Three students have won work experience at tech company Arm, headquartered in Cambridge, for their app designs.
Vanessa and Gino from North Cambridge Academy, and Luca from Chesterton Community College, were picked as the winners for their innovative and practical concepts.
The FXP Extended Challenge gets secondary school students to design a mobile game app that helps solve one of the three UN sustainable development goals. The challenge is part of the FXP Festival which aims to increase the uptake of STEM subjects in local schools.
The Cambridge-based software company judged the competition and offered the winners a chance to see behind-the-scenes at their global headquarters.
The UN’s goals address world hunger, climate action and health and wellbeing. Arm experts mentored the students through the project which required them to design a concept, develop the game and write about their new idea.
We want to encourage young people to explore the exciting opportunities a career in technology can offer, and this competition uncovered several diverse and creative ideas.
– Simon Humphrey, Arm
Simon Humphrey, senior manager of sustainability at Arm, said: “At Arm, we want to encourage young people to explore the exciting opportunities a career in technology can offer, and this competition uncovered several diverse and creative ideas. The three winners really stood out for the way in which they used technology to solve real-world problems in simple and intuitive ways.”
Alison Taylor, founder of FXP, said: “FXP Festival is all about providing exciting learning opportunities for the young people in our region. Each year, the competition takes place over a weekend in July at Cambridge Regional College and, while many students spend months preparing to compete in the competition, it has been fantastic to run the Extended Challenge as an additional activity during the quieter months too.
“One of our key motivations for organising FXP is to help drive social mobility in the region, so enabling three students to secure work experience placements at Arm is another step towards this goal.”
FXP 2019 will take place from 6– 8 July, at the Rizing Games studios at Cambridge Regional College and is open to schools, colleges, home school groups and out-of-school clubs across East Anglia. Teams can register their interest by emailing .