CAS Higher Education Community

BCS 2025 Competitions Please publicise these, and maybe enter your students and how about entering the BCS Open classes yourself ? - many thanks Margaret

This year there are BCS 2025 competitions, organised by the BCS GreenIT, e-learning, Animation and Games Development SGs.

Details of all these at Community competitions | BCS

All student entries, at all levels, including part-time students, must be entered by a member of staff at that educational establishment.

Each year there are different themes for each of these competitions.

Here you will find a list of competitions being run by our BCS SGs

BCS e-Learning specialist group
-Theme: “AI for Health Improvement and Education”. - Who can take part?: Primary to Post-grad (p2p) and Open classes

• Entries by: Monday 7 April 2025, World Health Day 2025 BCS e-Learning SG 2025 competition | BCS

BCS Animation and Games Development specialist group

• Theme for the artifact: “The Power of Connection - Design a game where the core idea is understanding, empathy, and unity among players from different cultures and backgrounds”
• Who can take part?: Primary to Post-grad (p2p) and Open classes
• Entries by: Friday 9 May 2025

BCS GreenIT specialist group

• Theme: Our Power, Our Planet "This is why Earth Day’s theme for 2025, Our Power, Our Planet, is perhaps our most important theme ever. This year we will shine a spotlight on renewable energy — for our power, our people, and our planet.!”
• Who can take part?: Primary to Post-grad (p2p) students and open classes
• Entries by: Tuesday 22 April 2025 (Earth Day) -

BCS Cybercrime Forensics SG Theme: “Cybercrime Forensics - show us your stuff!"
Who can take part?: HE and FE students
Entries by: Friday 30 May 2025

An example of a winning entry of one of the Power Point competitions:

The winning entry a few years ago for the idea for a computer game was a single PowerPoint titled “The Last Mermaid” showing a picture of a mermaid sitting on a rock with rubbish in the sea around her - so the picture immediately gave a clue to the subject, as did the title “The Last Mermaid”.

There were 5 bullet points that explained the idea, which were:

a simple computer game for all ages from the young to the old to compare how long different items remained in the sea (say comparing an apple core to a baby’s nappy)

a more different difficult level of the game “The Last Mermaid” was to identify how different materials could harm different types of wildlife in the sea, from eating plastic to getting trapped in plastic containers

the aim of the game which was to make everyone regardless of age more aware of the harm that we could do to the oceans and the creatures that live in it

everyone should to think about renewing or reusing items that we no longer use

Every one of the Panel of Judges independently chose this, “The Last Mermaid”

as it was relevant to the theme, with a clear simple explanation, together with suitable picture(s) relevant to the theme for that year, showing a possible useful application to help solve a problem

Although the judges are given no precise criteria, they are asked to rank the entries in their preferred order. Their comments that I received after from the judges all commented positively on those above points.

Please pass on this message to your students:
We are working with Epic Games for their Game Jam, held in support of the World Food Programme. This exciting event will challenge you to create impactful games around the theme “Outplay Hunger and Food Security”, raising awareness about global food security issues through creative game design.

Event Details:
Theme: Outplay Hunger and Food Security
Date: March 21st – 23rd, 2025 (Please confirm your availability below)
Venue: Staffordshire University
Platform: Games will be created using Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN)
Team Size: 2 – 5 members

Sign up here: Microsoft Forms

Join us today at 4pm to discuss ideas, share insights, and explore possible actions to support and advance our collective goals. As this is our second meeting, we’re continuing to foster collaboration and provide a space for participants to contribute to ongoing initiatives.
https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/events/2024/november/cas-higher-education-community-meeting

Hi Gavin
You might want to post in the ITT & ECT community as there’s many lecturers in there
Thanks

I am undertaking a quick scoping review of provision of computing in primary ITT/ITE. Would colleagues within the HE group involved in ITT/ITE be able to spare a few minutes to help? This came up as a possible area of interest in the group meeting a couple of weeks back.

If you would be happy to take part in a short questionnaire or to have a quick chat via teams, please send me a message via the forum. The time frame for this work is quite short, but would love as many CAS members as possible to be included.

Many Thanks

Gavin