HackManchester Junior - Half Term Youth Hacks

What is it? What is it?

When HackManchester and CoderDojo Manchester joined forces last year to bring you the first HackManchester Junior, we were blown away by the amazing feedback from parents, youngsters, sponsors and there’s now a demand for more events like this.

You can take a look at interviews conducted with the junior teams throughout the event and then their show and tell awards ceremony here. https://goo.gl/lFkr9f 

HackManchester are partnering with Hive Manchester (Hive Learning Network Manchester was set up by Steven Flower from CoderDojo Manchester & Damian Payton) to bring you a hackathon for 13 to 17 yrs. The first will be held over two days during February half-term with mentors, challenges, prizes and fun.

Our aim is to hold these events every half term to support the youngsters in developing and gaining digital skills straight from industry.

Who are we?

HackManchester are Gemma Cameron (@ruby_gem) Joe Swan (@TheAllSeeingPie), two software professionals working in the North, along with Claire Foster (@squarejazz) Manchester’s Tech Community event organiser extraordinaire.  We all have a passion for putting bright people together at conferences, workshops and social meetups. HackManchester is a registered Community Interest Company.

Hive Manchester, supported by the Mozilla Foundation, is headed up by Steven Flower (@stevieflow), a “civic technologist” with a long track record of working in projects that encourage tech for good and Damian Payton (@damianpayton), an expert in creating digital skills learning experiences for people like the BBC, DigitalMe and Hyper Island.

Where & When?

We’re proud to be holding this event at Madlab - Manchester Digital Laboratory is a not-for-profit grassroots digital innovation organisation, on Monday 15th & Tuesday 16th February 2016.

How do we contact you?

twitter: @hackmanchester / @hivemanchester

website: www.hackmanchester.com/youthhack www.hivemanchester.net

email: claire@hackmanchester.com / damian.payton@hivemanchester.net 

phone: call Damian on 07791 064488

Safeguarding

As the event is being run in partnership with Hive Manchester, we follow their well practised safeguarding rules:

• All teams will be assigned a named, DBS-checked ‘responsible adult’.
• All attendees are signed in and out of the self contained and fully manned Manchester Digital Laboratory. All attendees will be supervised by adults at all times.
• The ratio of children to mentors/volunteers is 7:1.

What happens?

Monday 15th February 2016

10am - registration

10:30am - intro presentations

11am - 4pm: Hacking

(Lunch at 12:30)

Tuesday 16th February 2016

9am - 2:30pm: Hacking

3pm onwards: Awards Show/Demo

4:30pm Finish

(Lunch at 12noon)

Youngsters will form into teams either on the day, or before hand. We actively encourage groups from local schools and colleges to represent and be in with a chance of winning the pre-university challenge.

What do they make?

The hacks can be absolutely anything however to win a prize they will need to be eligible for a challenge which will be shared on the day during the intro presentations.

Who will come?

40-50 young people with around 20 parents.

Ages 13-19yrs ONLY

We anticipate the attendees to come from mostly Manchester, but the national reputation of CoderDojo and HackManchester will attract young people from all over. We actively encourage local schools and colleges to send a team.

Can you give me some inspiration?

Listed below are all our challenges from last year.

Web Applications UK 2015

We challenge you to do what you do best – use your imagination. At Web Applications, we write software for travel companies. We want you to build a game that has a ‘travel’ theme. You can interpret this in any way you want!

Raspberry Pi Challenge 2015

Conduct a science experiment using the Raspberry Pi and Sense HAT utilising one or more of its sensors. The experiment should be used as a tool to demonstrate and teach a concept like gravity - ideally something that can be reproduced in space and would show different results.

Thales UK Challenge 2015

Given real-time train information, develop an innovative way of communicating this information in a useful way to someone you know.

Auto Trader Challenge  2015

At AutoTrader one of our main values is to be curious, we always encourage each other to learn, discover and explore new technologies. As young hackers we would like you to help people be curious too! We challenge you to create a game to help people learn.

TheLADbible Challenge 2015

The LADbible has a culture of grassroots innovation, we want to encourage this at an early age and we also love Minecraft.

So we want the Juniors to use Minecraft’s Redstones to come up with the most original invention ever!

It has to be automated and you can use as many mods as you need to make your invention.

Sponsorship

In addition to providing venue, wifi, refreshments and other comforts to the competitors, we require challenges and prizes! All donations / loan of equipment would also be gratefully received. Donated equipment will be kept and used by Manchester CoderDojo for future events.

Raspberry Pi’s, keyboards, mice and monitors would be gratefully received in form of sponsorship.

All Sponsorship Levels will include the following:

• Tweets and Blog posts promoting your company
• Company name included in promotional material

Headliner - Web Applications UK

You have the most important responsibility judging the ‘Best in Show’

You will also get the following:

• Short presentation (~5 minutes) showcasing your company and how you will judge Best in Show.
• Judge your challenge and present the prizes to the winning team

Challenge Setter (~3 places)

Set a challenge with an enticing prize for contestants. Your name will be on everyone’s lips as teams vie against each other to win. You will also get the following:

• Short presentation (~5 minutes) showcasing your company and setting your challenge
• Judge your challenge and present the prizes to the winning team