Thirty creative Year 10 students, from Linton and Impington Village College, visited Amazon’s Development Center in Cambridge for their Cambridge LaunchPad Project Day, on 10 July. The focus of the day was for students to immerse themselves into the fascinating world of music coding, using the innovative EarSketch software.
David Golding, a Software Engineer at Amazon and the organiser of the activity, told us – “it was a pleasure to open up our Cambridge office and give local students insight into some of the work we do locally for Alexa, AWS and Ring.
Our main activity utilised EarSketch, a platform for creating music through code. The students approached the challenge with enthusiasm, creativity, and produced some fantastic music tracks which they shared to a room packed full of students, teachers, and Amazon employees – a great time was had by all. Throughout the day, the students engaged with a diverse range of colleagues from across our business, from apprentices to directors, where they learnt about the unique career pathways taken from where the students are now. At Amazon, we are passionate about increasing opportunity for students to learn more about Computer Science and by giving young people real-life insight into the power of technology, we hope to open up a world of career opportunities for them to consider in the future.
On a personal note, as a recent Graduate Software Engineer myself, it was a privilege to lead the organisation of this event and just one of the many opportunities I have had during my time at Amazon. I would like to thank all those involved for taking the time to make this event a reality.”
What made this experience special, for us here at Cambridge LaunchPad, was the hands-on approach. The students were able to witness the immediate impact of their code on the music they composed, igniting a sense of accomplishment and sparking their imagination. With each line of code they wrote, they unlocked new dimensions of creative expression and appreciation for STEM.
This Cambridge LaunchPad project day demonstrated that there are careers available which combine creativity and technology. These students left the event with a huge sense of accomplishment and the access to continue practising their coding skills in their free time. We can’t wait to come back to the Amazon offices and further explore the importance of STEM in a world-renowned company.
