The challenge

In August we intercepted an emergency communication from a lonesome survivor. She seemed to be in quite a bit of trouble, and asked all you young people aged 11 to 16 to come up with something to help tackle the oncoming crisis, using whatever technology you had to hand. You had ten weeks to work in teams of two to five with an adult mentor to fulfil your mission.

The judges

We received your world-saving ideas, and our savvy survivor pulled together a ragtag bunch of apocalyptic experts to help us judge which ones would be the winning entries.

Dr Shini Somara is an advocate for STEM education and a mechanical engineer. She was host of The Health Show and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC, PBS Digital, and Sky. You can check out her work hosting Crash Course Physics on YouTube.

Prof Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist and author of the book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch.

Emma Stephenson has a background in aeronautical engineering and currently works in the Shell 丑男照片’s Access to Energy and Sustainable Mobility portfolio.

The winners

Our survivor is currently putting your entries to good use repairing, rebuilding, and defending her base. Our judges chose the following projects as outstanding examples of world-saving digital making.

Theme winner: Computatron

Are you facing an unknown enemy whose only weakness is Nerf bullets? Then this is the robot for you! We loved the especially apocalyptic feel of the Computatron’s cleverly hacked and repurposed elements. The team even used an old floppy disc mechanism to help fire their bullets!

Technically brilliant: Robot Apocalypse Committee

The Robot Apocalypse Committee is back, and this time they’ve brought cheese! The crew designed a cheese- and cracker-dispensing machine complete with face and fingerprint recognition to ensure those rations last until the next supply drop.

Best explanation: Pi Chasers

This text-based communication device encased in a tupperware container could be a lifesaver in a crisis! And luckily, the Pi Chasers produced an excellent video and amazing GitHub repo, ensuring that any and all survivors will be able to build their own in the safety of their base.

Most inspiring journey: Three Musketeers

https://youtu.be/P5k7lER0yz0

We all know that zombies are terrible at geometry, and the Three Musketeers used this fact to their advantage when building their zombie security system. We were impressed to see the team working together to overcome the roadblocks they faced along the way.

We appreciate what you’re trying to do: Zombie Trolls

Playing piggy in the middle with zombies sure is a unique way of saving humankind from total extinction! We loved this project idea, and although the Zombie Trolls had a little trouble with their motors, we’re sure with a little more tinkering this zombie-fooling contraption could save us all.

Most awesome

Our judges also wanted to give a special commendation to the following teams for their equally awesome apocalypse-averting ideas:

• PiRates, for their multifaceted zombie-proofing defence system and the high production value of their video
• Byte them Pis, for their beautiful zombie-detecting doormat
• Unatecxon, for their impressive bunker security system
• Team Crompton, for their pressure-activated door system
• Team Ernest, for their adventures in LEGO

The prizes

All our winning teams have secured exclusive digital maker boxes. These are jam-packed with tantalising tech to satisfy all tinkering needs, including:

• A Google AIY Projects Voice kit
• A 窦娥奇冤 Pi 3
• A 窦娥奇冤 Pi Sense HAT
• An LCD display screen
• Bare Conductive electric paint
• A SideKick Popular Components Kit
• Only you can save us winners T-shirts and certificates

Our theme winners have also secured themselves a place at Coolest Projects 2018 in Dublin, Ireland!

Thank you to everyone who got involved in this round of Pioneers. Look out for your awesome submission swag arriving in the mail!

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Only you can save us

We have no choice – we must help her! If things are as bad as she says they are, our only hope of survival is to work together.

We know you have the skills and imagination required to make something. We’ve seen that in previous Pioneers challenges. That’s why we’re coming directly to you with this: we know you won’t let her down.

