34 students from IES Camilo José Cela (Pozuelo de Alarcón) and Francisco Umbral (Ciempozuelos) took part in the “Gymkhana: Software Matters”, organized by the IMDEA Software Institute on the occasion of the XXI Science and Innovation Week, organized by the Madrid Regional Government in collaboration with Madrimasd.

The director of the Institute, Manuel Carro, began talking to students and teachers about the research carried out at the institute and the profiles that are recruited. He also introduced the Director General for Research and Technological Innovation, Ana Isabel Cremades, who wanted to emphasize the commitment of the Madrid Regional Government to science and the need to awaken new vocations that can work in places like the IMDEA institutes.

Blanca Gutiérrez, Communication Manager of the Institute, presented the activity and gave the fundamental guidelines to the 14 to 16 year old students.

There were five teams that had to go through the five stations of the Gymkhana. Each of the stations addressed software-related topics such as: artificial intelligence, concurrency, parallel addition, program analysis and verification, and cryptography.

The groups followed the directions on a map, this way they knew which base station to go to at any given time. In addition, they had a limited amount of time to spend at each base station.

Once the “Gymkhana: Software Matters” was over, the groups met in the Lecture Hall, where the researchers tallied the scores until the winning team was chosen. Finally, prizes were awarded to the five members of the winning team, from IES Camilo José Cela.