The hugely successful Coolest Projects UK 2019 took place in Manchester last Saturday, March 2nd.
The number of participants and attendees doubled that of last year, making it the biggest Coolest Projects UK yet!
At the event,
We challenged anyone under 18 to build a tech project for this event, using any programming language, hardware, or technology available to them. Creators of outstanding entries won awards in the categories Visual Programming, Websites, Mobile Apps, or Hardware.
Sponsored by Atom Bank, the showcase was filled with more than 80 projects created and presented by bright and talented young coders.
Events of the day
CBeebies’ Maddie Moate and BBC science presenter Greg Foot were our hosts, giving fantastic educational presentations and leading everyone through a special awards ceremony to finish this celebration of the UK’s young tech innovators.
The event coincided with the Raspberry Jam Big Birthday Weekend, so a special community event celebrating the Raspberry Pi computer’s seventh birthday also took place in the venue, with many opportunities for people of all ages to try out coding.
Young coders were awarded in different categories such as Hardware, Visual Programming, and Mobile Apps.
The winners of the Games award were Lukas and Alexander from London, who presented an exciting iPhone collision course game called Meep Sheepey that they had made at their local Code Club!
“I enjoyed meeting other people and seeing their amazing projects,”
Freddie Howells, winner of the Hardware Category
Having travelled all the way from Fife in Scotland, team of five Jack, Elsa, Bethan, Tara, and Lily won the Mobile Apps award, sponsored by Atom Bank, for their Mad About Litter app which helps tackle littering in their local area.
The winners in the Website category were Beth and Niamh from Merseyside, who made Room 40 – Ciphers of History, a website game aiming to educate people about different kinds of cryptic puzzles and their historical context.
The winners of the Visual Programming category were Dylan and Alex from Cambridge, for Labour of Hercules, their interactive game about the Greek hero Hercules!
And finally, the winner of the Hardware category was 13-year-old Freddie from Monmouthshire, who made Door Pi Plus – a door security system for the elderly, based on facial recognition software.
Participants’ Perspectives
“I enjoyed meeting other people and seeing their amazing projects”, said 13-year-old Freddie Howells from Monmouthshire and winner of the Hardware
“I’ve been building this project on and off for a year now – I started coding at my primary school Code Club, but now I mainly code at home.
Coding is cool because you can invent cool things to help you and other people around you.
I do think more kids should code because lots of the job in the future are probably going to involved coding. ”
“I’ve seen my daughters confidence grow over the course of the day!”
Parent Ann-Marie Caporn
13-year-old Sally Wells from Strood, who invented a game for Coolest Projects UK 2019, said she started coding to help people.
“I’m involved with Future Coders, because I decided it would be a great extracurricular activity and useful in the future. You can make things to basically help people improve their lives – it’s hard at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets.”
She said sharing her project with other kids at Coolest Projects UK helped her come up with new ideas.
“Because of another person’s idea, I’ve had a new idea for a new game – I’m definitely come back again next year!”
Parent Ann-Marie Caporn, a computer science teacher from Manchester, said participating in the event helped her daughter gain confidence and a greater love for coding.
“My daughter can be quite shy, so even over the course of the day it’s boosted her confidence. She’s an expert in her project, and explaining it to judges, other kids, and the public she’s been delighted. I’ve seen her grow in confidence over the day!
I think coding is part of the future, and children need to be able to create things we can’t even teach them about yet. It’s important for them to learn how to do this independently.”
BBC science presenter Greg Foot presented on the day, dazzling the young crowd with tales of his experiences climbing to base camp of Mt Everest to carry out science experiments.
He said to the crowd of young innovators “When I was your age, I loved science, I loved tech and engineering and thought I’d end up working in a lab.
But what I learned is that science, engineering, maths, and tech are a ticket to travel the world, and I know from looking at all your projects that you are all going to go on some amazing adventures.”
“The atmosphere today was electric. There was so much positivity and encouragement.”
Maddie Moate
Speaking about the event he said
“I was genuinely inspired by the kids. Their projects are phenomenal, and it’s really inspiring. It’s been an amazing day!”
Maddie Moate, presenter of CBeebies series Do You Know? presented alongside Greg, giving a talk on ‘How LEGO is made’ that enthralled the young makers.
She said: “The atmosphere today was electric. And there was so much positivity and encouragement amongst the young creators.
Whilst we were here to announce winners, it very much felt like a day celebrating a community of makers, builders, and change-makers, and that’s what today is really about.
The careers these creators will be doing in the future probably don’t exist yet, and giving them the opportunity to take part in showcases like this lets them take control of their own futures and build their own pathways.”
A special thanks to our Sponsor
As a non-profit organisation we would like to give a special thanks to our headline sponsor for Coolest Projects UK – Atom Bank.
Atom Bank helped make Coolest Projects UK possible through their generous sponsorship and in addition sponsored two travel bursaries for the event.
Thank you Atom Bank for supporting young tech innovators in the UK!
What next for Coolest Projects?
Participants in Coolest Projects UK can now go on to register for Coolest Projects International in Dublin on May 5th.
You can register your project for Coolest Projects International and book tickets to attend the event, held in the RDS Main Hall, here.
The international event expects an attendance of up to 10,000 visitors and 900 projects. Entrants from all over the world, all skill levels and all ages are encouraged to apply!