Eight Code Clubs from around the region gathered at the Watershed earlier this month to demonstrate their digital skills and their visions of life in the year 2030.
The teams were developing a range of applications, from Scratch games for managing the ecology (and the importance of bees), through house delivery systems by helicopter, to health apps, and even a resource gathering game in Python and Minecraft. The projects were developed from the original ideas of the primary school students aged up to 12 and taken through to functioning code over a period of roughly six months.
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The young coders were joined by Tim Bowles, the West of England Regional Mayor (above). “The future is in this room and even though you may not yet know what you’ll be doing when you leave school, it’s hugely encouraging to see your enthusiasm for science and technology,” he said.
The event is part of DigiLocal which supports local communities to run tech clubs for their young people. Each club meets once a week for about an hour. DigiLocal, part of High Tech Bristol and Bath, is currently supporting clubs every day of the week with two on Tuesdays and Saturdays, representing around 100 kids every week having fun with tech and learning about building their own projects.
Digilocal is always looking for volunteers to help in new locations. See www.hbb.org.uk for more details.

Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
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