Twenty-four Computer Science students from Years 10, 11 and 12 recently went to Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing.
They spent their time at Bletchley Park discovering the incredible achievements of Britain's World War Two Codebreakers in the place where it happened. The students had a fascinating session learning some of the secrets of the Lorenz machine (more effective but less well known than the iconic Enigma machine), including its use of binary operations to generate a number of key settings that dwarfed that of Enigma.
At the National Museum of Computing they were given a captivating tour that followed the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe and Colossus of the 1940s, through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the advancement of personal computing and the rise of mobile computing and the internet.
They finished off their day using virtual reality, stepping into another world with their Oculus Headsets; building communication skills by collaboratively solving fast-paced problems. A great day was had by all.
Mrs H Williams, Team Leader Computer Science
