Fifty-two Year 10, 11 and Sixth Form students visited the National Museum of Computing last Friday, home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers.  Students got to follow the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe and Colossus of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the rise of personal computing and the rise of mobile computing and the internet.

Year 12 student, Jess said "The Piggott School trip to The National Museum of Computing was a very interesting and educational experience. We were able to see the rebuilt Colossus computer and the WITCH (the world's oldest working digital computer) among many other pieces of technology.

As well as this, we took part in a fun programming workshop where we used a BBC micro-machine to program a game of snake. I enjoyed writing code in a different language using a type of computer that I hadn't used before.

I also thought that the 'Power of Primes' activity was amazing as it highlighted the importance that prime numbers play in cryptography, and it briefly taught us about the other maths involved in creating ciphers.

Overall I thought that the trip was great and the tour guides were very informative."

Other students said the highlights of the trip were:

"Experiencing the minds of computer scientists from the past."

"Programming a snake game with BBC basic."

"Learning about the history behind the enigma machines."