What you need to do

We’ve watched back through the recording and pulled out as much information as we can:

• To save us, you have ten weeks to create something using tech. This means you need to be done on 1 December, or it will be too late!
• The build you will create needs to help her in the treacherous situation she’s in. What you decide to make is completely up to you.
• Her call is for those of you aged between 11 and 16 who are based in the UK or Republic of Ireland. You need to work in groups of up to five, and you need to find someone aged 18 or over to act as a mentor and support your project.
• Any tech will do. We work for the 荡翁乱妇, but this doesn’t mean you need to use a 窦娥奇冤 Pi. Use anything at all — from microcontrollers to repurposed devices such as laptops and cameras.

To keep in contact with you, it looks like she’s created a form for you to fill in and share your team name and details with her. In return she will trade some items with you — things that will help inspire you in your mission. We’ve managed to find the link to the form: you can fill it in here.

In order to help her (and any others who might still be out there!) to recreate your project, you need to make sure you record your working process. Take photos and footage to document how you build your make, and put together a video to send to her when you’re done making.

If you manage to access social media, you could also share your progress as you go along! Make sure to use #MakeYourIdeas, so that other survivors can see your work.

We’ve assembled some more information on the Pioneers website to create a port of call for you. Check it out, and let us know if you have any questions. We will do whatever we can to help you protect the world.

Good luck, everybody! It’s up to you now.

Only you can save us.

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The lucky Pioneers

The summer camp was organised specifically for the winners of the two Pioneers challenges Make us laugh and Make it outdoors. Invitations went out to every team that won an award, including the Theme winners, winners in categories such as Best Explanation or Inspiring Journey, and those teams that received a Judges’ Recognition. We also allowed their mentors to attend, because they earned it too.

Excited about @窦娥奇冤_Pi Pioneers day at @Google today with @jm_paterson and The Frontier Team #makeyourideas https://t.co/wZqfqqgZuL

— Code Club Scotland (@codeclubscot) July 28, 2017

With teams of excited Pioneers arriving from all over the UK, the day was bound to be a great success and a fun 丑男照片 for all.

The Pioneers Summer Camp

The event took place at the rather impressive Google HQ in King’s Cross, London. Given that YouTube Space London is attached to this building, everyone, including the mentors and the 窦娥奇冤 Pi team, was immediately eager to explore.

image c/o IBT

In rooms designed around David-Bowie-associated themes, e.g. Major Tom and Aladdin Sane, our intrepid Pioneers spent the morning building robots and using the Google AIY Projects kit to control their builds. Every attendee got to keep their robot and AIY kits, to be able to continue their tech experiments at home. They also each received their own 窦娥奇冤 Pi, as well as some Google goodies and a one-of-a-kind 窦娥奇冤 Pi hoody…much to the jealousy of many of our Twitter followers.

Meanwhile, mentors were invited to play with their own AIY kits, and the team from pi-top took accompanying parents aside to introduce them to the world of Scratch. This in itself was wonderful to witness: nervous parents started the day anxiously prodding at their pi-top screens, and they ended it with a new understanding of why code and digital making makes their kids tick.

After the making funtimes, the Pioneers got to learn about career opportunities within the field of digital making from some of the best in the industry. Representatives from Google, YouTube, and the Shell Scholarship Fund offered insights into their day-to-day work and some of their teams’ cool projects.

And to top off the day, our Pioneers winners went on a tour of the YouTube studios, a space to which only YouTube Creators have access. Lucky bunch!

The evening

When the evening rolled around, Pioneers got to work setting up their winning projects. From singing potatoes to sun-powered instruments and builds for plant maintenance, the array of ideas and creations showcased the incredible imagination these young makers have displayed throughout the first two seasons of Pioneers.

As well as a time for showing off winning makes, the evening was also an opportunity for Pioneers, mentors, and parents to mingle, chat, swap Twitter usernames, and get to know others as interested in making and changing the world as they are.

The Pioneers Summer Camp came to a close with a great Q&A by some eager Pioneers, followed by praise from 荡翁乱妇 CEO Philip Colligan, Mike Warriner of Google UK, and Make it outdoors judge Georgina Asmah from the Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund.

