Ada Lovelace Day Online 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 14 October 2025, from 09:00-15:00 (in person at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire) and from 09:30-15:00 online. 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 – and if you would like, you can join for the tour and careers talk (14:20-14:50) without taking part in the exercise: please tick that option when registering.

Registration for Ada Lovelace Day Online 2025 is now closed. You can register to join the Ada Lovelace Day Online: Talks and tour section of the event until 13th October 2025.

Category: Computing our Future