All posts by Helen Drury

How your young people can create with tech for Coolest Projects 2021

Post Syndicated from Helen Drury original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/how-young-people-can-create-with-tech-coolest-projects-2021/

In our free Coolest Projects online showcase, we invite a worldwide community of young people to come together and celebrate what they’ve built with technology. For this year’s showcase, we’ve already got young tech creators from more than 35 countries registered, including from India, Ireland, UK, USA, Australia, Serbia, Japan, and Syria!

Two siblings presenting their digital making project at a Coolest Projects showcase

Register to become part of the global Coolest Projects community

Everyone up to age 18 can register for Coolest Projects to become part of this community with their own tech creation. We welcome all projects, all experience levels, and all kinds of projects, from the very first Scratch animation to a robot with machine learning capacity! The beauty of Coolest Projects is in the diversity of what the young tech creators make.

Young people can register projects in six categories: Hardware, Scratch, Mobile Apps, Websites, Games, and Advanced Programming. Projects need to be fully registered by Monday 3 May 2021, but they don’t need to be finished then — at Coolest Projects we celebrate works in progress just as much as finished creations!

To learn more about the registration process, watch the video below or read our guide on how to register.

Our Coolest Projects support for young people and you

Here are the different ways we’re supporting your young people — and you — with project creation!

Online resources for designing and creating projects

Download the free Coolest Projects workbook that walks young people through the whole creation process, from finding a topic or problem they want to address, to idea brainstorming, to testing their project:

The five steps you will carry out when creating a tech project: 1 Pick a problem. 2 Who are you helping with your project? 3 Generate ideas. 4 Design and build. 5 Test and tweak
Our Coolest Projects worksheets have detailed guidance about all five steps of project creation.

Explore more than 200 free, step-by-step project guides for learning coding and digital making skills that your young people can use to find help and inspiration! For more ideas on what your young people can make for Coolest Projects, have a look around last year’s online showcase gallery.

Live streams for young people

This Wednesday 3 March at 19:00 GMT / 14:00 ET, young people can join a special Digital Making at Home live stream about capturing ideas for projects. We’ll share practical tips and inspiration to help them get started with building a Coolest Projects creation:

On Tuesday 23 March, 16:00 GMT / 11:00 ET, young people can join the Coolest Projects team on a live stream to talk to them about all things Coolest Projects and ask all their questions! Subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on notifications to be reminded about this live stream.

Online workshops for educators & parents

Join our free online workshops where you as an educator or parent can learn how to best support young people to take part:

Celebrating young people’s creativity

Getting creative with technology is truly empowering for young people, and anything your young people want to create will be celebrated by us and the whole Coolest Projects community. We’re so excited to see their projects, and we can’t wait to celebrate all together at our big live stream celebration event in June! Don’t let your young people miss their chance to be part of the fun.

Register your project for the Coolest Projects online showcase

The post How your young people can create with tech for Coolest Projects 2021 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Idea registration is open for Coolest Project 2021

Post Syndicated from Helen Drury original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/idea-registration-open-coolest-project-2021/

It’s official: idea registration is finally open for Coolest Project 2021!

Our Coolest Projects online showcase brings together a worldwide community of young people who make things with technology. Everyone up to age 18, wherever they are in the world, can register for Coolest Projects to become part of this community with their own tech creation! We welcome all ideas, all experience levels, and all kinds of projects.

So let all the young people in your family, school, or coding club know, because Coolest Projects is their chance to be part of something amazing this year!

Taking part is free, and projects will be displayed in the Coolest Projects online gallery for people all across the globe to see! And getting involved is super easy: young creators can start by registering their idea for a project now, leaving them plenty of time — until May — to build the project at home.

To celebrate the passion, effort, and creativity of all the tech creators, we will host a grand live-streamed finale event in June, where our fabulous, world-renowned judges will pick their favourites from among all the projects!

Last year, young tech creators from 39 countries took part in the Coolest Projects online showcase. This year, we hope young people from even more places will share their tech creations with the world!

Skill-building, fun & community

Coolest Projects is a powerful motivator for young people to develop skills in:

  • Idea generation
  • Project design and planning
  • Coding and technology
  • User testing and iteration
  • Presentation

…and they will have lots of fun, be inspired by their peers, and feel like they are part of a truly international community.

