Brentwood pupil is finalist in national computer challenge

Sammy receiving a finalist's certificate from Peter Millican, Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

Tech savvy Brentwood School pupil Sammy Li was a finalist in a UK-wide computational thinking challenge run by the University of Oxford.

Fourteen-year-old Sammy, who was among the top 60 highest achieving students in her age group, was invited to the final round of The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

The talented Third Year pupil attended the University’s Department of Computer Science during half term. Peter Millican, Professor of Philosophy, presented her with her finalist’s certificate at a prize-giving ceremony at Hertford College.

Reaching the final of the Intermediate age group is an impressive achievement as over 100,000 students entered the first round for the age group (12–14).

The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by Google, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science.

In the first round, held in their own schools, students have to try to solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time. There are six age categories and the highest scoring students from the four oldest age groups (Elite, Seniors, Intermediate, and Juniors) were then invited to the Oxford finals over two weekends in February.