting every team’s program through a number of tests to make sure that it follows experiment rules, doesn’t compromise the safety and security of the ISS, and will run without errors on the Astro Pi units. Testing means that April is a very busy time for us in the Astro Pi team every year. We run these tests on a number of exact replicas of the new Astro Pis, including a final test to run every experiment that has passed every test for the full 3 hours allotted to each team. The 299 experiments with flight status will run on board the ISS for over 5 weeks in total during Phase 3, and once they have started running, we can’t rely on astronaut intervention to resolve issues. So we have to make sure that all of the programs will run without any problems.

Thanks to the team at ESA, we are delighted that 67 more Mission Space Lab experiments are running on the ISS this year compared to last year. In fact, teams’ experiments using the Astro Pi units are underway right now!

The 299 teams awarded flight status this year represent 23 countries and 1205 young people, with 32% female participants and an average age of 15. Spain has the most teams with experiments progressing to Phase 3 (38), closely followed by the UK (34), Italy (27), Romania (23), and Greece (22).

Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to run every Mission Space Lab experiment submitted, as there is only limited time for the Astro Pis to be positioned in the ISS window. We wish we could run every experiment that is submitted, but unfortunately time on the ISS, especially on the nadir window, is limited. Eliminating programs was very difficult because of the high quality of this year’s submissions. Many unsuccessful teams’ programs were eliminated based on very small issues. 87 teams submitted programs this year which did not pass testing and so could not be awarded flight status.

The teams whose experiments are not progressing to Phase 3 should still be very proud to have designed experiments that passed Phase 1, and to have made a Phase 2 submission. We recognise how much work all Mission Space Lab teams have done, and we hope to see you again in next year’s Astro Pi Challenge.

What’s next?

Once the programs for all the experiments have run, we will send the teams the data collected by their experiments for Phase 4. In this final phase of Mission Space Lab, teams analyse their data and write a short report to describe their findings. Based on these reports, the ESA Education and Raspberry Pi Foundation teams will determine the winner of this year’s Mission Space Lab. The winning and highly commended teams will receive special prizes.

Congratulations to all Mission Space Lab teams who’ve achieved flight status! We are really looking forward to reading your reports.

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In this article adapted from Hello World issue 18, teacher Babak Ebrahim explains how his school uses a cybersecurity club to increase interest in Computing among girls. Babak is a Computer Science and Mathematics teacher at Bishop Challoner Catholic College Secondary in Birmingham, UK. He is a CAS Community Leader, and works as a CS Champion for the National Centre for Computing Education in England.

Cybersecurity for girls

It is impossible to walk into an upper-secondary computer science lesson and not notice the number of boys compared to girls. This is a common issue across the world; it is clear from reading community forums and news headlines that there is a big gap in female representation in computing. To combat this problem in my school, I started organising trips to local universities and arranging assembly talks for my Year 9 students (aged 13–14). Although this was helpful, it didn’t have as much impact as I expected on improving female representation.

This led me to alter our approach and target younger female students with an extracurricular club. As part of our lower-secondary curriculum, all pupils study encryption and cryptography, and we were keen to extend this interest beyond lesson time. I discovered the CyberFirst Girls Competition, aimed at Year 8 girls in England (aged 12–13) with the goal of influencing girls when choosing their GCSE subjects (qualifications pupils take aged 14–16). Each school can enter as many teams as they like, with a maximum of four girls in each team. I advertised the event by showing a video of the previous year’s attendees and the winning team. To our delight, 19 girls, in five teams, entered the competition.

Club activities at school

To make sure that this wasn’t a one-off event, we started an after-school cybersecurity club for girls. All Computing teachers encouraged their female students to attend. We had a number of female teachers who were teaching Maths and Computing as their second subjects, and I found it more effective when these teachers encouraged the girls to join. They would also help with running the club. We found it to be most popular with Year 7 students (aged 11–12), with 15 girls regularly attending. We often do cryptography tasks in the club, including activities from established competitions. For example, I recently challenged the club to complete tasks from the most recent Alan Turing Cryptography Competition. A huge benefit of completing these tasks in the club, rather than in the classroom, was that students could work more informally and were not under pressure to succeed. I found this year’s tasks quite challenging for younger students, and I was worried that this could put them off returning to the club. To avoid this, I first taught the students the skills that they would need for one of the challenges, followed by small tasks that I made myself over two or three sessions.