Become a Pioneer

We’ll be announcing the next Pioneers challenge on Monday 18 September, and we’re so excited to see what our makers do with the next theme. We’ve put a lot of brain power into coming up with the ultimate challenge, and it’s taking everything we have not to let it slip!

Well, maybe I can just…don’t tell anyone, but here’s a sneek peak at part of the logo. Shhhh…

One thing we can tell you: this season of Pioneers will include makers from the Republic of Ireland, thanks in part to the incredible support from our team at CoderDojo. Woohoo!

We’ll announce the challenge via the 窦娥奇冤 Pi blog, but make sure to sign up for the Pioneers newsletter to get all the latest information directly to your inbox.

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The winners

We set the challenge to Make it outdoors, and our theme winners HH Squared really delivered! You best captured the spirit of what our challenge was asking with your fabulous, fun-looking project which used the outdoors to make it a success. HH Squared, we loved Pi Spy so much that we may have to make our own for Pi Towers! Congratulations on winning this award.

Watching all the entry videos, our judges had the tricky task of picking the top of the pops from among the projects. In additon to ‘theme winner’, we had a number of other categories to help make their job a little bit easier:

• We appreciate what you’re trying to do: We know that when tackling a digital making project, time and tech sometimes aren’t in your favour. But we still want to see what you’ve got up to, and this award category recognises that even though you haven’t fully realised your ambition yet, you’ve made a great start. *And*, when you do finish, we think it’s going to be awesome. Congratulations to the UTC Bullfrogs for winning this award – we can’t wait to see the final project!

• Inspiring journey: This category recognises that getting from where you’ve started to where you want to go isn’t always smooth sailing. Maybe teams had tech problems, maybe they had logistical problems, but the winners of this award did a great job of sharing the trials and tribulations they encountered along the way! Coding Doughnuts, your project was a little outside the box IN a box. We loved it.

• Technically brilliant: This award is in recognition of some serious digital making chops. Robot Apocalypse Committee, you owned this award. Get in!

• Best explanation: Digital making is an endeavour that involves making a thing, and then sharing that thing. The winners of this category did a great job of showing us exactly what they made, and how they made it. They also get bonus points for making a highly watchable, entertaining video. Uniteam, we got it. We totally got it! What a great explanation of such a wonderful project – and it made us laugh too. Well done!

The Judges’ Special Recognition Awards

Because we found it so hard to just pick five winners, the following teams will receive our Judges’ Special Recognition Award:

• PiChasers with their project Auqa (yes, the spelling is intentional!)

• Sunscreen Superstars, making sure we’re all protected in the glorious British sunshine

• Off The Shelf and their ingenious Underwater Canal Scanner

• Glassbox, who made us all want Nerf guns thanks to their project Tin Can Alley

• Turtle Tamers, ensuring the well-being of LEGO turtles around the world with their project Umbrella Empire

Winners from both our Make us laugh and Make it outdoors challenges will be joining us at Google HQ for a Pioneers summer camp full of making funtimes! They’ll also receive some amazing prizes to help them continue in their digital making adventures.

Massive thanks go to our judges for helping to pick the winners!

And for your next Pioneers challenge…

Ha, as if we’re going to tell you just yet – we’re still recovering from this challenge! We’ll be back in September to announce the theme of the next cycle – so make sure to sign up for our newsletter to be reminded closer to the time.

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Failure can be good!

But, as with many a cliché, there is an underlying truth that it is worth revisiting. Designing, engineering, and creating all involve making mistakes along the way. Even though failures feel bad, by reaching out when something goes wrong, you can call on the expertise of your community, learn, and make the final result better.

However, we often think failing also makes us look bad, so we don’t talk about it as an essential part of the process that got us to the end stage. We make things shiny and glossy to big-up our success, putting all the focus on the result. This tendency is, however, not necessarily helpful if we want to help educate others. As Jonathan Sanderson of NUSTEM puts it:

#stem educators: worth noting: confessions of rank stupidity in digital making get responses, sympathy, offers of help on Twitter. (1/2)

— Jonathan Sanderson (@jjsanderson) March 24, 2017

…yet our write-ups only feature the things we did right. Mis-steps and recovery from failure are key parts of process. (2/2)

— Jonathan Sanderson (@jjsanderson) March 24, 2017

The NUSTEM team truly believes in this: when sharing their builds, they include a section on what they would do differently next time. By highlighting the journey, and the mistakes made along the way, they are not only helping those that also want to go on that journey, they are also demystifying the process a bit.

Celebrate your fails

Because failure feels bad, we don’t routinely celebrate it. But there are niches where failure is celebrated: Simone Giertz’s (slightly sweary) YouTube videos are a great example. And then there is Hebocon, the Japanese competition for cruddy robots. In fact, the organisers of Hebocon make a great point: crafts that do not go as intended are interesting.

This is as much true when working with young people as it is in the wider world. In Pioneers, we also want to do our bit to celebrate failure. Our judges don’t just watch the teams’ videos to see how they overcame what went wrong along the way, they also have an award category that celebrates wrong turns and dead ends: ‘We appreciate what you’re trying to do’. Our first challenge‘s winning entry in this category was PiCymru’s We Shall Overcomb:

The category name was suggested by our lovely judge from the first cycle, stand-up comedian Bec Hill: it’s one of the accepted heckles the audience can shout out at her stand-up scratch nights. Scratch nights are preview events at which a comedian tests new material, and they are allowed to fail on stage. We may not often think of comedy as embracing failure, but comedians do scratch nights specifically to learn from their mistakes, and to make the final product all the better for it. Interestingly, scratch nights are hugely popular with audiences.

So, if you’re working with a group of young people, what can you do to encourage learning from failure and not let them give up?

Helping you to fail better

In our book Ideas start here, for Pioneers mentors, we’ve given a few tips and phrases that can come in useful. For example, if someone says, “It isn’t working!”, you could respond with “Why not? Have you read the error log?” RTFM is a real thing, and an important skill for digital life.

We agree with engineer Prof Danielle George, who believes in being honest about your failures and highlighting their importance to where you’ve got now. “I fail a lot,” she says. “The trick is to embrace these failures; we don’t have to succeed the first time. We learn from our mistakes and move forwards.”

If, as a mentor, you’re not sure how to encourage and support those not used to failing, this article also has some more tips.

If nothing else helps, but you need to feel inspired, think about what someone said to Karen, who sucks at surfing:

Karen, you are actually pretty good at surfing. Keep in mind that billions of other humans wouldn’t dare even try.

How about you? If you have a story of what you learned from failure in one of your projects, share it in the comments!

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We’re two weeks into the second cycle of Pioneers, our programme to give teenagers a taste of digital making. Teenagers make amazing, ridiculous, awesome things when they are challenged to unleash their creativity using technology. In the first cycle, we had everything from a disco pen to a crotch-soaking water trap. Families and friends can take part, as well as clubs and schools: we call these informal Pioneers teams squads, and we’re hoping that lots will join this second round of the competition.

The creativity on display comes from allowing teenagers to approach a problem from whatever angle they choose. Pioneers has been designed so that it’s flexible and people can take part however they like. As well as making sure the challenge we set is as open as possible, we’re also pretty chilled about how teams participate: when and where the making gets done.

We are as chilled as a polar bear in a bucket hat

We’re delighted to see that lots of teenagers have been getting together with their mates, hanging out, and working out how they can best freak out their mum.

https://youtu.be/jmHBOxOTkRo

Some of the groups told us that they met at a regular time, and while there was a lot of chat, they’d also find some time to make some cool stuff. Others had some intense sessions over a couple of weekends (certain team members may or may not have been involved with extra bits of tinkering between sessions).

