Ada Lovelace Day Celebrations

Tuesday the 13th October is Ada Lovelace Day – an annual celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

800px-Ada_Lovelace_portraitThanks to the generous support from ARM, one of Code Club’s Strategic Partners, we have created a brand new Ada-themed Code Club project and school assembly pack, which we hope will be a fun and informative way of helping to shine a spotlight on Ada’s achievements and to help inspire more women and girls into careers in the technology sector.

Assembly plan

We’ve produced a ready to use assembly plan, which will allow schools to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. The assembly plan focusses on:

  • Understanding the story of Ada Lovelace and her achievements
  • Reflecting on the significance of computer science
  • Considering the future and problems that can be solved by computer science  
  • Sharing stories of women in computing today

You can download the assembly plan and introduction notes here.

Ada themed Scratch project

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Inspired by Ada’s “poetical science” approach to her study of mathematics, we’ve made a Scratch project which shows how to create a poetry generating machine!

As well as helping to develop core skills such as planning, problem solving and collaboration, the project also introduces the following programming concepts:

  • Sequencing Instructions;
  • Variables;
  • Repetition (loops);
  • Lists, and random list items.

Children can complete this project in school, or at home. The project includes step-by-step instructions for creating a basic poetry generator, as well as challenges to consolidate learning and encourage exploration and creativity.

The project also includes volunteer notes explaining how to use the project, and a completed poetry generator to demonstrate to children.

Share your work:

We’d love to view and share a selection of the best Ada projects and poems. If children would like the chance of seeing their work shared on our social media sites, those with a Scratch account can upload their creations to the Scratch website, and tag them with ‘ALD15’. You can also share your children’s creations with us directly on Twitter by tweeting us @CodeClub.

Have a go at “Ada’s Poetry Generator” by visiting jumpto.cc/poetry.

We hope you’ll enjoy using these resources – please share them far and wide and help inspire more children to get excited about coding and Ada Lovelace Day!