For example, one task required students to use the Playfair cipher to break a long piece of code. In order to prepare students for decoding this text, I showed them how the cipher works, then created empty grids (5 x 5 tables) and modelled the technique with simple examples. The girls then worked in teams of two to encrypt a short quote. I gave each group a different quotation, and they weren’t allowed to let other groups know what it was. Once they applied the cipher, they handed the encrypted message to another group, whose job was to decrypt it. At this stage, some would identify that the other group had made mistakes using the techniques, and they would go through the text together to identify them. Once students were confident and competent in using this cipher, I presented them with the competition task, and they then applied the same process. Of course, some students would still make mistakes, but they would realise this and be able to work through them, rather than being overwhelmed by them. Another worthwhile activity in the club has been for older pupils, who are in their second year of attending, to mentor and support girls in the years below them, especially in preparation for participating in competitions.

Trips afield

Other club activities have included a trip to Bletchley Park. As a part of the package, students took part in a codebreaking workshop in which they used the Enigma machine to crack encrypted messages. This inspirational trip was a great experience for the girls, as they discovered the pivotal roles women had in breaking codes during the Second World War. If you’re not based in the UK, Bletchley Park also runs a virtual tour and workshops. You could also organise a day trip to a local university where students could attend different workshops run by female lecturers or university students; this could involve a mixture of maths, science, and computer science activities.

We are thrilled to learn that one of our teams won this year’s CyberFirst Girls Competition! More importantly, the knowledge gained by all the students who attend the club is most heartening, along with the enthusiasm that is clearly evident each week, and the fun that is had. Whether this will have any impact on the number of girls who take GCSE Computer Science remains to be seen, but it certainly gives the girls the opportunity to discover their potential, learn the importance of cybersecurity, and consider pursuing a career in a male-dominated profession. There are many factors that influence a child’s mind as to what they would like to study or do, and every little extra effort that we put into their learning journey will shape who they will become in the future.

What next?

Find out more about teaching cybersecurity

• Cybersecurity is the theme of issue 18 of Hello World, available as a free PDF download. IT includes articles, resources, and opinion pieces from educators who share their experience of teaching cybersecurity to learners
• Our free online courses ‘Introduction to Cybersecurity for Teachers‘ and ‘Introduction to Encryption and Cryptography‘ will support you to build the skills and knowledge you need for your classroom
• We also help you teach cybersecurity by including this topic in the free Teach Computing Curriculum classroom resources for ages 5 to 16, and in the free Isaac Computer Science online learning platform for GCSE and A level.

Find out more about the factors influencing girls’ and young women’ engagement in Computing

• We are currently completing a four-year programme of research about gender balance in computing. Find out more about this research programme.
• At our research seminar series, we welcomed Peter Kemp and Billy Wong last year, who shared results from their study of the demographics of students who choose GCSE Computer Science in England. Watch the seminar recording.
• Katharine Childs from our team had summarised the state of research about gender balance in computing. Watch her seminar, or read her report.
• Last year, we hosted a panel session to learn from various perspectives on gender balance in computing. Watch the panel recording.

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Between September 2021 and March 2022, we’ve been partnering with The Alan Turing Institute to host a series of free research seminars about how to young people about AI and data science.

In the final seminar of the series, we were excited to hear from Stefania Druga from the University of Washington, who presented on the topic of AI literacy for families. Stefania’s talk highlighted the importance of families in supporting children to develop AI literacy. Her talk was a perfect conclusion to the series and very well-received by our audience.

Stefania is a third-year PhD student who has been working on AI literacy in families, and since 2017 she has conducted a series of studies that she presented in her seminar talk. She presented some new work to us that was to be formally shared at the HCI conference in April, and we were very pleased to have a sneak preview of these results. It was a fascinating talk about the ways in which the interactions between parents and children using AI-based devices in the home, and the discussions they have while learning together, can facilitate an appreciation of the affordances of AI systems. You’ll find my summary as well as the seminar recording below.

