We were delighted to welcome students from nine schools and coding groups to Trinity College Dublin for our Pytch Create-athon on 1 October.

Students joined us from Larkin Community College, Mount Carmel Secondary School, Saint Joseph’s CBS Secondary School, Saint Laurence O’Toole’s Specialist School, Henrietta Street School, Stratford College, Mount Temple, Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School, and CoderDojo Portarlington, including students from Coláiste Íosagáin, Portarlington.

A day of coding and creativity 💻

The idea behind the Create-athon was simple: bring young people together, give them a theme and see what they could create with Pytch.

And they certainly delivered!

Our theme for the day was “Fall”, and we were blown away by the creativity, imagination and enthusiasm the students brought to it.

We saw projects inspired by every possible interpretation of the word – from falling in love to falling down, along with lonesome ghosts, chattering birds, games, stories, animations and plenty of wonderfully unexpected ideas!

So many different ideas 💡

Throughout the day, students worked individually and in groups to develop their projects, experiment with ideas and help one another with their code.

One of the loveliest parts of the day was seeing the huge variety of projects that emerged from the same starting point.

At the end of the coding session, students had an opportunity to share their creations with everyone else.

The Create-athon wasn’t a competition. The focus was on creativity, coding, meeting other young people and most importantly, having fun.

Thank you! ❤️

A huge thank you to Workday for their very generous sponsorship of the Create-athon, and to Research Ireland for their continued support of the Pytch project. Their support helps us create opportunities like this for young people to explore programming in a creative and enjoyable way.

We were also delighted to welcome Jenny Lennon from Research Ireland to the Create-athon. Thank you, Jenny, for taking the time to visit us and meet the students and teachers. We really appreciated having you there and the opportunity to share the day with you.

Finally, our biggest thank you goes to all of the students, teachers, school staff and coding mentors who joined us. The enthusiasm and creativity in the room made the day what it was.

We came away from the Create-athon amazed by what the students had created. We are already looking forward to the next one! 🚀