Codebreaking was very much in the spotlight last year, with a BBC audience choosing the mathematician and World War Two code breaker Alan Turing as the greatest scientist of the 20th century for the history programme, “Icons”. Who knows, the next Turing, or computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, could be among the winners of one of our competitions.
The 2018 challenge, entitled The Kompromat Files, followed the fortunes of Jodie and Harry, as they tried to unravel the mystery of a 145-year-old encrypted diary which had the potential to destabilise the fragile peace with Russia. It was a hard fought contest with around 500 competitors making it to the end.
The Alan Turing Prize (sponsored by GCHQ)
Zadok Storkey from Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. Zadok aims to be starting a university degree in computer science following his A level studies.
Team name: RailFence
The Ada Lovelace Prize (sponsored by the British Computer Society)
Elizaveta Sheremetyeva from Oxford High School. Elizaveta is currently in Year 12, studying maths, further maths, biology, chemistry and physics.
Team name: Chocologic
Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace runner-up prizes (sponsored by IBM and Trinity College Cambridge)
Jared Carter from Peter Symonds College in Winchester
Team name: Decrypting Ninja
(Alan Turing runner-up)
Jessica Richards from South Wilts Grammar School for Girls
Team name: Onwards
(Ada Lovelace runner-up)
The University of Southampton Prize (for the fastest team)
The team competition was so close this year that the prize committee decided to split it:
Team ‘E.Z.P.Z.L.M.N.S.Q.I.Z’: William Towler and Oliver O’Toole from The Angmering School in West Sussex
IBM Prize
Team ‘Leaned’ from Westminster School: Anshu Banerjee, Daniel Kaddaj, Andrew Smith and Luke Remus Elliot