Oct 2008 - Morrison's Academy

Page 42 The Morrisonian | 07/08 Secondary
Computing and IT
Competitions
Digital 60
As part of its 2008 celebrations of the
60th birthday of the world's first storedprogram
computer designed and
built at the University of Manchester in
1948, the School of Computer Science
at the University of Manchester ran a
computer animation competition
open to schools across the UK. The
competition ran between 1 January
and 1 May 2008.
The competition asked entrants to
create a short animated Computer
Graphics film using Alice, a free
computer animation system. There
was no minimum length for the
animation but the maximum length
was one minute. The animation had
to be inspired by material from the
taught curriculum in school.
Morrison’s Academy submitted two
entries and Alastair Hamilton (S2) was
a prize winner in his age group with
his ‘Fun Facts of the Final Frontier’. His
animation showed the planets
orbiting the sun and gave interesting
facts about each of the planets. His
entry also won a certificate for Best
Educational Film across all the age
groups. He showed great skill in
getting to grips with the Alice
programming environment very
quickly and richly deserved his
success in the competition.
Alastair was able to travel to
Manchester to attend the Digital 60
day on 20th June and to receive his
award from Professor Steve Furber
CBE.
Strathmore Trophy
The Strathmore Trophy is a
competition run by Dundee University
in which pupils are set a task to test
their conceptual and practical
programming skills. This year’s
challenge combined programming
with the growing industry of smart
textiles. The pupils were asked to
create a system which used clothing
and sensors to communicate
emotions in the classroom. The
Morrison’s Academy team of Alastair
Hamilton, Alex Johnston, Marianne
Inglis and Nicola Suiter quickly rose to
the challenge and decided to create
a garment that could show feelings of
boredom and excitement. For their
input device the team chose a glove
with pressure and motion sensors and
for their output device a hat with LEDs
that showed a happy or sad face.
The concept was simple - if your
fingers touched as if you were
covering your mouth from yawing
then a sad face appeared whereas if
you were waving your hands in the air
a few times then it displayed a happy
face.
Nicola started work with the input
device which involved some
traditional skills in sewing to ensure
that the sensors and communication
leads remained within the glove. Alex
was given the task of attaching the
LEDs and communication leads to the
hat which was a fiddly job involving a
great deal of wire cutting, twisting
and connecting cables. Alastair had
the most difficult job of all in writing
the code to ensure that the concept
became a reality and programming
the circuit board by moving the
switches to the appropriate positions.
Marianne was the driving force
behind the concept and planned the
group’s presentation which
contributed to the final mark.
In the end, despite a valiant effort
and having learnt a great deal, the
Morrison’s Academy team was
pipped at the post achieving the
second highest score from the
judging panel.
RM Basement
School pupils can get great deals on
essential software at The Basement.
You can buy top-quality educational
software at hugely discounted prices
and every time one of our pupils buys
at the basement, the school will be
eligible for a cashback reward.
The Basement is brought to you by
RM, a company specialising in
supplying ICT to schools and colleges
since 1973 and the leading provider
of ICT software, hardware and
services to UK education.
The software is fully licensed and fully
functional.
To find out more, visit
www.rm.com/thebasement
D Hamilton
P Boal