Information Technology Championship Centre

• December 1, 2022
• neelam

About the project

The project “Information Championship Centre” is co-funded by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund under the Operational Programme Digital Poland 2014-2020

Total project value: PLN 50 239 096,15 Amount of co-financing
: PLN 49 885 951,15

EU co-financing of the project: PLN 42 218 480,45 Subsidising the project
from the state budget: PLN 7 667 470,70

The aim of the project is to improve the skills of teaching staff and to activate IT talented young people. The Informatics Championship Centre allows participants to discover and develop students’ talents, especially in the area of IT problem-solving. Including by starting an algotimic and design competition, which can further motivate students to develop their interests and talents

What gives you a share of the project

Financial grant for project objectives (increase of own digital competences and activation of IT talent within IT circles)

Each grantee participates in a two-semester certified course at one of the 5 best technical universities in the country preparing for algorithmic and programming courses.

Together with the grant, the participant receives support in the settlement of the grant.

Each participant has the opportunity to take part in professional online lectures organised by qualified staff: trainers and trainers, experts and experts.

After training, each participant has the care of an expert to whom they can turn when they encounter a problem while working with their students.

Implementation of grants

Each interested person may apply for a maximum of 2 grants per edition. Four calls are foreseen throughout the project. Grant – running an IT ring – lasts 8 months.

Algorithmic grant

One of the two grants in a project that the Grant can apply for. Is mandatory – each grantee joining the programme must apply for this grant. Once completed, he/she may apply for a project grant.  The main objective of the grant is to develop the ability to solve practical issues using algorithmics.

This is a grant starting an adventure from the Centre for the Informatics Championship. It is mandatory.

What’s for you:

• financial support;
• the possibility to improve competences through training and the support of experts and experts,
• the knowledge and skills needed to carry out activities that give students an opportunity to develop passion and knowledge that goes beyond standard knowledge.

You will raise your students’ knowledge of:

• mathematical bases of algorithmics,
• programming language,
• programming tools,
• create, analyse, implement and test algorithms.

Project grant

One of the two grants in a project that the Grant can apply for. Optional – it can be requested by the Granter conducting an algorithmic grant earlier or in parallel. The main objective of the grant is to improve the competences of students and teachers through practical knowledge and the use of IT knowledge in the implementation of specific projects and tasks.

What’s for you:

• find tools to support the process of developing the algorithmic skills of students,
• you will be supported with specific projects and tasks.

What your students will gain:

• development of out-of-the-box thinking,
• ability to solve IT problems in an algorithmic manner;
• the development of general IT capabilities,
• gain knowledge based on the latest developments in electronics, mechatronics, automation and robotics.

Training

Each grantee takes part in a 2-monthly certified course (288 h – 6 in-person meetings, 12 e-learning) at one of the five best technical universities in Poland (Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza w Kraków, Gdańsk University of Technology, Łódzka University of Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Wrocław University of Technology) preparing for courses on algorithmic and programming.

The vast majority (210 h) is dedicated to algorithmic issues with the necessary additions from related fields, mainly discrete mathematics. The knowledge gained allows participants to run computer rings for children and young people who are particularly talented, preparing participants for competition at master level.

Support

Each grantee receives educational kits for learning using programmable robotic systems. These sets are adapted to the age of the students with which the Grantee works. In addition, through their participation in project (application) grants, the grantees acquire the necessary knowledge to carry out the activities using microcontrollers.

Benefits for students

Thanks to their participation in the ‘Information Championship Centre’ project, students participating in IT circles have the opportunity not only to develop their interests and talents, but also to use and test their knowledge in algorithmic and design competitions.

The competitions organised for teams will be local (on-line) with participation in the next stages of competitions, from regional to top national competitions organised by the Łódzka University of Technology.

Selected effects

Centre for the Informatics Championship for the Open Days of the European Funds

On Friday 10 May 2019, algorithmics and robotics for children and young people took place at the IT Centre of the Łódź University of Technology, where they could, among other things, develop logical and creative thinking. They were also made available to visit the IT Centre server room. The immense curiosity of the children was caused by the presentation of marshrooms, bolides and drones designed by participants in the Polytechnic University of Łódź University of Science.

At the meeting, future programme participants learned what the participation in the CMI would offer, how to fill in the grant application and what the grant could be used for. The meeting met with a strong interest from teachers who wanted to lead IT science circles.

In Warsaw, the CMI stand was part of the town of DOFE, which was located at the Ministry of Investment and Development on 10-11 May 2019.

The IT Championship Centre’s project was promoted on a dedicated stand and through pre-selection on the main stage. At the stand, it was possible to talk with partners about how to participate in the CMI, which could be gained from it. Future project participants received an answer to each of their questions.

Visitors also had the opportunity to learn about the truly master projects of students from the King Jan III Sobieski School Team No 6 and the Centre for Practical Training.

Programmed Małopolska

From 20 May to 14 June 2019, the Małopolskie Programming Festival ‘Małopolska encodes’ continued in Kraków to promote programming teaching activities. Its audiences were small Polish students, teachers and parents. The event is first and foremost a power of attraction for small and large coders: programming and robotics classes, lectures, meetings with programmers, 3D print shows and many more.

