I run an after-school code club, which is attended by pupils from a few different year groups. I am impressed by what a team of four girls have achieved (aged 11-13). They’ve written code in Python that will run on a Raspberry Pi in the International Space Station (ISS) next year.
It sends a message to the astronauts and gives a reading from the temperature sensor. They were limited to a 30 second run-time and the video below shows an emulator of the final output.
That’s amazing! They get a certificate showing exactly where the ISS will be in orbit when the code runs. Next year we’ll be getting a physical device to program and actually send into space! We’ll be able to hold something that will actually go into orbit! If you are interested in doing this project, it’s called the Mission Zero.