Forget the sun: where’s my robot?
Announcement posted by Altium 10 Dec 2009
Altium sponsors high school students attending the 2010 NCSS Summer School
SYDNEY, Australia – December 10, 2009 – Come January, while many high school students will be enjoying time in the sun away from their studies, 64 students from around Australia will converge on the University of Sydney to do battle with each other in the field of computer programming, robotics and web design.
The event is the 2010 National Computer Science School (NCSS) Summer School, a 10-day summer program that brings together Australia’s brightest high school students to learn programming skills at the University of Sydney. Students from grades 10-12 from all around Australia descend on the University to learn the basics in computer science and apply those skills to embed intelligence into a complete embedded control system for an iRobot Create platform. The resulting robots, essentially iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum cleaners with the innards removed, compete in a battle of embedded programming over physical obstacles.
Altium is one of 11 sponsors - the University of Sydney (the University of Sydney School of Information Technologies runs the NCSS), NICTA, Embedded Systems Australia, CargoWise, Atlassian, Macquarie Group, Smart Services CRC, AUC and Google.
The aim of the NCSS Summer School is to provide a forum for Australia’s future programmers and engineers to meet and mix with their peers. In many cases, these students know more about IT and programming than anyone else in their schools or even their communities. The Summer School promotes technology and science as an exciting and fulfilling career for young Australians in the face of a continuing skills shortage. Figures for Australia’s domestic IT tertiary enrollment indicate a 50% decrease (from 17,058 to 7,839 students) in enrolments from 2001-2007*.
“Australia has to remain innovative,” said Marty Hauff, Master Electronics Designer Success Manager, Altium. “Programming knows no national boundaries, and we have to provide the best possible training and support to ensure that Australia has an even larger share of the world’s software development market in the future.
“The NCSS continues this tradition of innovation by providing fantastic opportunities for young Australians to demonstrate their skills to each other, to their parents, to the academic community and to industry. Having fun is part of the experience as well!
“By sponsoring this event, Altium hopes to help more budding software engineers reach their potential and develop the technical and networking skills they will need. Altium is proud to be a sponsor of this event and promote the future careers of these students.”
Altium is sponsoring both the Summer School and the NCSS Challenge for 2010, which teaches young students how to program using the C programming language, including those who are completely new to programming.
The NCSS Summer School is being held January 2 to January 11, 2009. For more information, visit www.ncss.edu.au.
ENDS
About Altium
Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) provides next generation electronics design software. Altium’s unified electronics design environment links all aspects of electronics product design into one process, in a single application. This helps electronics designers harness the latest devices and technologies, manage their projects across broad design ‘ecosystems’, and create connected, intelligent designs. For more information, visit www.altium.com.
Altium, Altium Designer and LiveDesign, and their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited, or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed.
*Assembled from statistics available at www.dest.gov.au
The event is the 2010 National Computer Science School (NCSS) Summer School, a 10-day summer program that brings together Australia’s brightest high school students to learn programming skills at the University of Sydney. Students from grades 10-12 from all around Australia descend on the University to learn the basics in computer science and apply those skills to embed intelligence into a complete embedded control system for an iRobot Create platform. The resulting robots, essentially iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum cleaners with the innards removed, compete in a battle of embedded programming over physical obstacles.
Altium is one of 11 sponsors - the University of Sydney (the University of Sydney School of Information Technologies runs the NCSS), NICTA, Embedded Systems Australia, CargoWise, Atlassian, Macquarie Group, Smart Services CRC, AUC and Google.
The aim of the NCSS Summer School is to provide a forum for Australia’s future programmers and engineers to meet and mix with their peers. In many cases, these students know more about IT and programming than anyone else in their schools or even their communities. The Summer School promotes technology and science as an exciting and fulfilling career for young Australians in the face of a continuing skills shortage. Figures for Australia’s domestic IT tertiary enrollment indicate a 50% decrease (from 17,058 to 7,839 students) in enrolments from 2001-2007*.
“Australia has to remain innovative,” said Marty Hauff, Master Electronics Designer Success Manager, Altium. “Programming knows no national boundaries, and we have to provide the best possible training and support to ensure that Australia has an even larger share of the world’s software development market in the future.
“The NCSS continues this tradition of innovation by providing fantastic opportunities for young Australians to demonstrate their skills to each other, to their parents, to the academic community and to industry. Having fun is part of the experience as well!
“By sponsoring this event, Altium hopes to help more budding software engineers reach their potential and develop the technical and networking skills they will need. Altium is proud to be a sponsor of this event and promote the future careers of these students.”
Altium is sponsoring both the Summer School and the NCSS Challenge for 2010, which teaches young students how to program using the C programming language, including those who are completely new to programming.
The NCSS Summer School is being held January 2 to January 11, 2009. For more information, visit www.ncss.edu.au.
ENDS
About Altium
Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) provides next generation electronics design software. Altium’s unified electronics design environment links all aspects of electronics product design into one process, in a single application. This helps electronics designers harness the latest devices and technologies, manage their projects across broad design ‘ecosystems’, and create connected, intelligent designs. For more information, visit www.altium.com.
Altium, Altium Designer and LiveDesign, and their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited, or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed.
*Assembled from statistics available at www.dest.gov.au