The Festival’s edition took place under the slogan: “While robots and artificial intelligence will replace us”. The organisers highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence and robots as a technology of the future, which is increasingly entering large areas of human life. By specifically promoting AI technology and more broadly mechatens in education, while showing that this is an area for cooperation between the worlds of education, science and business. This is why the Festival held a scientific conference on “To be replaced by robots and artificial intelligence – facts and myths” on 31 May.

The conference is a unique meeting and space for debate on how AI and robots can be used in education, science and business to create the educational future of pupils and students and the labour market.

During the conference, the idea of the CMI was presented in a speech by Beata Chodacka from AGH, who, in the lecture of the IT teacher, the Centre of the Informatics Championship, presented the important and needed yet very interesting project in an era of artificial intelligence and progressive digitalisation with CMI.

More information is available on http://malopolskakoduje.pl/

Training courses from the Moodle e-Learning platform at Łódź University of Technology

Training for grantees of the IT Championship Centre started in September. However, before this happens, representatives of each CMI partner take part in the training cycle organised by the Łódzka University of Technology: Łódzkie University of Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Gdańsk University of Technology, Wrocław University of Technology and the University of Górniczo Hutnicza.

Two-day training courses on one of the three dates chosen by the participants took place at the E-learning Centre of the Łódź University of Technology from 18 to 26 July 2019. These included the learning of the operation and operation of the Moodle e-Learning platform, the core tool to deliver online courses at the CMI.

Through complementary knowledge, course participants will provide professional assistance to grantees to navigate the platform during the implementation of the grant.

OSEregio IT Championship Centre

In September and October 2019, the IT Championship Centre took part in the series of OSEregio conferences organised by NAK. Meetings were held in Ostrołęka, Police, Biała Podlaska and Białystok to exchange experiences between representatives of local schools, curators and libraries. Creating a platform for cooperation, inspiring an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to use modern technologies in the educational process.

The conference discussed the benefits of the National Education Network system for the education system. The basic idea of the project is to provide schools with access to high-speed fibre-based internet and a security and educational content system that will be used to educate digital skills.

Invited guests participated in the panel debate “Pudents in a Digital World” where issues related to both the opportunities offered by the internet and new technologies, but also the risks posed by it were raised. Participants were also able to attend two workshops of their choice.

1. New trends and challenges for online child and youth safety
2. Lesson: Enter. The world of new education
3. New technologies in education, how to use a smartphone at school?
4. How to teach programming thinking from an early age
   , i.e. let’s survive again/first* (*delete as appropriate).

The IT Championship Centre was the last of the workshops. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to meet with potential future grant recipients and school heads. At the CMI stand, each participant of the conference received information about the project, the recruitment conditions, the details of the participation.

CMI grantees at the BETT fair

The Bett fair, held on 22-25 January 2020 in London, is the largest educational and technological fair in Europe, with more than 800 companies exhibiting many eduTech leaders and more than 100 start-ups. There are more than 30.000 guests from almost 150 countries. At such an event, grantees of the Information Championship Centre – who want to develop their interests and passions – could not be left behind.

Bett’s mission is to build a better future through the transformation of education. Bringing together people, ideas, practices and technologies so that teachers and students can realise their full potential. The Bett Fair is a place for inspiring meetings, interesting lectures, shows and workshops, which can be used later in classes with students.

The CMI is not just driving rings for students, training at universities, but it is also a grant that can be used to self-improve and pursue IT-related interests. Some grantees have chosen to use it for, inter alia, participation in this inspiring event.

CMI webinaria not only accessible to grantees

In response to the new needs of grant recipients arising in a situation where we cannot meet in person and continue to want to provide valuable content, the CMI has organised a series of webinars during which grantees have learnt new topics and has consolidated the knowledge already acquired in other activities. Webinars have been prepared and made available so that they are open not only to grantees, but also to students, future grantees and all interested parties.

The first dynamic programming webinar took place on 24 March 2020 and was led by Dr Andrzej Dyrek of the Academy of Górniczo-Hutnicza in Kraków.

Another two 26.03 and 2 April 2020 was led by Krzysztof Jaworski from the Digital Dialogue Association and will focus on the design of mobile applications and interesting projects in Scratch.

Starts algorithmic LIGA for CMI wheels

As of 7 December 2020, CMI students will be able to deal with algorithmic LIGI algorithmic tasks as early as 7 December 2020. It is a great opportunity, through competition, but above all to work in a group (because teams take part in the competition), to test the knowledge acquired on the CMI wheels in practice, to deal with players from other CMI rings, but also to integrate with team colleagues. First of all, however, LIGA is an excellent practical preparation for the algorithmic professions of the CMI, the Informatics Olympics and other algorithmic and IT competitions.

The students competed at 3 levels, depending on their maturity:

• Level A – twisted – is a task for primary school pupils, grades IV-VIII. Scratch was the dedicated language to solve tasks at this stage.
• Level B – Gnomy – is a medium-advanced level for pupils from primary, IV-VIII and I secondary schools. Tasks can be solved in Python or C++.
• Level C – Gremlin – is an advanced level for all students, especially secondary schools. Tasks can be solved in Python or C++.

