The University of Ulster’s Widening Access programmes to encourage a greater uptake in computing and engineering courses continue to go from strength to strength. The ‘Widening Access By Introducing Programming in Schools’ (WABIPS) project at the university’s Magee campus has now completed its third year with both the number of schools and pupils involved increasing year on year.
Dr Sonya Coleman, senior lecturer in the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems explained that the WABIPS project was designed to help Year 14 pupils with the transition from school by giving them a taste of what it would be like to study computing at university.
“It was designed to introduce basic programming concepts-such as variable declarations, conditional statements and loops-in a fun and engaging way.
“These topics are all covered in the first year of a computing degree, so the programme was specifically designed to help sixth formers make informed decisions about their university choices.
Dr Coleman added the WABIPS project also gave university lecturers an opportunity to work with local schools to promote STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) subjects, particularly to girls who are still typically under-represented in these areas.
“In the longer term, we would hope that it could encourage some of them to pursue a career in computing or engineering related disciplines,” she said.
Two staff from the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, Karl McCreadie and Anne Hinds visited the participating schools each week from September 2012 to May 2013 to deliver the programming course.
In total 44 pupils from Thornhill College, St Cecilia’s College, St Mary’s College, Lisneal College and Limavady High School completed the course and received certificates at the presentation at Magee.
The feedback from the schools, the participating pupils and the tutors involved was very positive.
Natalie Bradley (17), a year 13pupil at St. Cecilia’s College said she found the WABIPS programme really useful.
“It gave me a better understanding of coding and programming which was a great help for my school coursework.
“I’m studying ICT and Health and Social Care at school so I was really enjoyed learning about how new technology is being used to improve health care, she added.
Caption Natalie Bradley (17) from St. Cecilia’s College, Derry demonstrating how a phone App developed in App Inventor can be used as a remote control for the Lego MindStorm Robots for a game of mini remote control robot wars. Natalie was one of the local sixth formers to complete the Introduction to Programmimg course at the University of Ulster's School of Computing and Intelligent Systems Centre at the Magee Campus.
