Are you a future app developer, programmer or game designer? Here are six tech activities for the school holidays that’ll help you on your way to computer science career success… or just fill in the time before school goes back!
1. Learn to code
At the top of our list of tech activities for the school holidays is coding! Coding is so good for your problem-solving skills, and can help you out in a wide range of industries (not just computer science). We tracked down nine fun ways to learn to code, from Swift Playgrounds to Raspberry Pi!
9 fun ways to learn to code
2. Take our tech quizzes
Did you know we have a whole quiz hub on Careers with STEM? Here are our top tech ones. These are great to share with your friends too!
- What app should you develop?
- How cyber safe are you?
- Which tech start up are you?
- Can you spot a deep fake from a real face?
- Which app are you?
- Which area of tech should you study?
- Which coder are you?
3. Make a stop motion animation
Stop motion is a cool animation technique where one frame is captured at a time. In between each shot, the objects in the frame are slightly moved. When the video is edited together, it looks like the objects are moving on their own. You can make a stop motion film with your phone, tablet or computer. ACMI has awesome instructions on how to put one together, including the apps and equipment you’ll need.
RELATED: Career Profile: Digital Animator
4. Re-build old tech
Have you got an old computer, videogame console or gadget lying around that no one uses anymore? Take it apart and put it back together in a new way. You’ll get to see exactly how the tech works and create some amazing art with the pieces. Remember to wear safety equipment like goggles, and stay away with anything with cathode ray tube monitors – these are in old TVs and computer screens and are unsafe).
5. Get unplugged
Being glued to a screen isn’t the only way to learn about technology. Check out CS Unplugged, which is all about computer science without the computer! You can learn about things like binary, algorithms and data compression by using cards, string and movement, and they even have a section where you can dive into cryptology.
If you’re looking for more tech activities for the school holidays, add our technology career profiles to your reading list! These profiles provide some serious inspo, with app developers, UX designers, robotics engineers, software engineers and cybersecurity researchers sharing their study and career pathways.
6. Go geocaching
This one is so much fun, especially as you can enjoy your tech in the great outdoors. Think of geocaching as a big treasure hunt. Using map coordinates and a GPS enabled device, you go looking for geocaches. Geocaches can be small or large – some even have surprises inside or logbooks for you to sign. Take a look at Geocaching Australia to find out all the rules and where you can try it out.
Don’t forget to check out our latest issue of Careers with STEM: Technology and sign up to the Careers with STEM e-newsletter to find out more about tech courses, degrees and jobs!
