Brave year 10 students tackle the design of a smart city to bring the Internet of Things to life.

The event took place over 2 days: 27^th and 28^th February. 15 students from Greig’s City Academy took the challenge to design and create a smart city. Working hard and going beyond all expectations the three teams designed and delivered:

HandE: an interactive glove for controlling the home

DogBot: a mobile robot that communicates by beeping when it gets too close to objects.

Coin reward bank for encouraging students to collect change and give it to charity.

The students then took to the big stage and presented their ideas to the London Festival of Education.

See the news article: Schools Week

Storify: HackEd 2015

Background to the design of the event

In December 2014 Dr. Patricia Charlton was commissioned to design and deliver the 2^nd Education Hackfest. As in the previous Education Hackfest she delivered in 2012, the event design was centred around students ideas, collaboration with industry and researchers and the students would take centre stage at the London Festival of Education and present their results and experience.

Although Patricia designed the theme for the event, one of the core aspects of the learning experience is to let the students ideas emerge and mature through collaboration and exchange. The design of resources and materials and contextualising these ideas requires investigation and innovation and preparation before hand but also improvising , which is all part of the great fun and learning experience challenge.

Patricia’s Internet of Things Desk