Girls help to launch 'Computing Herstory' exhibition
On Tuesday 8 October, all of our Year 6 girls visited the Centre for Computing History here in Cambridge. The focus of the visit was a brand new exhibition entitled 'Computing His HerStory', which brought together information about the pioneering women whose contribution to the computing industry was undeniably crucial, as well as providing an insight into those working in computing and associated industries today.
Our girls helped to launch the exhibition on its very first day. In addition to this, as part of the close working relationship that we have established with the staff at the centre, we were the only school to be approached to contribute directly to this new exhibition. The girls were asked, in advance of the visit, to submit their own ideas by email for what problems they would like to solve using technology in the future. These ideas have now been incorporated into a display as part of the exhibition, which is now open to the general public.
In addition, during the visit they participated in a series of practical activities including learning how to program 30 year old BBC Micro computers using the text-based BBC Basic coding language, discussing the evolution of computers and their uses throughout history, exploring the development of computer games by gaining hands-on experience with a variety of historic computers and their original software, and creating their own Morse Code transmitters and receivers.
The staff at the centre were extremely impressed with the girls, not only in terms of their Computer Science skills, but also with their interest in the development of computing and the historical figures who pioneered it, and their intelligent questions and observations throughout the visit.
All of the girls had a thoroughly enjoyable experience and now have a much greater understanding of the parts that they may be able to play in the next phase of developments within the computing and technology industries, by following in the footsteps of the pioneering women who have already been so instrumental in this field.