Ada Lovelace Day 2026 - Registration Of Interest

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1. Ada Lovelace Day - Registration of Interest

Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. To celebrate, RAL will be hosting a hybrid (online and in-person) computing challenge day for classes of students from Year 8 or 9.  The day will take place on Tuesday 13 October 2026, from 09:00-15:00 (in person at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, OX11 0QX) and from 09:30-15:00 online.

 

We ask that schools bring teams of four students if attending in-person.  If attending online, full classes are welcome to participate.

 

The event is designed to introduce students to the excitement of computing - teams will be given a (top secret!) challenge and will spend the day using Arduinos and computer programming to find a solution. The day will also include a behind-the-scenes tour of our scientific computing facilities (in-person for those on site, virtual for those joining us online), as well as a short careers talk. After an introduction, given in person and streamed live , each team (on-site) or school (online) will be introduced to their mentors, who will help and support the teams throughout the day.

 

Students joining us from school will need access to a computer with internet access to complete the exercises. The activities can be completed entirely virtually, using a browser. The day has been designed to be flexible so that school breaks can be accommodated.

It is also possible to join just for the tour and careers talk (14:20-14:50) without taking part in the exercise: please tick that option when registering.

Registration of interest for the Ada Lovelace Day closes at midnight on Monday 29 June 2026.  As many of our events are oversubscribed, once registration of interest closes the first 40% of places will be allocated by ballot to applying state schools located in areas where the IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation) is 1-4 - this is part of our Wonder Initiative.  The remaining places will be allocated to all remaining schools using a random number generator.  All schools will be contacted by midnight on Wednesday 1 July 2026.

 

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