“AI literacy practices and skills led some families to consider making meaningful use of AI devices they already have in their homes and redesign their interactions with them. These findings suggest that family has the potential to act as a third space for AI learning.”

– Stefania Druga

AI literacy: Growing up with AI systems, growing used to them

Back in 2017, interest in Alexa and other so-called ‘smart’, AI-based devices was just developing in the public, and such devices would have been very novel to most people. That year, Stefania and colleagues conducted a first pilot study of children’s and their parents’ interactions with ‘smart’ devices, including robots, talking dolls, and the sort of voice assistants we are used to now.

Working directly with families, the researchers explored the level of understanding that children had about ‘smart’ devices, and were surprised by the level of insight very young children had into the potential of this type of technology.

In this AI literacy pilot study, Stefania and her colleagues found that:

• Children perceived AI-based agents (i.e. ‘smart’ devices) as friendly and truthful
• They treated different devices (e.g. two different Alexas) as completely independent
• How ‘smart’ they found the device was dependent on age, with older children more likely to describe devices as ‘smart’

AI literacy: Influence of parents’ perceptions, influence of talking dolls

Stefania’s next study, undertaken in 2018, showed that parents’ perceptions of the implications and potential of ‘smart’ devices shaped what their children thought. Even when parents and children were interviewed separately, if the parent thought that, for example, robots were smarter than humans, then the child did too.

Another part of this study showed that talking dolls could influence children’s moral decisions (e.g. “Should I give a child a pillow?”). In some cases, these ‘smart’ toys would influence the child more than another human. Some ‘smart’ dolls have been banned in some European countries because of security concerns. In the light of these concerns, Stefania pointed out how important it is to help children develop a critical understanding of the potential of AI-based technology, and what its fallibility and the limits of its guidance are.

AI literacy: Programming ‘smart’ devices, algorithmic bias

Another study Stefania discussed involved children who programmed ‘smart’ devices. She used the children’s drawings to find out about their mental models of how the technology worked.

She found that when children had the opportunity to train machine learning models or ‘smart’ devices, they became more sceptical about the appropriate use of these technologies and asked better questions about when and for what they should be used. Another finding was that children and adults had different ideas about algorithmic bias, particularly relating to the meaning of fairness.

AI literacy: Kinaesthetic activities, sharing discussions

The final study Stefania talked about was conducted with families online during the pandemic, when children were learning at home. 15 families, with in total 18 children (ages 5 to 11) and 16 parents, participated in five weekly sessions. A number of learning activities to demonstrate features of AI made up each of the sessions. These are all available at aiplayground.me.

The fact that children and parents, or other family members, worked through the activities together seemed to generate fruitful discussions about the usefulness of AI-based technology. Many families were concerned about privacy and what was happening to their personal data when they were using ‘smart’ devices, and also expressed frustration with voice assistants that couldn’t always understand the way they spoke.

In one of the sessions, with a focus on machine learning, families were introduced to a kinaesthetic activity involving moving around their home to train a model. Through this activity, parents and children had more insight into the constraints facing machine learning. They used props in the home to experiment and find out ways of training the model better. In another session, families were encouraged to design their own devices on paper, and Stefania showed some examples of designs children had drawn.

This study identified a number of different roles that parents or other adults played in supporting children’s learning about AI, and found that embodied and tangible activities worked well for encouraging joint work between children and their families.

Find out more

You can catch up with Stefania’s seminar below in the video, and download her presentation slides.

More about Stefania’s work can be learned in her paper on children’s training of ML models and also in her latest paper about the five weekly AI literacy sessions with families.

Recordings and slides of all our previous seminars on AI education are available online for you, and you can see the list of AI education resources we’ve put together based on recommendations from seminar speakers and participants.

Join our next free research seminar

We are delighted to start a new seminar series on cross-disciplinary computing, with seminars in May, June, July, and September to look forward to. It’s not long now before we begin: Mark Guzdial will speak to us about task-specific programming languages (TSP) in history and mathematics classes on 3 May, 17.00 to 18.30pm local UK time. I can’t wait!

