Two of the winning entries to our Digital Investigations and Intelligent Unit’s (DIIU) coding competition attended Police Headquarters this week to accept their prize and have a tour.
Myles Butterworth, aged 10 from Bradford on Avon and Toby Johnson, aged 11 from Salisbury both developed their own game based on the theme of staying safe online as part of our #CyberLife campaign that run throughout July.
Young people across Wiltshire were invited to develop an online game based on the theme of staying safe online and present their game via a 2 minutes video hosted via YouTube.
Myles explained in his video; “My game is a platform game and in it, you control a boy called Alex. You must help him navigate an online world in his quest to find the safety online tips.
“To make my game, I hand wrote 383 lines of code in a text language called Python.”
Myles is hoping to go into software development when he finishes school.
Toby’s video explains; “The aim of my game, Blockie’s Adventures is to collect as many coins as possible without getting Blockie’s computer hacked.
“Throughout the game there are lots of pop ups that will say a different internet safety message. Typically, a question may ask if you should enter your password in a particular situation. If the wrong answer is given, the character has to start the game from the beginning. If the correct answer is given the character advances to the next stage.”
Toby spent two weeks creating his game and that included writing the electronic music that plays in the background. Toby added; “I intend to enter the world of robotics when I leave school. Robots may be the future but somebody still needs to design and programme them!”
Detective Inspector Gemma Vinton said; “We wanted to find a fun and novel way of making young people think about how they can stay safe online and our entrants didn’t disappoint. We were all blown away by the quality of the entries.
“Whether you are running a household or a company, people are incredibly busy– juggling schedules, activities and deadlines. We all need to be more mindful of the ever changing face of cybercrime, and that our ‘switched-on’ lives can cause additional risks, so it’s essential that we take simple, actionable steps to stay safer online.
“Educating young people and asking them to take two minutes to think about how to safeguard themselves whilst using digital devices online is a great starting point. With the cyber world growing these young people are our future.”
During the visit, the boys met with Assistant Chief Constable, Mark Cooper for tea and a chat. ACC Cooper said; “It was a pleasure to meet both Myles and Toby this week and to present them with their prize of a raspberry pi computer.
“I enjoyed hearing about their games and am impressed by the skill and effort put into developing them. They both made brilliant video’s demonstrating their games and were able to highlight ways for staying safe online.”
Myles and Toby went on to visit the dogs unit where they met police dogs Ary and Buzz. Both helped lay a trail for Ary to follow and held the leash as he followed the scent.
They watched a demonstration of Buzz working on command to someone running away and met with two spaniels used to search for drugs and explosives.
After a visit to our Digital and Intelligence Unit where the boys learnt more about the work of the DIIU, they finished off their stay with the opportunity to sit in our police cars and test the blue lights and sirens.
We are working on making the winning games available for the public to play. Keep an eye on our Wiltshire Police Cyber pages on Facebook and Twitter over the coming weeks.