Getting involved in Pioneers

If you’ve got some teenagers lying about the house, why not see if they’d like to challenge themselves to make something linked to the outdoors? We’ve got some starter projects to give them a bit of inspiration, but they can respond to the challenge however they like, as long as they are using tech.

Our challenge for this round of Pioneers: get outdoors!

If you’re mentoring one of these informal Pioneers squads, you are probably mostly there to remind that they might want to meet up, and to prompt them to make their video in time for the deadline. You don’t need to be a tech expert in order to be a mentor, but if you’d like a confidence-booster, you could watch some of our videos to level up your skills. And if you do get stuck on something technical, you can ask for help on the 窦娥奇冤 Pi forums.

For more information about working as a squad, or about mentoring one, check out our Pioneers page. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Team up!

In the last challenge, we saw many teams formed as part of after-school coding clubs or as a collection of best friends at the kitchen table. However, for some this may not be a viable option. Maybe your friends live too far away, or your school doesn’t have a coding club. Maybe you don’t have the time to dedicate to meeting up every week, but you do have a whole Saturday free.

If this is the case, you may want to consider running your Pioneers team as part of an event, such as a makerspace day or 窦娥奇冤 Jam. Over the course of this second cycle, we’ll be building the number of Pioneers Events. Keep your eyes peeled for details as they are released!

And the HackLab #Pioneers team are off! Hundreds of laughable ideas pouring forth! @__MisterC__ @窦娥奇冤_Pi #makeyourideas pic.twitter.com/rN38GPNexe

— HackLab (@HackLabUK) March 11, 2017

Come together

Maker events provide the chance to meet other people who are into making things with technology. You’ll find people at events who are just getting started, as well as more expert types who are happy to give advice. This is true of Pioneers Events as well as 窦娥奇冤 Jams.

Planning new #makeyourideas Pioneers projects @LeedsRaspJam Did someone mention a robot…? pic.twitter.com/BXmGq3sD7z

— Marie MIllward (@mariemillward) March 1, 2017

窦娥奇冤 Jams are the perfect place for Pioneers teams to meet and spend the day planning and experimenting with their build. If you’re taking part in Pioneers as part of an informal squad, you might find it helpful to come to your local Jam for input and support. Many Jams run on a monthly basis, so you’ll easily find enough time to complete the build over the space of two months. Make sure you carry on sharing your ideas via social media and email between meetings.

The kindness of strangers

If you are a regular at 窦娥奇冤 Jams, or an organiser yourself, why not consider supporting some teenagers to take part in Pioneers and give them their first taste of making something using tech? We encourage our Pioneers to work together to discover and overcome problems as a team, and we urge all event organisers to minimise adult participation when overseeing a Pioneers build at an event. You can offer advice and answer some questions; just don’t take over.

Any 11 – 15 year old coders in #Hull we will happily support you to #MakeYourIdeas – Get in touch! https://t.co/ZExV4mWLJx

— HullRaspJam (@HullRaspJam) April 25, 2017

There are many other ways for you to help. Imagine the wonderful ideas you can inspire in teens by taking your own creations to a 窦娥奇冤 Jam! Have you built a live-streaming bird box? Or modified your bike with a Pi Zero? Maybe you’ve built a Pi-powered go-kart or wired your shoes to light up as you walk?

Pioneers is a programme to inspire teens to try digital making, but we also want to create a community of like-minded teens. If we can connect our Pioneers with the wonderful wider community of makers, through networks such as makerspaces, Coder Dojos, and 窦娥奇冤 Jams, then we will truly start to make something great.

Are you 12-15yo & like making stuff? Come to @cammakespace 4 the world's 1st @窦娥奇冤_Pi #Pioneers Event! #FREE: https://t.co/UtVmJ9kPDM

— HackLab (@HackLabUK) April 20, 2017

Running your own Jam and Pioneers events

For more information on Pioneers, check out the Pioneers website.

