Form 4 and Form 6 students from Computer Science GCSE, A-Level and IB recently visited The National Museum Of Computing (TNMOC) in Bletchley.
The museum is housed in the original building of Bletchley Park the home of the WWII Codebreakers and Alan Turing. The hold the largest collection of functional historical computes ranging from the 1940’s through to today. The visit included a combination or tours, hands on experiences and workshops.
The experience included seeing first-hand the working progress of computing from Colossus, the first electronic computer right up to Virtual Reality. They enjoyed hand on experience with old computers and ‘retro’ games like DOOM and Space Invaders. As well as being able to talk to experts who were rebuilding or refurbishing old machines.
Student workshops included lessons and hands on activities focused on encryption including the Mechanical Lorenz Cipher used in WWII to the more modern computational RSA encryption.
This visit aimed to illustrate how computing has developed over the recent past whilst considering how it will continue, as well as directly related to their relevant curriculums.
