A National UK Animation Contest

I thought that this was really interesting — the United Kingdom has a national animation contest for K-12 children.  Notice that the options emphasize programming animations.  Maybe an interesting model for getting kids to consider computing as an activity, maybe a major, or career?

Youngsters aged between seven and 19 are being challenged to create an animated film, of one minute or less, using any of the Alice, Scratch Adobe Flash, Greenfoot or Serif software packages.

Over 800 schools across the country registered to take part in the 2009 competition, and even bigger numbers are expected this year.

via Computer contest hopes to inspire young animators (The University of Manchester).