Yesterday, November 13, IMDEA Software welcomed 50 students from CEIPSO Padre Garralda (Villanueva de la Cañada) to celebrate the fifth edition of “Gymkhana: Software Matters”, as part of Madrid’s Science and Innovation Week. The event was coordinated by the Fundación para el Conocimiento Madri+d and promoted by the Community of Madrid.
The day began with a welcome to the institute by Antonio Fernández, Deputy Director of IMDEA Software, who highlighted how essential software is in our daily lives and how without it the modern world would come to a standstill. Next, Cristina Martín, the Institute’s Communications Officer, explained the activity to the students.
The students were divided into five groups, each equipped with a map and an evaluation sheet, which they used to navigate the institute in search of the challenges prepared by the researchers. Each challenge addressed key software concepts: artificial intelligence, concurrency, parallel sums, program analysis and verification, and cryptography.
At each challenge, the students worked as a team while the researchers (Daniel Jurjo, Risto Kivilahti, Georgia Christofidi, Juan Romanos, Marco Ciccalè, Alessio Ferrarini, Giannis Roumpos, Leonardo Torres, Diego Castejón, and Douglas Li) guided them and answered questions to help them overcome the tasks.
At the end of the Gymkhana, everyone gathered in the auditorium to review the solutions and clarify any questions that arose during the activity. They had only 13 minutes to complete each challenge! Finally, the scores were announced, and the prizes were awarded to the seven members of the winning group.
It was a morning full of learning, collaboration, and fun, where the young participants could get hands-on experience in the world of software and see that solving complex problems can also be a very enjoyable game.
We hope they had a great time and are eager to learn even more about our exciting world of software.
