During half term, Shadh (Y10), Navya (Y9) and I received an exciting email, congratulating us on our success in this year’s Matrix Challenge, run by the Police Cyber Crime Unit and the MET police. The three of us are amongst the top 20 performers in the thousands of students who entered in Greater London and we have now got through to the regional semi-final. Nationally, there was a massive total of 65,259 students who entered this rigorous competition. To get through to the semi-final we took part in a series of online tests, consisting of multiple cyber security and programming-based challenges. Although our knowledge of Python was more than enough to understand the programming aspect of the test, some of these challenges were about decryption, such as decoding an encrypted message, whilst others were more centred around being safe with technology, like recognising which protection law had been broken in a given scenario and why.
The London semi-final will take place later this month aboard the HMS President, a retired warship on the Thames. The top 20 performers will be attending, including ourselves. What makes this even more amazing as it is the first time Old Palace has entered this competition. I cannot wait to develop my problem-solving skills by encountering new activities and puzzles there. Good luck everyone!
Shreya , Y12 Digital Leader
