Welcome to the teacher support website for the University of Manchester Digital60 :: Schools Computer Animation competition.

Winners announced. Visit the National Schools Computer Animation (Winners Gallery).

As part of its 2008 celebrations of the 60th birthday of the world's first stored-program computer - also known as "The Baby" - designed and built at the University of Manchester in 1948, the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester ran a computer animation competition for UK school children.

Over 400 hundred schools registered for the Schools Computer Animation event and over 500 children attended from all over UK on Digital60 Day to see the winners of the UK Schools Computer Animation Competition.

Entrants created a short (maximum length 1 minute) animated Computer Graphics film using Alice, a free computer animation system for Windows, Mac and Linux that requires no knowledge of programming.

Animation themes varied and were open to pupil's imagination without restrictions, some animation themes were inspired by material from the National or taught curriculum, whilst other animations were inspired by the theme of the event itself (computing and the binary code).

For entrants in the 16+ category any curricula themes from AS/A2, BTEC National Diploma, AVCE, etc. in any subject could be chosen.

Entries were by individual (1 person) or team (2 - 4 people), in the following age ranges:

The competition officialy opened 1 January 2008 and closed 1 May 2008.

Entries were reviewed by a panel of judges and the awards ceremony took place on Friday 20 June 2008 at the University of Manchester, to which prize-winners were awarded laptops, ipod Classic, Amazon vouchers and certificates.

Screening of the winning entries was highly enjoyed by all attendees young and old which took place in the Animation Festival on the Digital60 Day.