First lines of code spark interest in engineering
“Draw a square, a triangle and a house.” Within minutes, 25 secondary school pupils from Norrtälje have written their first working lines of code and watched them come to life on screen. At KTH, they are trying programming for the first time. For some, it could be the beginning of a new interest in technology.
“Do you know what an engineer does?”
A hand shoots up.
“They program and create things?”
In a computer lab at KTH, 25 pupils from the Montessori School in Norrtälje are taking part in an introductory Python workshop. For most of them, it is their first visit to campus.
Leading the session are four KTH students. To show what engineering can look like in practice, they present examples linked to KTH, including the octagonal table tennis bat used by Swedish star Truls Möregårdh. Several pupils nod in recognition. Engineering suddenly feels less abstract and more connected to everyday life.
But the focus today is not on finished innovations. It is on trying things out for themselves.
The programming language is Python and the tool is Turtle, a beginner-friendly environment where simple commands are used to draw shapes on the screen, explains student tutor Cissi Yang.
After a brief introduction, the pupils get to work. Their first challenge is to make the program draw a square, a triangle and a house.
Soon the room settles into focused concentration. Keyboards click. Someone starts over. Someone else raises a hand for help.
“The hardest part is remembering left and right,” says Alva with a laugh.
Others quickly complete the task and move on to more advanced challenges. Across the room, one pupil leans closer to the screen as a few lines of code suddenly become a perfectly drawn square.
Reaching young people
The workshop is part of KTH’s efforts to reach young people who might not otherwise consider higher education in technology and engineering. Over the past two years, around 15 lower-secondary schools a year – corresponding to roughly 1,200 pupils – have visited KTH through the initiative.
Class teacher Christina Erlndsson has brought pupils to the workshop before.
“This is fantastic. The pupils enjoy it much more than they expect to. The challenges are at just the right level, and there are always students around to help when someone gets stuck.”
As the morning progresses, the pupils are introduced to concepts such as loops and indentation. More complex shapes begin to appear on their screens.
For the KTH students leading the workshop, the experience is about more than teaching code.
“If I wasn’t studying engineering, I think I’d be a teacher,” says David Tanudin. “It’s rewarding to see pupils discover something they didn’t know they were interested in.”
His fellow student tutor Zubair Yousafzai agrees.
“I would have loved something like this when I was their age.”
For Viktoria Fodor, professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and responsible for national student recruitment activities, lower secondary school is a crucial stage.
“Very few initiatives target pupils at this age. If we don’t reach them before they choose upper-secondary programmes, many will miss the qualifications required for engineering studies later on.”
According to surveys conducted after the workshops, nearly 60 per cent of participants say the visit increased their interest in technology and programming.
At the same time, Fodor has seen applications to some engineering programmes decline, a trend she partly links to rapid developments in artificial intelligence.
“But these skills will remain important,” she says. “Society will need people who can build these systems, understand them and work with them.”
After half a day of programming, lunch on campus and a final Kahoot quiz, it is time for the pupils to head back to Norrtälje.
As they pack up and leave, the squares and triangles they created remain on their screens.
Perhaps something else remains as well: the idea that technology and programming might be for them after all.