Sign up to receive the Zoom details for the seminar with Mark:

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We are excited to announce our second new Python learning path, ‘More Python’, which shows young coders how to add real data to their programs while creating projects from a chart of Olympic medals to an interactive world map. The six guided Python projects in this free learning path are designed to enable young people to independently create their own Python projects about the topics that matter to them.

In this post, we’ll show you how kids use the projects in the ‘More Python’ path, what they can make by following the path, and how the path structure helps them become confident and independent digital makers.

Python coding for kids: Our learning paths

Our ‘Introduction to Python’ learning path is the perfect place to start learning how to use Python, a text-based programming language. When we launched the Intro path in February, we explained why Python is such a popular, useful, and accessible programming language for young people.

Because Python has so much to offer, we have created a second Python path for young people who have learned the basics in the first path. In this new set of six projects, learners will discover new concepts and see how to add different types of real data to their programs.

Key questions answered

Who is this path for?

We have written the projects in this path with young people around the age of 10 to 13 in mind. To code in a text-based language, a young person needs to be familiar with using a keyboard, due to the typing involved. Learners should have already completed the ‘Introduction to Python’ project path, as they will build on the learning from that path.

How do young people learn with the projects? 

Young people need access to a web browser to complete our project paths. Each project contains step-by-step instructions for learners to follow, and tick boxes to mark when they complete each step. On top of that, the projects have steps for learners to:

• Reflect on what they have covered in the project
• Share their projects with others
• See suggestions to upgrade their projects

Young people also have the option to sign up for an account with us so they can save their progress at any time and collect badges.

While learners follow the project instructions in this project path, they write their code into Trinket, a free web-based coding platform accessible in a browser. Each project contains a link to a starter Trinket, which includes everything to get started writing Python code — no need to install any additional software.

If they prefer, however, young people also have the option of instead writing their code in a desktop-based programming environment, such as Thonny, as they work through the projects.

What will young people learn?  

To use data in their Python programs, the project instructions show learners how to:

• Create and use lists
• Create and use dictionaries
• Read data from a data file

The projects support learners as they explore new concepts of digital visual media and: 

• Create charts using the Python library Pygal
• Plot pins on a map
• Create randomised artwork

In each project, learners reflect and answer questions about their work, which is important for connecting the project’s content to their pre-existing knowledge.

As they work through the projects, learners see different ways to present data and then decide how they want to present their data in the final project in the path. You’ll find out what the projects are on the path page, or at the bottom of this blog post.

The project path helps learners become independent coders and digital makers, as each project contains slightly less support than the one before. You can read about how our project paths are designed to increase young people’s independence, and explore our other free learning paths for young coders

How long will the path take to complete?

We’ve designed the path to be completed in around six one-hour sessions, with one hour per project, at home, in school, or at a coding club. The project instructions encourage learners to add code to upgrade their projects and go further if they wish. This means that young people might want to spend a little more time getting their projects exactly as they imagine them.

What can young people do next?

Use Unity to create a 3D world

Unity is a free development environment for creating 3D virtual environments, including games, visual novels, and animations, all with the text-based programming language C#. Our ‘Introduction to Unity’ project path for keen coders shows how to make 3D worlds and games with collectibles, timers, and non-player characters.

Take part in Coolest Projects Global

At the end of the ‘More Python’ path, learners are encouraged to register a project they’ve made using their new coding skills for Coolest Projects Global, our free and world-leading online technology showcase for young tech creators. The project they register will become part of the online gallery, where members of the Coolest Projects community can celebrate each other’s creations.

We welcome projects from all young people, whether they are beginners or experienced coders and digital makers. Coolest Projects Global is a unique opportunity for young people to share their ingenuity with the world and with other young people who love coding and creating with digital technology.

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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.

1. Personalised project feedback

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.

2. Limited-edition Coolest Projects art

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.

3. Custom Coolest Projects medals

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 a few livestreamed codealong events on our YouTube channel:

• 26 April at 7pm BST, a good time for creators in Europe
• 27 April at 7pm EDT, a good time for creators in the Americas

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.

