Parklands pupils’ programme runs in space

Six Parklands College pupils have made school history after their computer programme was run aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the European Astro Pi Mission Zero Challenge 2025.

The Grade 5 and 6 pupils — Lily Campey, Joshua Salter, Harvey Lester, Mukundi Chikwati, Haydn de Wet and Emma Campey — teamed up with international peers from CoderDojo: Votanikos in Greece and CoderDojo: Olomouc in the Czech Republic to create a programme that collected light data from the ISS and transformed it into colourful pixel art.

Justine de Wet, the College’s Robotics lead, said the project met the strict standards set by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, earning official “flight status” before being uploaded to the orbiting laboratory. 

The pupils’ code ran for 30 seconds as the ISS passed over the South Pacific Ocean — a moment that filled the Parklands College community with pride, he said.

“To see their code literally run in space is beyond words,” said Ms de Wet. "These pupils have shown that curiosity, creativity and teamwork can break every limit — even gravity itself.”

Each participant received a certificate marking the achievement, signed by Hugo Marée (Head of ESA’s Education Office), Philip Colligan (CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation) and ESA Project Astronaut Sławosz Uznański. 4

The certificates note the exact time and coordinates of the ISS when the programme ran — a record of an experience the pupils are unlikely to forget.