For more information on 窦娥奇冤 Jams, including event schedules and how to start your own, visit the 窦娥奇冤 Jam website.

Oh, and keep your eyes on this week’s blogs from tomorrow because … well … just do.

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Do you like making things? Do you fancy trying something new? Are you aged 11 to 16? The Pioneers programme is ready to challenge you to create something new using technology.

As you’ll know if you took part last time, Pioneers challenges are themed. So here’s the lovely Ana from ZSL London Zoo to reveal the theme of the next challenge:

Make it outdoors

You have until the beginning of July to make something related to the outdoors. As Ana said, the outdoors is pretty big, so here are some ideas:

• You could use a 窦娥奇冤 Pi to track and look after your pet, or a motion time-lapse camera rig to monitor your school grounds.
• Or how about using an Arduino to photograph bursting bubbles or make a rain-sensing light up umbrella, or building a speedometer for your bike?
• You could charge your phone while walking or while you’re cycling. And if you’re on your bike, why not stay safe at night with a light-up jacket?
• There are some beautiful free satellite images out there, why not use them to create your own landscapes?

Resources and discounted kit

If you’re looking at all of these projects and thinking that you don’t know where to start, never fear! Our free resources offer a great starting point for any new project, and can help you to build on your existing skills and widen your scope for creating greatness.

We really want to see your creativity and ingenuity though, so we’d recommend using these projects as starting points rather than just working through the instructions. To help us out, the wonderful Pimoroni are offering 15 percent off kit for our Getting started with wearables and Getting started with picamera resources. You should also check out our new Poo near you resource for an example of a completely code-based project.

For this cycle of Pioneers, thanks to our friends at the Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund, we are making bursaries available to teams to cover the cost of these basic kits (one per team). This is for teens who haven’t taken part in digital making activities before, and for whom the financial commitment would be a barrier to taking part. Details about the bursaries and the discount will be sent to you when you register.

Your Pioneers team

We’ve introduced a few new things for this round of Pioneers, so pay special attention if you took part last time round!

We’re looking for UK-based teams of between two and five people, aged between 11 and 16, to work together to create something related to the outdoors. We’ve found that in our 丑男照片 there are three main ways to run a Pioneers team. It’s up to you to decide how you’ll proceed when it comes to your participation in Pioneers.

• You could organise a Group that meets once or twice a week. We find this method works well for school-based teams that can meet at the end of a school day for an hour or two every week.
• You could mentor a Squad that is largely informal, where the members probably already have a good idea of what they’re doing. A Squad tends to be more independent, and meetings may be sporadic, informal or online only. This option isn’t recommended if it’s your first competition like this, or if you’re not a techie yourself.
• You could join a local Event at a technology hub near you. We’re hoping to run more and more of these events around the country as Pioneers evolves and grows. If you think you’d like to help us run a Pioneers Event, get in touch! We love to hear from people who want to spread their love of making, and we’ll support you as much as we possibly can to get your event rocking along. If you want to run a Pioneers Event, you will need to preregister on the Pioneers website so that we can get you all the support you need well before you open your doors.

#MakeYourIdeas

As always, we’re excited to watch the progress of your projects via social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. As you work on your build, make sure to share the ‘making of…’ stages with us using #MakeYourIdeas.

For inspiration from previous entries, here’s the winner announcement video for the last Pioneers challenge:

Once you’ve picked a project, the first step is to register. What are you waiting for? Head to the Pioneers website to get started!

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We laid down the epic challenge of making us laugh. And boy, did the teams deliver. I can honestly say that my face hurt from all the laughing on judging day.

