On Friday 24 January, students from the Department of Computing visited Millbank Academy to showcase their new interactive platform.

On Friday 24 January, students from the Department of Computing visited Millbank Academy to showcase their new interactive platform aimed at supporting children and young people to better understand the fundamentals of programming. The Imperial Computing students had taken on the project as part of their degree programme to inspire school-aged groups with programming and the practical applications of computer science. Supervised by Dr Madasar Shah and Dr Jackie Bell, the group of 6 students created a user-friendly interface which not only made coding the drones simple for those who hadn’t coded before but also simulated the path the drone would take to complete each task such that school pupils could improve their code to better suit the problem and its environment. The day was a huge success, where 18 pupils from across years 4, 5 and 6 took part

They worked in teams to solve real-world problems that rely on drone technology, either now or in the future. For example, delivering packages, finding and putting out fires or delivering aid to people in hard-to-reach areas.

The Department of Computing students volunteered their time to visit the academy and started the day by dividing the students into small groups. They were then handed Ipads which are compatible with the drones to create instructions by using coding blocks. The teachers were very impressed by the pupil's enthusiasm, teamwork and problem-solving skills. The task ended with the pupils watching the instructions that they had created being implemented in actual drone flights. The presentation by our third-year students about Drone Playground can be viewed here.