Let their imaginations run free! 

Through the Coolest Projects online showcase, young people get the opportunity to explore their creativity and realise their tech ambitions! Whatever they come up with as a project idea, we want them to register so the Coolest Projects community can celebrate it.

To help you support young people to create their projects, we’re running a free online workshop called ‘How to design projects with young people’ on 24 February.

What happens next? 

  1. Once their project ideas are registered, the young people can start creating their projects!
  2. From the start of March, they will be able to complete their registration by adding the details of their project, including either a Scratch project link or a short video where they need to answer three important questions about their project. We’ll be offering online sessions to give them tips for their video and help them complete their showcase gallery entry.
  3. Project registration closes on 3 May. But don’t worry if a project isn’t finished by then: we welcome works in progress just as much as completed creations!

We can’t wait to see the wonderful, imaginative things young tech creators in this global community are going to share with the world!

Sign up for the Coolest Projects newsletter to never miss the latest updates about our exciting online showcase, including the free online support sessions for participants.

The post Idea registration is open for Coolest Project 2021 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Save the date for Coolest Projects 2021

Post Syndicated from Helen Drury original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/save-the-date-coolest-projects-2021/

The year is drawing to a close, and we are so excited for 2021!

More than 700 young people from 39 countries shared their tech creations in the free Coolest Projects online showcase this year! We loved seeing so many young people shine with their creative projects, and we can’t wait to see what the world’s next generation of digital makers will present at Coolest Projects in 2021.

A Coolest Projects participant showing off their tech creation

Mark your calendar for registration opening

Coolest Projects is the world-leading technology fair for young people! It’s our biggest event, and we are running it online again next year so that young people can participate safely and from wherever they are in the world.

Through Coolest Projects, young people are empowered to show the world something they’re making with tech — something THEY are excited about! Anyone up to age 18 can share their creation at Coolest Projects.

On 1 February, we will open registrations for the 2021 online showcase. Mark the date in your calendar! All registered projects will get their very own spot in the Coolest Projects online showcase gallery, where the whole world can discover them.

Taking part is completely free and enormously fun

If a young person in your life — your family, your classroom, your coding club — is making something with tech that they love, we want them to register it for Coolest Projects. It doesn’t matter how small or big their project is, because the Coolest Projects showcase is about celebrating the love we all share for getting creative with tech.

A teenage girl presenting a digital making project on a tablet

Everyone who registers a project becomes part of a worldwide community of peers who express themselves and their interests with creative tech. We will also have special judges pick their favourite projects! Taking part in Coolest Projects is a wonderful way to connect with others, be inspired, and learn from peers.

So if you know a tech-loving young person, get them excited for taking part in Coolest Projects!

“We are so very happy to have reached people who love to code and are enjoying projects from all over the world…everyone’s contributions have blown our minds…we are so so happy ️:woman-cartwheeling:️Thank you to Coolest Projects for hosting the best event EVER :star::star::star:

– mother of a participant in the 2020 online showcase

Want inspiration for projects? You can still explore all the wonderful projects from the 2020 showcase gallery.

A Coolest Projects participant

Young people can participate with whatever they’re making

Everyone is invited to take part in Coolest Projects — the showcase is for young people with any level of experience. The project they register can be whatever they like, from their very first Scratch animation, to their latest robotics project, website, or phone app. And we invite projects at any stages of the creation process, whether they’re prototypes, finished products, or works-in-progress!

  • To make the youngest participants and complete beginners feel like they belong, we work hard to make sure that taking part is a super welcoming and inspiring experience! In the showcase, they will discover what is possible with technology and how they can use it to shape their world.
  • And for the young creators who are super tech-savvy and make advanced projects, showcasing their creation at Coolest Projects is a great way to get it seen by some amazing people in the STEM sector: this year’s special judges were British astronaut Tim Peake, Adafruit CEO Limor Fried, and other fabulous tech leaders!

Sign up for the latest Coolest Projects news

To be the first to know when registration opens, you only have to sign up for our newsletter:

We will send you regular news about Coolest Projects to keep you up to date and help you inspire the young tech creator in your life!

The post Save the date for Coolest Projects 2021 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.