20 June 2019
Building bridges: School pupils design software solutions to help peers put cyber security first
Children from across Aberdeenshire are being joined by experts from Google, CyberFirst, Cybersafe Scotland and local universities as well as Education Scotland today (Thursday, June 20) when they compete in the final of Aberdeenshire Council’s GamesCon 2019 competition.
More than 1,300 primary six and seven pupils have taken part in the competition this year, with 14 teams of four taking part in the final at Robert Gordon University (RGU), Garthdee. They will take part in a live coding exercise, finalist presentation and hear from a number of top speakers.
The children have been working tirelessly on software solutions which bring the UK-led 5Rights initiative to life and hope their creations help their peers to access digital technologies more knowledgeably and fearlessly. These youngsters are now well-versed in what it means to be a programmer, graphic designer, document controller, researcher and presenter.
The opening keynote will be delivered by Susan Sey from Education Scotland who will bring to life the exciting opportunities that await young people in their digital world, and she will highlight the benefits and necessary key life skills in becoming experts in digital literacy, coding and keeping safe online.
Jenni Mackay from Dundee City Council will be explaining her role in the Fourth Bridges Project. As part of the work on the new Queensferry crossing, the railway bridge was laser scanned, producing a bank of resources including a game which is now available to schools across Scotland. The schools will be finding out how they might be able to use this to build their own digital models and bridges.
Maria Walker, Strategic Director with Education Scotland and formerly Director of Education and Children’s Services at Aberdeenshire Council who was recently awarded an OBE for her services to education will also be there to provide insight and expertise to the group.
Councillor Gillian Owen, Chair of Aberdeenshire Council’s Education and Children’s Services Committee explained: “It’s great to see such enthusiastic participation in any educational activity and we can’t wait to see the winning solutions. This is a really exciting way to engage children across Aberdeenshire in computer science and help develop our young workforce to be ready for a very digital world.
“Good luck and well done to everyone taking part!”
Vice-Chair, Councillor Mark Findlater added: “This event is a celebration of creativity, problem solving, computational thinking, coding and teamwork, and I’m sure our fantastic judges will be looking forward to seeing all of this on the day.”
The end result of the coding the winning teams will be working on at this exciting and dynamic event will be games or animations. They will be rewarded with a host of prizes from Google, CleverTouch, Hunted Cow and AVMI.
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