Since September the team have worked with BT on a mobile phone application that allows people to donate money for charity or fundraising events to the website ‘Mydonate’ via an android mobile phone. The students have had to research this area to learn about competitor applications and learn how to write computer code in ‘Java’ as well as design the various pages of the application. They have worked with software engineers and designers at BT and have visited BT for workshops and meetings regularly. Software engineers from BT have also visited the school to run workshops on writing computer code and ‘Pseudo-code’.
The team planned the project during the Autumn Term and have managed their time effectively to meet deadlines whilst working in Design and Computer Code sub-groups. In March they submitted a formal written report and this formed part of the judging process at the EESW Awards day at the Celtic Manor Hotel on 7th April. In addition the team gave a formal presentation of their work to professional engineers at the event who were judging them to a set of shared criteria. The students performed brilliantly under tough questioning and all members of the team really stepped up to the plate to give a detailed presentation which involved ideas for further development of the application with BT and the advantages of their application over its rivals.
Howell's were eventually awarded the prize for ‘Most Effective Application of I.T.' Well done to all members of the team: Alice, Cameron, Chloe, Dan, Flo, Harry, Jonathan, Lewis and Paul. The team were ably led by Dan. Each member of the team has won £50! A huge thank you to Ronan Miles, our contact engineer at BT, and his team of software engineers and designers, and to Peter Sishton (EESW).