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Primary pupils from across Norfolk attended a social hackathon on the 25^th June at Inspiration Trust. Tasked with solving real world problems, students had to come up with creative solutions to different issues that have been identified by Norfolk County Council. Pupils were able to come up with solutions to real-world issues that have an effect on their everyday lives.

The brief they were given was you and your team have been selected by your school to hack a critical issue affecting the people of Norfolk. The critical issues ranged from a lack of affordable housing to rising sea levels and food poverty.

Using robotics and coding solutions, pupils were able to use their knowledge of computer science to help tackle these problems. Creative ideas such as robots that could support mobility and ones with built-in systems that detect changes in the environment were on display as options to solve complex issues that are facing the whole county and wider national community.

It was fascinating to listen to pupils work through difficulties in their solutions and naturally discover limitations with their designs. Pupils showed resilience on the day, there were setbacks in their projects and struggles to overcome as part of their process, they all persevered and managed to create fantastic solutions to the issues they were faced with.

As part of the Hackathon there was also a chance to learn more about careers in technology and cybersecurity with representatives from Loughborough University, Inspiration Trust and Norfolk Constabulary.

Dr Coleman, Computer Science Teacher and Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form Outreach Lead said:
“We were thrilled to be able to offer another Hackathon for our primary schools in the region, offering a new experience for many of them and to spark a love of computer science from a young age.

 

Hopefully we have inspired them to learn more about computer science and engineering, to take this experience and investigate further into a subject that has so many pathways into different careers and opportunities.”

The day closed with presentations from all teams on their solutions and obstacles they had faced in creating their ideas. This was a fantastic insight into how the teams had considered different aspects of the problem and fed this directly into their projects to come up with elegant and creative results.

Three winners were chosen by the end of the day for Teamwork, Resilience and Innovation. Presented by Alex Scotton from nor(DEV), John Greenwood from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit and Emily Banks from Inspiration Trust.