Longford girls delighted with their space odyssey

Last December as part of the #HourofCode Ardagh Girl Guides held their weekly lockdown Zoom meeting with Steve Barry from CoderDojo Longford as a guest Leader.

Steve, helped Ardagh Girl Guides participate in the European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Offering young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space by writing computer programs that run on Raspberry Pi computers on board the International Space Station (ISS). The Astro Pi Challenge is divided into two missions with different levels of complexity: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.

Ardagh Guides participated in Mission Zero, which involved writing a short Python program to show their chosen message and the daily air humidity reading for the ISS astronauts to see.

This programme would run on the Astro Pi computer screen on the ISS. This week Ardagh Girl Guides received a Certificate of Participation that their computer program ran on the International Space Station on May 17, 2021 for 1 minute while the ISS was over the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean! A great achievement!

Ardagh Girl Guides continued with their meetings online throughout lockdown and are delighted to be meeting up in person now undertaking lots of outdoor activities.

This summer will see the girls participating in Irish Girl Guides virtual International Camp, Octagon 2021, postponed from last year. Sr Branch, Guides, Brownies and Ladybirds from all over the world will be joining in our virtual STEM activities, workshops and challenges.

If you would like to find out more about joining an Irish Girl Guide unit, please message Joanna on 086 237 2616 or us on Facebook @ArdaghGirlGuides.