Aviva STEAM event for girls 👩‍💻

The Pytch team were delighted to take part in a recent STEAM event hosted by Aviva Ireland. The event focused on encouraging more girls to explore and engage with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.

The event welcomed 32 female Transition Year students from Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School for a day of hands-on, creative workshops designed to make STEAM subjects feel fun, relevant and accessible. Alongside activities such as 3D printing, laser cutting and sound engineering, students also took part in a creative coding workshop using Pytch.

In partnership with CoderDojo Portarlington 🥋

We were kindly invited to run Pytch taster workshops at this event by Mark Gavin, Lead Technical Mentor with Portarlington CoderDojo. Our workshops were led by our Pytch Research Assistant, Martin Nang’ole. We were also very grateful for the support provided by Tadhg Ó’Comhraidhe, a volunteer from Portarlington CoderDojo.

Creative Coding with Pytch 💻

Students explored the Shoot the Fruit game, a beginner-friendly tutorial that introduces coding concepts through building a simple arcade-style game. The session began with students playing a completed version of the game to see what they would be working towards, before moving into the tutorial to start building their own version step by step.

After completing the first stage together, students continued independently, experimenting with code and gradually gaining confidence. Towards the end of the session, they had the chance to customise their projects – changing backgrounds, adjusting scoring, and modifying characters. If you’d like to try out a Pytch taster session you can check out the Pytch Taster information sheet here.

A Brilliant Group of Young Coders

The students were an enthusiastic and engaged group who really embraced the coding activity. They quickly became comfortable using the Pytch coding environment and weren’t afraid to try things out, make changes, and ask questions. It was wonderful to see their confidence grow in such a short space of time.

We were extremely impressed by the levels of creativity and engagement. It was wonderful to see the students discussing and comparing their creations.

Thanks to all involved ✨

We had an amazing day and are very grateful to Aviva Ireland, Mark Gavin and everyone involved for the warm welcome, support and fantastic organisation. We’re looking forward to many more opportunities like this to inspire young people – especially girls – to see themselves as creators in STEAM.