Conor, Product Manager at the CoderDojo Foundation, traveled to Belgium to attend the regional Coolest Projects event on Saturday April 22. Here he shares his experience of the showcase and his highlights from the day.
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On a beautiful sunny day on the 22nd of April I travelled to Belgium to visit Coolest Projects Belgium 2018. It was an amazing event with 91 kids building 64 projects. Nearly 100 volunteers ran a very fun and professional event which attracted as many as 3,000 visitors across 3 hours in the Technopolis Mechelen.
It was so much fun to see all the amazing projects; from live chickens, water conservation, football playing robots, 3D animations to walking sticks that can sense the world for you. These very impressive projects were made even more impressive when the friendly and proud young people explained their projects in English to me!
Congratulations to all the winners! It must have very difficult to choose those who won prizes on the day but there was a lovely celebration at the end (where again they translated a lot just for me in English). Here they gave out prizes, including to Kobe who won the prize to visit us in Dublin at Coolest Projects International on May 26th!
I want to take a few seconds to thank all the people working on the event that made me feel so welcome, especially Bettina (CoderDojo Belgium Community Lead) who made sure I got the opportunity to talk to as many of the youths as possible. They also chatted to me for a few minutes on their amazing 5 hour long live stream which you can see here. You can also see their updates about CoderDojo Belgium and all the great work they do at their beautiful website at: www.coderdojobelgium.be/en
If you want to attend Coolest Projects International on the 26th of May in Dublin you can learn more and get your tickets to attend at: coolestprojects.org/