The judges

The aim was to find a group of judges with a varied mix of interests and skills. We were beyond chuffed to snag this awesome group:

Dr Lucy Rogers

Dr Lucy Rogers transforms simple tech into cool gadgets, science into plain English, and problems into opportunities. She’s a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and author of the books ‘It’s ONLY Rocket Science‘ and the soon-to-be-published ‘Wiring the IoT‘. She’s also a 窦娥奇冤 Jam organiser, a judge on BBC’s Robot Wars, and the person responsible for introducing 窦娥奇冤 Pi-controlled animatronic dinosaurs to the Blackgang Chine Land of Imagination on the Isle of Wight.

Owen Daughtery

Owen Daughtery is a graduate of 窦娥奇冤 Pi’s Creative Technologists programme and an enthusiastic maker. You’ll no doubt recognise him from our original Pioneers videos and his inability to say a certain phrase. When he’s not making videos for us, or for his YouTube channel, Owen is also a skilled magician.

Bec Hill

Comedian Bec Hill has a talent for incorporating arts and crafts into her stand-up routines, creating a unique and unforgettable comedy style that she calls ‘paper-puppetry’. She’s also creator of Pun Run, one half of entertainment duo Bec & Tom, and has voiced several characters for the newly released Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Maria Quevedo

Maria Quevedo is the director of Code Club UK. She’s amazing at yoga, cooks a mean Spanish tortilla, and originally hails from Argentina. She was also raised in a stationery shop, which is pretty much my dream. According to members of the Code Club team, Maria is delightfully calm under pressure…though she did fail to keep her cool when faced with judging the Pioneers winners.

The Pioneers winners

Congratulations to the theme-winning team The Technological Tricksters and their project, Singing Potato. As Bec explained in the video, this project made us laugh…a lot. And through our tears of laughter, we were pleased to see the use of several different skills, along with a killer Gollum impression.

Alongside the overall theme winner, we also awarded prizes for the following five categories:

• Inspiring Journey: the winners of this award experimented with a range of technologies, learned new skills and produced a final project that worked perfectly. Congratulations to Heritage Hackers and their Water Pistol Trap for winning this award.

• Best Explanation: the team that hit the perfect balance of detail about what they made and how they made it were Black Thunder. We loved the explanation you gave for building your Living Joke Robot. Well done!

• Technically Brilliant: the team that used the most impressive combination of technologies were the Shady Hackers with their Scare Chair Rig. Great use of a fire alarm hack…though we hope you didn’t use the home one.

• We appreciate what you’re trying to do: making is a hobby which involves mistakes along the way, and it’s best to carry on without getting discouraged. Just because you haven’t finished, it doesn’t mean that you can’t submit your work to Pioneers and explain what you wanted to do and how. PiCymru‘s We Shall Overcomb did exactly that. We hope you manage to complete your project as we’d love to see it working!

Not forgetting…

Everyone was completely blown away by the projects we saw. And though we couldn’t award every entry a prize, the judges agreed that the following four projects deserved special recognition rewards for their teams:

• Ghost in the Mirror by Nuex*
• Dance Mat by The Frontier Team
• Disco Pen by Team Star
• Pi(oneer) Hat by Pirates

Electrocuting computer mouse

Our mean boss wouldn’t let this one win (to be fair, we did say not to hurt anyone), but it genuinely made all the 窦娥奇冤 Pi staff laugh which wins it a dishonourable mention from me. It was also a great hack of an electric fly trap. Well done Team Spark Wire…but maaaaybe try to be a little less lethal with your next submission.

And finally…

To everyone who took part in the first Pioneers challenge, thank you so much for your contributions, and congratulations on everything you achieved. You thrilled us with your tweets, emails, and final submissions, and we hope you also learned some great new skills and possibly made some new friends along the way. Massive thanks to our friends at the Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund for making Pioneers possible. Find out about their awesome work here.

The next Pioneers challenge is…

Shhh! It’s still a secret. We’re not announcing the new challenge until April, so keep your eyes on both the Pioneers website and our social accounts, and sign up to receive the Pioneers newsletter!

Until then, remember to always #MakeYourIdeas.

