More than 100 schools were challenged to build projects around the credit card-sized computer that could help to ‘save the planet’. And these entries were whittled down to the nine finalists judged at the IET, at Savoy Place, last week.

The imaginative entries included ‘Raspberry-Sky’, to monitor air pollution by decoding aircraft ADB-S data (using “dump1090“) and crowd-sourcing the results; ‘Smart Bin’, which uses the Clarifai AI system to categorise images via the Cloud (AWS); and ‘Recycle Michael’, another smart bin, which interfaced a bar-code scanner to a Pi to identify the materials being thrown away…

Challenge hardware

The rules were simple. Each team was allowed a limited amount of additional hardware (besides a display, keyboard, mouse, SD card and Internet connectivity), with a budget of approximately £100, not including the cost of the Pi.

Judges – including the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones, Craig Morley of the Raspberry Pi foundation and the CTO of Lloyd’s Register Nial McCollam – were looking for evidence of creativity and originality. Specifically, the simplicity and clarity of build instructions, the benefit the idea could bring to the world, commercial potential and team passion.

There were three categories to the competition, and the three finalists in each are listed below:

Primary School Award (academic years 4-6, ages 9-11) –
winner: Ysgol Deganwy, Conwy
Croydon High School
St Mary’s CofE Primary School

Secondary School Award (academic years 7-11, ages 12-16) –
winner: Kenilworth School, Warwickshire
Tanbridge House School
Usk Code Club

Sixth Form and College Award (academic years 12-13, ages 17-18) –
winner: Collyer’s Sixth Form College, West Sussex
Felpham Community College
King Edward VI Grammar School

Congratulations to one and all, for their impressive work. For more detail on the competition final, see PA’s Raspberry Pi Competition 2018 tackles Sustainability on our Gadget Master blog.

You can view a video from the event below: