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The UK Schools Computer Animation Competition

Toby Howard and Graham Gough

School of Computer ScienceThe University of Manchester

www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/Animation09/

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Purpose of the competition

• To enthuse UK schoolchildren about Computer Science

• To counter “ICT is boring”

• To introduce Computer Science concepts

• To have a long-term benefit for recruitment

• To offer teachers a new activity

• In 2008, to support the Digital 60 celebrations

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Scope of the 2009 competition

• Open to all UK schoolchildren

• Create animated film (maximum 1 minute)

• Ages groups: 7-11 (KS2), 11-14 (KS3) 14-16 (KS3) , 16+

• Film should be linked to taught curriculum

• Use Alice, Scratch or Flash

• Prizes: laptops, iPods, vouchers, certificates

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ter Alice (free from Carnegie-Mellon)

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Scratch (free from MIT)

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The 2008 Competition

• Funded by EPSRC Portfolio Grant

• Partners: MOSI, IBM, Navis, Transitive

• January – May 2008

• Alice only (not Scratch or Flash)

• 420 schools registered

• 55 schools submitted 220 entries

• Prizegiving day at University

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• 33 winning entries from 20 schools

• 400 children from 30 schools attended Digital 60 Day

The 2008 Competition

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The 2009 Competition

• Funded by EPSRC PE Grant

• Partners: Electronic Arts, MOSI

• January – May 2009

• 754+ schools registered

• 64+ schools submitted 243+ entries

• Prizegiving day at MOSI

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Competition management

• Web-based registration and submission

• All competition documentation on the web:

• Rules & FAQ

• Downloadable promo materials (posters, flyers)

• Links to 2008 winners’ galleries

• Teachers’ Forums (using free phpBB)

• Bespoke management system: MySQL, Perl, PHP

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homepage

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Competition marketing

• Email to individual schools (“spam”!)

• Media Releases (through University Press Office)

• Publicity through partners and interested parties:

• City Learning Centres (www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/eic/clc/)

• NAACE (www.naace.org)

• cs4fn (www.cs4fn.org)

• SSSAT (www.specialistschools.org.uk)

• Becta (www.becta.org.uk)

• STEM (www.dcsf.gov.uk/stem)

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Resources

• Budget: £25K

• Marketing: £9K (posters, flyers, mailings, T-shirts, professional design)

• Awards ceremony: £7K

• Prizes: £7K

• Travel: £1K

• External Judges expenses: £1K

• Note: staff time not costed!

• Estimate of staff effort: 500 person-days

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The project team

Amanda Banks

Ros Cooper

Graham Gough

Toby Howard(Chair) Chris Page

Stuart Anderson

Alexandra Walker

Bernard Strutt

Rina Srabonian