Peter is ready for Christmas Bytes

Peter Boyd can hardly wait until Christmas is over — then he can go to Christmas Bytesat The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park where he had such a great time at Summer Bytes in August.

Today, Peter, a pupil at Webber Independent School, received a prize fromInsightSoftware.comfor his creativity at Summer Bytes. He was fascinated by the new computerised LEGO EV3 Mindstorms and set about building a computerised elephant that walks using its legs and even picks things up.

Peter said “I’ve been a LEGO fan since I was two, so I really enjoyed using the latest version of MINDSTORMS at the Museum. It was really challenging, but great fun. I also enjoyed playing the early computer games and learning where it all started.”

Chris Monk, TNMOC Learning Co-ordinator who is master minding Christmas Bytes, said: “Peter’s initiatives with technology are exactly the sort of digital creativity we want to promote at our Christmas Bytes Festival. He is not just a passive consumer of technology, he is very adventurous and creates with it. His LEGO models astonished us and lots of other kids were motivated and enthused by what he could do.”

The Christmas Bytes Festival runs every afternoon from 27-31 December at The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park. Anyone under 13 gets in free and adults entrance fee is only £5. They can see machines from every decade of computing and take part in any of the special activities.

There will be more LEGO Mindstorm EV3 activities, retro computer games including space invaders, Pac-Man, Raspberry Pi does Minecraft, Arduino computer music, and lots more.More details here.

About The National Museum of Computing

The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the world’s largest collection of functional historic computers, including the rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, and the WITCH, the world’s oldest working digital computer. The Museum enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.

A recent pledge by an individual benefactor of £1 million if matched funding is found means that every pound or dollar donated to the Museum will count double. Previous funders of the Museum have included Bletchley Park Capital Partners, CreateOnline, Ceravision, InsightSoftware.com, Google UK, PGP Corporation, IBM, NPL, HP Labs, BCS, and 4Links.

The Museum is currently open to the public on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon, and on summer Bank Holidays. Guided tours are also available at 2.30pm on Tuesdays. There are often additional opening times for the public — see the website or the iPhone app for updates. Educational and corporate groups are very welcome and may be on any day or evening by prior arrangement.

For more information, seewww.tnmoc.organd follow @tnmoc on Twitter and The National Museum of Computing on Facebook and Google+. A TNMOC iPhone App is also now available from the iPhone App Store.