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Canberra Today 16°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Who you gonna call? Code busters!

A GROUP of tech-savvy teens are taking their love of the iPhone to a new level, and all the way to Silicone Valley.

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets... from left, Thomas Jordan, Nick Divall, and Lachlan Darrow.

The 20 Canberra Grammar students, who call themselves the Code Cadets, started meeting five months ago, coming together after school and on weekends to talk about iPhone development, debug their programs and eat pizza.

Since then, the students who are from years 7 to 12 have started developing apps for the iOS platform and are now planning a trip to San

Francisco to attend the renowned conference, Macworld 2012.

Year 9 student Lachlan Darrow says Code Cadets is a great opportunity to spend time with his friends and he finds it especially beneficial to be able to meet up with older students.

“We learn heaps from the year 11 and 12 students because they have more experience than us and are able to help if we come across any problems.”

Nick Divall, who is in year 10 says: “We meet up every Sunday for a couple of hours and it’s a chance for us to help each other and learn how to fix problems.”

The students and their teacher, Matthew Purcell, soon realised they had skills to share and saw an opportunity to raise money to fund their San Francisco trip.

“We started holding iPhone development seminars, which were massively successful,” Mr Purcell says.

“About 120 people attended each session and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.”

Held throughout August and September, the Code Classes were open to the public and Mr Purcell said more than 80 per cent of attendees had no affiliation with Canberra Grammar School.

While it won’t be Mr Purcell’s first Macworld conference, he says it’s an important opportunity for the students who will get to see what they are developing in context.

“They will get a better understanding of the practical implications of what they are doing,” he says.

For more information about Code Cadets or to sponsor the students’ trip go to http://www.codecadets.com/

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