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. If attending online, full classes are welcome to participate.

Information about the online school workshop

This online school workshop 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. After an introduction, streamed live, each school will be introduced to their mentors, who will help and support the teams throughout the day. The day will also include a behind-the-scenes virtual tour of our scientific computing facilities as well as a short careers talk.

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 without taking part in the exercise: please tick that option when registering.

Registration for Ada Lovelace Day Online 2026 is open and will close at midnight on Monday 29 June 2026.