We had another brilliant weekend bringing Pytch to Dublin Maker 2026 at Leopardstown Racecourse. This year marked our fourth time participating in Dublin Maker. We always love being part of this special event.

Over two very busy days, the Pytch team got the chance to meet lots of curious makers, young coders, families, teachers and visitors. We were delighted to introduce people to Pytch and show them how they can learn to code using our completely free online application.

Arcade Games with Pytch and Raspberry Pi🕹️

This year, we brought along arcade-style Pytch setups powered by Raspberry Pi 5 computers. The Raspberry Pis were set up to allow physical joysticks and buttons to control games created in Pytch, bringing the code off the screen and turning it into a hands-on arcade experience.

Visitors both young and old had fun playing loads of retro games including Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Pong. We also adapted our Pytch Gardening Game to work with a joystick and arcade buttons, giving visitors a new way to play and interact with the game. The setup was a huge hit. One young visitor called the Gardening Game:

“The best game ever!”

From Playing to Coding 💻✨

While the arcade games attracted plenty of attention, they also gave us a great opportunity to show visitors what was happening behind the games and introduce them to coding with Pytch.

Pytch is designed to help learners make the transition from Scratch-style block-based programming to Python, while keeping many of the familiar ideas of sprites, stages and creative projects. Visitors could see that the games they were playing had been created with code and explore how they could begin creating and adapting projects themselves.

Some children and parents spent time exploring the Pytch tutorials together, with plans to continue experimenting at home. It was lovely to see that interest extending beyond younger coders too – one adult visitor told us they planned to use Pytch to help them learn Python.

Because Pytch is free and runs in a web browser, anyone interested in giving it a try can continue exploring after Dublin Maker.

Inspiration from Our Neighbours

One of the great things about Dublin Maker is seeing the creativity of the other makers around us. We were lucky to have 1D Space Invaders as our neighbours for the weekend. Their brilliantly creative LED arcade experience caught our attention and has even inspired an idea for a new Pytch game. Watch this space!

Thanks, Dublin Maker! ❤️

A huge thank you to everyone who stopped by the Pytch stand, played a game, explored some code, asked us questions or simply came over for a chat.

And, of course, a huge thank you to the Dublin Maker team for once again putting together such a welcoming and enjoyable event.

After four Dublin Makers, we still come away inspired by the enthusiasm, imagination and sheer variety of making on display.

See you at Dublin Maker 2027! 🛠️💻✨