2022-02-16 Festival of Science and Curiosity

Our plan for the workshop

SSTC was proud to participate in the Festival of Science and Curiosity, being held across the city of Nottingham.  We invited people to Bulwell Library, to have a go at building their own application.  Our plan for the 2 hours together:

•  Introduce the basics of the tools and where to get hold of them.   

• Run through different ways to approach designing an application and expressing the design within the tools. 

• Design the user flow and the screens.  Sit and chat with each group to nudge them in the right direction.  

• Walkthrough of design of each application and share it with the entire group. 

Application 1 - Cleanup Issue for the City

The  idea was generated by the frustration in recording an issue on the city web site.  The city needs an exact address for each issue noted.  We looked for examples of applications that had already utilized maps .  We copied it and modified it to show building on something.  

Application 2 - Sharing Household Chores

The idea came from the need to share out chores in a shared house.  Housemates can see on a calendar who is doing what chore and if anything needs assigning. 

Application 3 - Fielding a Rugby Squad

The idea came from a coach trying to keep a team fit through multiple injuries and still have enough players for each fixture in a season. 

Application 4 - Monitoring Wellbeing

The idea came from seeing many of the fitness tracking apps.   We explored ways to show progress on many goals at the same time.

Interview with the Festival Program Director

Megan: So Nigel, thanks so much for doing the workshop for us for the Festival of Science and Curiosity, here at the Bulwell Library. Tell us a bit about what you do and why you wanted to get involved.

Nigel: Well, firstly thank you very much for the invite. I was amazed to be able to participate in this city-wide science fair. What a great idea. 

For the last couple of years, I have been an educator in the technology space and the local MP here has helped me out a great deal. When I have had projects from students that have touched on public policy, I have been very grateful that he has sat down with my students and broadened their ideas of what education means and the impact that they might have in the world. It has been incredibly impressive to me that the MP would do that. I am trying to pay some of that back, by bringing my educational abilities back to his constituency, in areas that I am passionate about, such as Low Code Development.

Megan: Low Code Development. When a lot of people think software development, they think coding, they think it is going to be really difficult, they are going to need loads of skills, but that is not what we have been doing today, we have been doing low code, so tell us about that.

Nigel: I think it is an amazing forefront in software. What we proved today, is that we can take people of any age, with no real experience of programming and in a couple of hours, they have built their first applications, on services that are freely available on the public internet. We proved this by doing it in a public library. I am very excited about that capability and what it means for economic regeneration because the means of production are now freely available on the public internet from the public library. I hope that by showing people that just with the ideas that they have they can create something valuable very quickly. 

Megan: Thank you very much.

Nigel: Thank you.