Mr Potter (Director of Digital Strategy)
Last week, the Lovelace Society (our Sixth Form Computing Society) and the Year 11 GCSE Computer Science students visited the University of Buckingham to see their new AI and Innovation hub, which is a result of a £3.2 million investment in the School of Computing.
The students had sessions on logical thinking, highlighting the importance of breaking down a problem into small steps in order to solve it and also cyber security, which included using SQL to hack into a website. As well as this, the students got to see the Boston Dynamics robotic dog, named Spot. Spot is being used to research how robots can be used in different environments, such as earthquakes, or mine collapses in order to perform rescues.
Some of our students also got to try 'Birdly' which is a mix of virtual reality and the physical world. Looking a little like a medieval torture implement, the user can strap themselves into a body shaped device with wings and use VR and their physical movements to fly around a landscape. The School of Computing is using Birdie to research game development, and is also partnering with their colleagues in Psychology to see if using VR in this way can be used to reduce stress and anxiety.
The students got a really useful insight into how some of this cutting-edge technology and how deploying certain strategies when solving a problem, could be used in the real world.
Lower Sixth students, Athena and Tobi reflected: “The trip was organised by Athena and I as our first task as heads of the newly elected Lovelace Society, the Computer Science Society at school. We were looking forward to the trip after spending months planning and advertising the trip to the other years as well as our own. The cyber security task was interesting. It allowed us to put ourselves in the headspace of hackers and figure out the different ways they gain access to databases and websites, such as SQL injection and phishing emails. The game theory task was also very fun. We worked out the different ways we can use each other to complete various tasks without verbally or physically communicating with each other.
“Everyone enjoyed a tour of the campus and the new Computer Science hub, meeting their new robotic dog, the Boston Dynamics 'Spot' robot and their fly bird VR set, Birdly, both of which were very fun to see. The trip was worth all the planning and advertising and was another very interesting experience and an insight into the industry. We definitely hope to organise more trips and events in future.”
Find out more about the AI and Innovation hub here.