More details are coming soon, so be sure to sign up for email updates to be the first to hear them.

That’s all of the latest news about Coolest Projects. Until next time… be cool.

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We are delighted to launch our next series of free online seminars, this time on the topic of cross-disciplinary computing, running monthly from May to November 2022. As always, our seminars are for all researchers, educators, and anyone else interested in research related to computing education.

Crossing disciplinary boundaries

What do we mean by cross-disciplinary computing? Through this upcoming seminar series, we want to embrace the intersections and interactions of computing with all aspects of learning and life, and think about how they can help us teach young people. The researchers we’ve invited as our speakers will help us shed light on cross-disciplinary areas of computing through the breadth of their presentations.

At the Raspberry Pi Foundation our mission is to make computing accessible to all children and young people everywhere, and because computing and technology appear in all aspects of our and young people’s lives, in this series of seminars we will consider what computing education looks like in a multiplicity of environments.

Mark Guzdial on computing in history and mathematics

We start the new series on 3 May, and are beyond delighted to be kicking off with a talk from Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan). Mark has worked in computer science education for decades and won many awards for his research, including the prestigious ACM SIGCSE Outstanding Contribution to Computing Education award in 2019. Mark has written hundreds of papers about computer science education, and he authors an extremely popular computing education research blog that keeps us all up to date with what is going on in the field.

Recently, he has been researching the ways in which programming education can be integrated into other subjects, so he is a perfect speaker to start us thinking about our theme of cross-disciplinary computing. His talk will focus on how we can add a teaspoon of computing to history and mathematics classes.

Pratim Sengupta on countering technocentrism

On 7 June, our speaker will be Pratim Sengupta (University of Calgary), who I feel will really challenge us to think about programming and computing education in a new way. He has conducted studies in science classrooms and non-formal learning environments which focus on providing open and engaging experiences for the public to explore code, for example through the Voice your Celebration installation. Recently, he has co-authored a book called Voicing Code in STEM: A Dialogical Imagination (MIT Press, availabe open access).

In Pratim’s talk, he will share his thoughts about the ways that more of us can become involved with code through opening up its richness and depth to a wider public audience, and he will introduce us to his ideas about countering technocentrism, a key focus of his new book. I’m so looking forward to being challenged by this talk.

Yasmin Kafai on curriculum design with e-textiles

On 12 July, we will hear from Yasmin Kafai (University of Pennsylvania), who is another legend in computing education in my eyes. Yasmin started her long career in computing education with Seymour Papert, internationally known for his work on Logo and on constructionism as a theoretical lens for understanding the way we learn computing. Yasmin was part of the team that created Scratch, and for many years now has been working on projects revolving around digital making, electronic textiles, and computational participation.

In Yasmin’s talk she will present, alongside a panel of teachers she’s been collaborating with, some of their work to develop a high school curriculum that uses electronic textiles to introduce students to computer science. This promises to be a really engaging and interactive seminar.

Genevieve Smith-Nunes on exploring data ethics

In August we will take a holiday, to return on 6 September to hear from the inspirational Genevieve Smith-Nunes (University of Cambridge), whose research is focused on dance and computing, in particular data-driven dance. Her work helps us to focus on the possibilities of creative computing, but also to think about the ethics of applications that involve vast amounts of data.

Genevieve’s talk will prompt us to think about some really important questions: Is there a difference in sense of self (identity) between the human and the virtual? How does sharing your personal biometric data make you feel? How can biometric and immersive development tools be used in the computing classroom to raise awareness of data ethics? Impossible to miss!

Sign up now to attend the seminars

Do enter all these dates in your diary so you don’t miss out on participating — we are very excited about this series. Sign up below, and ahead of every seminar, we will send you the information for joining.

As usual, the seminars will take place online on a Tuesday at 17:00 to 18:30 local UK time. Later on in the series, we will also host a talk by our own researchers and developers at the Raspberry Pi Foundation about our non-formal learning research. Watch this space for details about the October and November seminars, which we are still finalising.