The League will take place online in eight rounds. Each round lasted 4 weeks. For 2 weeks, students solved one task selected from a given category, which was evaluated within the next two weeks.

Cut Programming – project for CMI participants

Algorithmic and programming two essential elements of the Centre for the Informatics Championship. They are dedicated to the IT circles run by the grantees. The students develop their interests and passions in these two fields. We are keen to make CMI activities as interesting as possible and to develop the creativity of children and young people. This is important not only in programming but also in many other aspects of life. In order to unleash and stimulate creativity, we organised a mini-project called “Order Programming”. All willing participants in the CMI rings were able to attend. The only task was to show your idea of what programming and answering is through any graphic technique (photographs, graphics, comics, presentation slide, animation, etc.). The work was able to present space, technologies, tools, but also loosely connected things and images, resulting from the personal and copyright perception of the place and role of programming in life.

The prizes in the project are subscriptions to the Adobe Photoshop programme, which the students received thanks to the courtesy of Barbara Halska, a representative of the Programme Board of the Centre for the Informatics Championship and the school in which she runs day-to-day activities – Jan III Sobieski School 6 Team in Jastrzębi – Zdroj and IT Media – Adobe partner.

Primary and secondary school students took part in the project and each of the work they submitted was completely different. These included a Power Point presentation, collaborating photos and texts, drawings made with chalks, flammers. They were also working with memes and using Lego bricks. Some were abstract and metaphoric, others presented specific programming aspects. The students presented the great variety of approaches to programming. What is programming for participants? What do they associate with? Responses and associations were also very different. For some programming – it is coding, different programming languages, and for others it is first and foremost what opens the way for the future, and thanks to its knowledge it can count on better earnings and more opportunities for development. For others, this is above all a hobbies and a great play, a way of nausea and a creative style of thinking.

All students who took part in the project received Adobe Photoshop licences to develop their creativity. He can use it to design his work again in a professional graphics program. In addition to the licence, specifically for project participants, meetings were organised in April on the use of Adobe Photoshop as a tool for daily work and visual thinking.

CMI II design competitions

The ETAP LOKALNY II National Project Professions “Information Championship Centre” took place from 22 March to 4 April 2022.

The students participated in one of three categories:

• Miniboty – for primary school pupils in Classes IV – VI
• Raptory – for pupils in grades VII – VIII primary schools
• Predators – for secondary school students

The design competitions will take place in three phases:

• Local, remote/on-line phase (supervised by the grantee)
• Regional, stationary phase (organised by the CMI Project of Partners)
• Nationwide, stationary phase – final (organised by Lead Partner – Łódzka University of Technology).

Free Workshop “Lego Robotics Programming” for the Open Days of the European Funds

Lego Robotics Programming is a workshop using Lego Mindstorms EV3 educational kits during which young people had to build their own robot and programme it!

The aim of the workshop is to improve young people’s digital competences and the workshop itself is the ideal time for DIYs, mechanics and programming. The workshop participants will have to solve the problem, i.e. the autonomous vehicle.

Primary school students were invited to attend the workshop.

Deadline: 7 October 2022, p.m. 12.30-14.00 and 14.10-15.40

Location:

University of Technology,
Faculty of Electrotechnical, Electronics, Computers and Automatics (I 25) ul
. Stefanowski 22,
90-537 Łódź

Number of seats: 60 (2 groups of 30 participants)

Map of the CMI Schools

Vlogi CMI

Arduino Introduction

Access to Arduino as part of the IT Championship Centre project.
In the material, you can find answers to the questions: What are the main components to form the system with the contact plate? What are the two basic electrical connections in the contact plate?
The Tinkercad simulation environment will also be presented.
The material was prepared by Łódzka University of Technology.

Prometeusz supercomputer

What is the strength of today’s Prometeusz? We take you for a visit to the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet.
AGH specialists will tell them about supercomputers to reduce the calculation time from hundreds of years to a few days:What are the scientific domains in which supercomputers are used? What distinguishes supercomputers from connected computers or laptops?
The material was prepared by Stanisław Staszic Academy in Kraków

Humanoid robots

The material was prepared by Stanisław Staszic Academy in Kraków.

Arduino – Electric circuit rights

The material was prepared by Łódzka University of Technology.

Arduino – LED Diode and PJM electrical diagrams

The material was prepared by Łódzka University of Technology.

CMI at AGH Pasjonaci IT

The material was prepared by Stanisław Staszic Academy in Kraków.

CMI in AGH during the pandemic

The material was prepared by Stanisław Staszic Academy in Kraków.

Driverless cars

The material was prepared by Stanisław Staszic Academy in Kraków

Artificial Inteligence Part. 1

The material was prepared by the Wrocław University of Technology.

Artificial Inteligence Part. 2

The material was prepared by the Wrocław University of Technology.

Artificial Inteligence Part. 3

The material was prepared by the Wrocław University of Technology.