Ysgol Maesydderwen reach the UK final of the Cyber Security Challenge for the second year.
Friday 5th June 2015, Cheltenham (UK) – Six school teams of tech-savvy 14 year olds to 17 year olds students from across the UK competed in a Back to the Future meets Robot Wars cyber competition to find the ultimate young cyber defenders. The Schools Final of the Cyber Security Challenge UK was run in association with global technology and defence company Raytheon, in a bid to increase cyber education and fill the cyber skills gap in the UK.
After months of code-breaking exercises and a virtual competition run during lunchtime and after school club a team of 5 year 9 boys made the UK final (the only Welsh school). The team was made up of; Liam Allan, Leon Buck, Daniel Edwards, Alec Jones and Ethan Peacy.
The competition required the teams to collect clues by completing mini-challenges around Cheltenham Science Festival, where the theme of the Science Zone this year was ‘Back to the Future’.
Friday 5th June 2015, Cheltenham (UK) – Six school teams of tech-savvy 14 year olds to 17 year olds students from across the UK competed in a Back to the Future meets Robot Wars cyber competition to find the ultimate young cyber defenders. The Schools Final of the Cyber Security Challenge UK was run in association with global technology and defence company Raytheon, in a bid to increase cyber education and fill the cyber skills gap in the UK.
After months of code-breaking exercises and a virtual competition run during lunchtime and after school club a team of 5 year 9 boys made the UK final (the only Welsh school). The team was made up of; Liam Allan, Leon Buck, Daniel Edwards, Alec Jones and Ethan Peacy.
The competition required the teams to collect clues by completing mini-challenges around Cheltenham Science Festival, where the theme of the Science Zone this year was ‘Back to the Future’.
Receiving engineering parts such as a remote control car, a software package and additional hardware, teams were able to construct their own drones to compete in the final ‘cyber battlefield’ at Cheltenham College in the afternoon.
Once teams were in the ring, they needed to use their drones to defend themselves from their peers’ attacks, which included denial of service attacks (causing any bots in the near area to lose power) as well as long-range targeted attacks to disarm individuals that were in the lead. The ultimate winner had to collect ‘spare fuel’ from sensor pads and bring it to base to power the ‘Flux Capacitor’ and bring the team home. All school teams got to take their homemade drones back to school as well as other prizes.
The team were also invited to attend Digital 2015 at the Celtic Manor resort, Newport on Monday 8th June 2015 from their success. They were well known around the event by the various companies and organisations that were sponsoring the event. The team of 5 presented to the Teachmeet why they enjoy competing in the challenge and what they have gained from it, such as team building, coding and future career prospects.
Last year the team were also featured on BBC Newsround:
Once teams were in the ring, they needed to use their drones to defend themselves from their peers’ attacks, which included denial of service attacks (causing any bots in the near area to lose power) as well as long-range targeted attacks to disarm individuals that were in the lead. The ultimate winner had to collect ‘spare fuel’ from sensor pads and bring it to base to power the ‘Flux Capacitor’ and bring the team home. All school teams got to take their homemade drones back to school as well as other prizes.
The team were also invited to attend Digital 2015 at the Celtic Manor resort, Newport on Monday 8th June 2015 from their success. They were well known around the event by the various companies and organisations that were sponsoring the event. The team of 5 presented to the Teachmeet why they enjoy competing in the challenge and what they have gained from it, such as team building, coding and future career prospects.
Last year the team were also featured on BBC Newsround:
