DesignIT 2008

paulfo — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:08:01 GMT

Over the last three months we’ve invited IT professionals to submit their designs for computer systems that demonstrate creativity as well as tackling real social, human interest problems experienced by charities large and small: such as contributing to the battle to reduce carbon emissions; bringing conservation closer to the people that use technology; opening channels of communication for abused and vulnerable children and identifying new opportunities for disabled people. In so doing we’ve teamed up with four charities: Leonard Cheshire Disability, Global Action Plan, Flora and Fauna International and NSPCC.

From today through to 11th April 2008 you have the opportunity to decide which contestant will walk away with the top prize – to see their system design implemented for the charity of their choice to the sum of £15,000. Choose from five finalists – all addressing serious concerns: such as a screen saver highlighting missing children, wind powered IT to reduce carbon footprint and giving young homeless people to store key personal information and have access to the support available - Review the short listed entries and vote for your favourite

The winner will be announced on 14th April. The main criteria for the public vote is a level of originality and creativity, together with the ‘real world’ benefit.
Whilst the public vote will reveal a victor, our finalists will enjoy the extraordinary experience of seeing the nuts and bolts of their vision interpreted as a seminal work of art.
All five entries will be displayed at the DesignIT exhibition to be held at The Music Room, London 12^th June 2008.

FLL 2007 - Cambridge tournament

paulfo — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:23:11 GMT

I was able to attend the First Lego League 'Power Puzzle' challenge tournament at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford last weekend. Duxford, an old WWII fighter air base, has an enormous collection of commercial and military planes. The FLL tournament took place nestled amongst some of the exhibits in the recently built AirSpace hanger.

The tournament was a great success with many of the top UK teams attending. With scores frequently over the 250 points mark it is a tough tournament to participate in for teams.

The over all tournament champions were team TSM Roboteam 2K7 who's robot showed excellent consistency and who delivered some of the best presentations across the three over scoring activities. Well done to TSM Roboteam 2K7 - who now go onto the UK final in Birmingham.

I was particularly pleased that we (Microsoft UK) could also support the Duxford tournament by funding all the medals and trophies. This gave me the opportunity to join David Massey (Robot challenge teacher extraordinare) in giving the awards.

It was great to see the team's robot solutions - I still have to build mine for exhibition and FLL recruitment work - it has given me and my sons plenty of ideas :-)

Well done to all the teams who took part - we think you are awesome!

Team TSM Roboteam 2K7 tournament champions.

Some other photos from the event.

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DesignIT 2008

FLL 2007 - Cambridge tournament