Our S3 National 5 Computing Science pupils attended RGU’s School of Computing for the Christmas with Computing lecture where they enjoyed some scientific but festive fun before the holiday break.

Mr Hay, Head of Computing Science said: “Was great to see the pupils learning about how augmented reality and artificial intelligence is powering chatbots and that there is artificial intelligence in their everyday life. Pupils were also able to see the importance of cyber security when online. We will be back next year!”

Isla (S3) commented: “It was an amazing experience, where we learned many interesting things about AR, VPNs and Chatbots. We pretended to be hackers, crashing a Minecraft sever with Festive turkeys; we met Santa, and asked his opinion on Diehard as a Christmas film, paradoxes and many other things, though most people got confused between the real Santa and the AI Santa. We also saw Pepper the robot interrupt the presenters throughout the trip; and we had lots of sweets thrown at us. 

"I would definitely recommend this trip to people given the opportunity to go, it is like no other.”

Our pupils were joined by peers from Forfar Academy and Lochside Academy who also attended the lecture.

Dr John Issacs, Dean of the School of Computing at RGU, said: “Not only was lots and lots of fun had by everyone, I hope that the pupils come away from the event with a better understanding of what computing in the 21st century looks like. Technology plays such an importance in all of our lives with it impacting everything from Christmas presents to the films we may be watching over the festive period. We hope all of the pupils will remember the Christmas with Computing event and I hope we may have even inspired some computing students of the future.”