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Hello World magazine, our free magazine written by computing educators for computing educators, has been running for 5 years now. In the newest issue, Alan O’Donohoe shares his top tips for educators to make the most out of Hello World.

Alan has over 20 years’ experience teaching and leading technology, ICT, and computing in schools in England. He runs exa.foundation, delivering professional development to engage digital makers, supporting computing teaching, and promoting the appropriate use of technology.

Alan’s top tips

Years before there was a national curriculum for computing, Hello World magazines, or England’s National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE), I had ambitious plans to overhaul our school’s ICT curriculum with the introduction of computer science. Since the subject team I led consisted mostly of non-specialist teachers, it was clear I needed to be the one steering the change. To do this successfully, I realised I’d need to look for examples and case studies outside of our school, to explore exactly what strategies, resources and programming languages other teachers were using. However, I drew a blank. I couldn’t find any local schools teaching computer science. It was both daunting and disheartening not knowing anyone else I could refer to for advice and experience.

Thankfully, ten years later, the situation has significantly improved. Even with increased research and resources, though, there can still be the sense of feeling alone. With scarce prospects to meet other computing teachers, there’s fewer people to be inspired by, to bounce ideas off, to celebrate achievement, or share the challenges of teaching computing with. Some teachers habitually engage with online discussion forums and social media platforms to plug this gap, but these have their own drawbacks. 

It’s great news then that there’s another resource that teachers can turn to. You all know by now that Hello World magazine offers another helping hand for computing teachers searching for richer experiences for their students and opportunities to hone their professional practice. In this Insider’s Guide, I offer practical suggestions for how you can use Hello World to its full potential.  

Put an article into practice  

Teachers have often told me that strategies like PRIMM and pair programming have had a positive impact on their teaching, after first reading about them in Hello World. Over the five years of its publication, there’s likely to have been an article or research piece that particularly struck a chord with you — so why not try putting the learnings from that article into practice?

You may choose to go this route on your own, but you could persuade colleagues to join you. Not only is there safety in numbers, but the shared rewards and motivation that come from teamwork. Start by choosing an article. This could be an approach that made an impression on you, or something related to a particular theme or topic that you and your colleagues have been seeking to address. You could then test out some of the author’s suggestions in the article; if they represent something very different from your usual approach, then why not try them first with a teaching group that is more open to trying new things? For reflection and analysis, consider conducting some pupil voice interviews with your classes to see what their opinions are of the activity, or spend some time reflecting on the activity with your colleagues. Finally, you could make contact with the author to compare your experiences, seek further support, or ask questions. 

Strike up a conversation

Authors generally welcome correspondence from readers, even those that don’t agree with their opinions! While it’s difficult to predict exactly what the outcome may be, it could lead to a productive professional correspondence. Here are some suggestions: 

• Establish the best way to contact the author. Some have contact details or clues about where to find them in their articles. If not, you might try connecting with them on LinkedIn, or social media. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t respond promptly; I’ve often received replies many months after sending. 
• Open your message with an introduction to yourself moving onto some positive praise, describing your appreciation for the article and points that resonated deeply with you.
• If you have already tried some of the author’s suggestions, you could share your experiences and pupil outcomes, where appropriate, with them.

• Try to maintain a constructive tone. Even if you disagree with the piece, the author will be more receptive to a supportive tone than criticism. If the article topic is a ‘work in progress’, the author may welcome your suggestions.
• Enquire as to whether the author has changed their practice since writing the article or if their thinking has developed.
• You might take the opportunity to direct questions at the author asking for further examples, clarity or advice.  
• If the author has given you an idea for an article, project, or research on a similar theme, they’re likely to be interested in hearing more. Describe your proposal in a single sentence summary and see if they’d be interested in reading an early draft or collaborating with you.

Start a reading group

Take inspiration from book clubs, but rather than discuss works of fiction, instead invite members of your professional groups or curriculum teams to discuss content from issues of Hello World. This could become a regular feature of your meetings where attendees can be invited to contribute their own opinions. To achieve this, firstly identify a group that you’re a part of where this is most likely to be received well. This may be with your colleagues, or fellow computing teachers you’ve met at conferences or training days. To begin, you might prescribe one specific single article or broaden it to include a whole issue. It makes sense to select an article likely to be popular with your group, or one that addresses a current or future area of concern.