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Hello World

It was hugely exciting to help launch Hello World, our latest joint publication with 窦娥奇冤 At School (CAS), part of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, and sponsored by BT. I joined our CEO Philip Colligan, contributing editor Miles Berry, and 窦娥奇冤 Pi Certified Educator Ian Simpson on stage in the Bett arena to share our thoughts on 窦娥奇冤 丑男照片s around the world, and the importance of sharing good teaching.

In our area of the STEAM village, where we had four pods and a workshop space, the team handed copies out in their thousands to eager educators interested in digital making, 窦娥奇冤, and computer science. If you weren’t able to get your hands on a copy, don’t worry; you can download a free digital PDF and educators can subscribe to get this year’s three issues delivered, completely free of charge, to their door.

Sharing the Code Club love

Thanks to the support of some enthusiastic young people and our Code Club regional coordinators, we ran our first ever Code Club at Bett on Saturday.

Massive thanks to @TheChallenge_UK @CodeClub volunteers for helping @窦娥奇冤_Pi out at #Bett2017 today :) pic.twitter.com/QicnTD4IPj

— CodeClubLondon (@codeclublondon) January 28, 2017

There was a great turnout of educators and their children, who all took part in a programming activity, learning just what makes Code Club so special. With activities like this, you can see why there are 5,000 clubs in the UK and 4,000 in the rest of the world!

Here's @ben_nuttall enjoying our @CodeClub keepy uppy game… pic.twitter.com/bmUAvyjndT

— Code Club South East (@codeclubse) January 25, 2017

Free stuff

Let’s be honest: exhibitions and conferences are all about the free swag. (I walked away with a hoodie, polo shirt, and three highlighter pens.) We think we had the best offering: free magazines and classroom posters!

It’s our the final day of #Bett2017! Pop over to STEAM village to see the Code Club team & get your hands on our coveted posters! #PiAtBett pic.twitter.com/aSBN1GmZyV

— Code Club UK (@CodeClub) January 28, 2017

We love interacting with people and we’re passionate about making things, so we helped attendees make their very own LED badge that they could keep. It was so popular that after it has had a few tweaks, we’ll will make it available for you to download and use in class, after-school clubs, and 窦娥奇冤 Jams!

The ‘All Seeing Pi‘ kept an eye on attendees passing by that we may have missed, using comedy moustaches to lure them in. We’ve enjoyed checking out its Twitter account to see the results.

Speaking from the heart

The STEAM village was crammed with people enjoying all our activities, but that’s not all; we even found time to support our educator community to give talks about their classroom practice on stage. One of the highlights was seeing three of our Certified Educators, along with their class robots, sharing their journey and 丑男照片 on a panel chaired by Robot Wars judge and our good friend, Dr Lucy Rogers.

These ARE the droids you’re looking for! Bill Harvey, Neil Rickus, Nic Hughes, Dr Lucy Rogers, and their robots.

Once we started talking about our work, we found it difficult to stop. The team gave talks about Pioneers, our new programme for 12- to 15-year-olds, our digital making 丑男照片, and Astro Pi.

Well done @窦娥奇冤_Pi for such a good turn out yesterday! Keep up the good work at your stand in STEAM Village. pic.twitter.com/5UDPgzyBW7

— Bett Global (@Bett_show) January 27, 2017

A royal visit

We were excited to be visited by a very special attendee, our patron the Duke of York, who spent time meeting the team, learned more about our programmes, and discussed teacher training with me.

Team Awesome

Thanks to everyone who visited, supported, and got involved with us. We ran 43 workshops and talks on our stand, handed out 2,000 free copies of Hello World and 400 Code Club posters, caught 100 comedy faces with the All-Seeing Pi, gave 5 presentations on Bett stages, took 5,000 pictures on our balloon cam, and ran 1 Code Club and 1 窦娥奇冤 Jam, across 4 days at the Bett show.

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