In August, young tech creators from across Sri Lanka gathered for the country’s second-ever in-person Coolest Projects event, hosted by our partner STEMUP Educational Foundation. The showcase was a chance for young people to share and celebrate their ideas and inventions with families, friends, mentors, and the wider digital making community, while having lots of fun trying out projects and meeting fellow creators. 

With 150 projects showcased by 200 young people, the event highlighted the incredible creativity and problem-solving skills that come into play when young people have an opportunity to get hands-on with technology and explore their curiosity. It was great to be there on the day and hear from the creators themselves. From a cake chase game (that was really about the importance of friendship) to an AI-powered classifier that could identify organic and non-organic material, there was no shortage of imagination on display.

Here are just a few of the standout projects I saw at the event.

Inspired by young people carrying heavy backpacks full of textbooks, Udula created ‘Robot Bag’ to help people of all ages carry their bags. You simply place your bag on the robot, and it will start following you around! One challenge Udula faced was trying to figure out how far the robot was from people. With just one camera, the robot could not really determine depth, so it could not detect how far away a walking person was. To solve this, he added two more cameras at an angle. This allowed him to calculate a more accurate average distance using input from all three cameras.

Yahya built an astronaut reaction time game that followed Ripley, an astronaut in training. In order to pass his training, he had to hit as many moving targets as possible in one minute. Thankfully, Yahya had built an adjustable difficulty level, so I could complete the challenge in spite of my slow reaction times!

Khadeejah is passionate about the environment and learned that ocean clean-up technology tools often incorrectly identify jellyfish and plastic bags. Underwater, they have a lot of the same characteristics and movements: they are translucent, flexible, and amorphous. She started creating her own dataset and training her own AI model to distinguish between the two. In doing so, she learned a lot about AI bias and how creating a balanced dataset is really important to prevent bias and improve accuracy.

Young people leading the way

From beginners to experienced programmers, every young creator at the event had the chance to celebrate their work, talk about their ideas, and see what others were building. 

Having so many young creators in one space highlighted the importance of providing opportunities where they can share ideas, learn from one another, and build a sense of community. We would like to say a huge thank you to STEMUP Educational Foundation for organising such an inspiring day, and to the volunteers and mentors who made the event possible. Most importantly, thank you to the young digital makers of Sri Lanka for sharing your creativity with us. We can’t wait to see what you will make next!

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