Animation15 – the 8th Annual UK Schools Computer Animation Competition run by the School of Computer Science at The University of Manchester, has launched!

It’s open now, for teacher registration, at

http://animation.cs.manchester.ac.uk

The competition is open to all UK schoolchildren aged 7-19.

Teacher registration is FREE and carries no obligation to submit any entries. All registered teachers will receive FREE colour A2-sized Animation15 posters for their school, to be sent out in early-October.

To get your free posters — while stocks last! — register at the website or log in using your existing credentials.

Entrants can create their animations (maximum duration: 1 minute) using any of the following programs: Scratch, Adobe Flash, Alice, Serif: Draw Plus, KoolMoves, SWiSH Max4, and Blender.

They can also use 3DS Max, and Maya — free from Autodesk to all Schools: see http://www.autodesk.co.uk/campaigns/design-the-future-uk/curriculum

There are great prizes for the winners, and trophies for schools. Winners will be announced in early-Summer 2015.

Last year’s Animation14 competition was bigger than ever, with over 1,330 entries from 183 schools across the UK, from 1,768 students. We awarded prizes to 41 students (working as individuals, or in groups) from 24 schools. You can see all the winning entries, and photos from our Awards and Inspirational Computer Science Day at http://animation14.cs.manchester.ac.uk.

Key date

* 20 March 2015: Deadline for submitting entries.

Key contacts

* Website: http://animation.cs.manchester.ac.uk
* Enquiries:

Animation15 is funded by Electronic Arts, Autodesk, Microsoft, RM Education, and in association with cs4fn.