Talented Cowplain teenager reaches national final

A TALENTED teenager was a finalist at a prestigious computer science competition at the University of Oxford.

Evie Taylor from The Cowplain School was invited to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford on Sunday, January 26 as a finalist in the nationwide UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

Evie Taylor receiving her finalist's certificate from Peter Millican, professor of philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

placeholder image — Evie Taylor receiving her finalist's certificate from Peter Millican, professor of philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

Reaching the final of the 12 to 14 age group was an impressive achievement as 130,774 students entered the first round stage. Evie overcame competition from thousands of other pupils and was among the top 48 invited to the final round.

In recognition of her achievements, Evie was presented with her finalist’s certificate at a prize-giving ceremony at Hertford College.

The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in their own schools, students had to try and solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time.