To familiarise attendees with the content, share a link to the issue for them to read in advance of the meeting. If you’re reviewing a whole issue, suggest pages likely to be most relevant. If you’re reviewing a single article, make it clear whether you are referring to the page numbers as printed or those in the PDF. You could make it easier by removing all other pages from the PDF and sending it as an attachment. Remember that you can download back issues of Hello World as PDFs, which you can then edit or print. 

Encourage your attendees to share the aspects of the article that appealed to them, or areas they could not agree with the author or struggled to see working in their particular setting. Invite any points of issue for further discussion and explanation — somebody in the group might volunteer to strike up a conversation with the author by passing on the feedback from the group. Alternatively, you could invite the author of the piece to join your meeting via video conference to address questions and promote discussion of the themes. This could lead to developing a productive friendship or professional association with the author.  

Propose an article

“I wish!” is a typical response I hear when I suggest to a teacher that they should seriously consider writing an article for Hello World. I often get the responses, “I don’t have enough time”, “Nobody would read anything I write”, or, “I don’t do anything worth writing about”. The most common concern I hear, though, is, “But I’m not a writer!”. So you’re not the only one thinking that! 

“We strongly encourage first-time writers. My job is to edit your work and worry about grammar and punctuation — so don’t worry if this isn’t your strength! Remember that as an educator, you’re writing all the time. Lesson plans, end-of-term reports, assessment feedback…you’re more of a writer than you think! If you’re not sure where to start, you could write a lesson plan, or contribute to our ‘Me and my Classroom’ feature.”

— Gemma Coleman, Editor of Hello World

Help and support is available from the editorial team. I for one have found this to be extremely beneficial, especially as I really don’t rate my own writing skills! Don’t forget, you’re writing about your own practice, something that you’ve done in your career — so you’ll be an expert on you. Each article starts with a proposal, the editor replies with some suggestions, then a draft follows and some more refinements. I ask friends and colleagues to review parts of what I’ve written to help me and I even ask non-teaching members of my family for their opinions. 

Writing an article for Hello World can really help boost your own professional development and career prospects. Writing about your own practice requires humility, analytical thinking and self reflection. To ensure you have time to write an article, make it fit in with something of interest to you. This could be an objective from your own performance management or appraisal. This reduces the need for additional work and adds a level of credibility.

If that isn’t enough to persuade you, for contributors based outside of the UK (who usually aren’t eligible for free print copies), Hello World will send you a complimentary print copy of the magazine that you feature in to say thank you. Picture the next Hello World issue arriving featuring an article written by you. How does this make you feel? Be honest — your heart flutters as you tear off the wrapper to go straight to your article. You’ll be impressed to see how much smarter it looks in print than the draft you did in Microsoft Word. You’ll then want to show others, because you’ll be proud of your work. It generates a tremendous sense of pride and achievement in seeing your own work published in a professional capacity. 

Hello World offers busy teachers a fantastic, free and accessible resource of shared knowledge, experience and inspiring ideas. When we feel most exhausted and lacking inspiration, we should treasure those mindful moments where we can sit down with a cup of tea and make the most of this wonderful publication created especially for us.

Celebrate 5 years of Hello World with us

We marked Hello World’s fifth anniversary with a recent Twitter Spaces event with Alan and Catherine Elliot as our guests. You can catch up with the event recording on the Hello World podcast. And the newest Hello World issue, with a focus on cybersecurity, is available as a free PDF download — dive it today.

How have you been using Hello World in your practice in the past five years? What do you hope to see in the magazine in the next five? Let us know on Twitter by tagging @HelloWorld_Edu.

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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.

Support and engagement for Welsh Code Clubs

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!”

Welsh translations of Code Club learning materials

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.

Get involved in Code Club, in Wales or elsewhere

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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Source: Raspberry Pi – Code Club in Wales with translations, teacher training and a country-wide codealong