Big Bang Competition Project Help | Science, Engineering, Tech

In short

The Big Bang Competition is run by EngineeringUK, operating as EUK Education, and is "free and open to students aged 11 to 18". The rules say "entrants must be aged between 11 and 18 when the project is entered" and that "they must also be in full-time state funded secondary education or home educated or be entering as part of a community group"; independent and private school students are not eligible, except SEND independent schools, with joint entries allowed where numbers are equal. "Projects can be completed by teams of any size." There are three streams, Science, Engineering and Technology, and three age categories: Junior for Years 7 to 9 in England and Wales, Intermediate for Years 10 to 11 and Senior for Years 12 to 13. Entry is online only, opening in the autumn term, with written entries and videos of up to five minutes. The titles are UK Young Engineer, UK Young Technologist and UK Young Scientist of the Year, awarded at The Big Bang Fair in June. We teach the building. A first class is free; a group place is USD 100 a month and one-to-one teaching USD 150.

Where to start

Three courses for a technology stream project

Choose by what the project needs to do, not by the year group entering it.

BBC / 01

Python from start to finish

The language most technology projects are built in, taught until a student can debug their own work.

Open the syllabus →

BBC / 02

Data science with Python

For a project with measurements in it: collecting, cleaning and presenting data without overstating what it shows.

Open the syllabus →

BBC / 03

AI and machine learning for teens

For a project with a trained model, including how to report what it gets wrong.

Open the syllabus →

Who can enter

Three streams, three age groups, and a rule about schools

Facts read at EngineeringUK's own pages on 20 September 2026.

The Big Bang Competition as its organiser describes it
Part	What the organiser says	What it means
Who runs it	EngineeringUK, operating as EUK Education	The charity behind The Big Bang Fair
Age	"entrants must be aged between 11 and 18 when the project is entered"	Age at entry, not at the final
Schools	"in full-time state funded secondary education or home educated or be entering as part of a community group"	Independent and private school students are not eligible, except SEND independent schools
Mixed entries	Joint entries combining independent and state school students are permitted if numbers are equal	A specific and unusual accommodation, worth knowing
Teams	"projects can be completed by teams of any size"	One student or a whole club
Streams	Science, Engineering and Technology	A coding project sits naturally in Technology
Age groups	Junior for Years 7 to 9, Intermediate for Years 10 to 11, Senior for Years 12 to 13	Compared within a band, not against sixth formers
Entry	"entry into The Competition is through the online entry only"	No paper form and no regional heat to attend first
What is submitted	Written entries and, or, videos of up to five minutes, with word limits per section	The explanation is the entry
Titles	UK Young Engineer of the Year, UK Young Technologist of the Year and UK Young Scientist of the Year	Awarded at The Big Bang Fair in June

The school rule is the reason to read the eligibility page before starting. Most UK competitions are open to everyone; this one is deliberately aimed at state-funded and home-educated students and at community groups, and a family at an independent school who spends a term on a project will find that out too late.

The accommodation for joint entries is unusual enough to repeat: a mixed team is allowed where the numbers from each sector are equal. A school partnership can therefore enter together, which very few competitions permit at all.

Teams of any size is the other rule worth planning around. A whole computing club can enter one project, which changes what is possible: a group of eight can build and test something none of them could finish alone, and nobody is left out for want of a place on a team of four.

Entry opens in the autumn term and closes before the spring, with awards at the Fair in June. EngineeringUK publishes the exact dates each cycle, and cash prizes in pounds, which we do not print here.

Sources: EUK Education, The Big Bang Competition and its rules and eligibility, read 20 September 2026. Modern Age Coders is not connected with EngineeringUK, Thales or Siemens.

The method

Five minutes is a word budget

A video of up to five minutes sounds generous until a student tries to describe a year of work in one. The arithmetic below is ours, and the speaking pace in it is an assumption we state rather than a fact.

Nobody thinks of a video as having a word limit, but it does. A student speaking at a steady, unhurried pace fits a specific number of words into five minutes, and that number is smaller than almost anyone expects.

Our arithmetic: what five minutes holds, at three speaking paces
Pace	Words in five minutes	Feels like
110 a minute	550	Slow and clear, good for a nervous speaker
130 a minute	650	An ordinary explaining voice
150 a minute	750	Brisk, and hard to follow on a first hearing

Take the middle one. Six hundred and fifty words is roughly a page and a half of writing, for an entire project. The useful move is to spend it on purpose rather than discover it at minute four, so here is a budget that answers the five questions judges actually have.

Our suggested split of 650 words, with the time each buys
Section	Words	Seconds at 130 a minute
What problem it solves	98	45
What you built	195	90
How you tested it	162	75
What went wrong	130	60
What you would do next	65	30

Testing gets more than you think

Seventy-five seconds on how a project was tested is more than most entries give it, and it is the section that separates work from enthusiasm.

What went wrong gets a minute

Students cut this first and judges want it most. A project with no failures described is either unfinished or not being described honestly.

The problem gets forty-five seconds

Not three minutes. A judge needs to know what the project is for, not the history of the field.

Write the script, count the words, read it aloud once with a timer. That is the whole technique, and it takes an evening. A student who has done it sounds composed on camera because they are not deciding what to say while saying it.

The written entry has its own word limits per section, published by the organiser, and the same discipline applies. A limit is a budget, and a budget spent deliberately beats one discovered at the end.

This also happens to be the skill the rest of a technical life is made of: the design review, the job interview, the one-slide summary. A fifteen-year-old who can explain their own work in five minutes has something that outlasts any competition result.

The other project showcase on our calendar, Coolest Projects, has no ranking at all and no eligibility rule about schools, which makes it a good companion or an alternative.

The word counts are ours, computed on 20 September 2026 from the organiser's five-minute limit. The speaking paces are assumptions we have labelled, not figures from any source.

What to build

Projects that fit a school year and survive a judge

The ideas below are ours. Each is small enough to finish and has something honest to say in the testing section.

Five project shapes for the Technology stream
Shape	An example	What the testing section says
Measure something real	A sensor logging noise or temperature in one classroom for a term	How the readings were checked against a second instrument
Automate a chore	A program that sorts and renames a school photo archive	What it did to the awkward filenames nobody anticipated
Model a decision	A tool that suggests the cheapest bus route for a school trip	Where its suggestion differed from a human's, and who was right
Train and evaluate	A classifier on photographs the student labelled themselves	How often it is wrong, and on which kind of picture
Build for somebody	An app made for one named person with a specific need	What that person said after using it for a fortnight

Every row in that table has the same shape: something was built, and then something was found out. Judges are looking for evidence that a student learned from their own project, and the fastest way to show it is a result that surprised the person who built it.

The last row is the strongest and the least used. A project made for one real person, tested by that person, beats a more ambitious project tested by nobody, and it gives a student something to say that no one else can say.

What does not work is scale for its own sake. A project that took a year and cannot be explained in five minutes is not a better entry; it is a harder one to enter.

For younger students, the Junior band starts at Year 7 and the same rules apply, so a club project begun in September is a realistic entry by the spring.

Getting ready

Four rungs to an entry that explains itself

The rungs are about evidence and explanation, which is what the entry form asks for.

From an idea to a five-minute account of it
Stage	Rung	The sign it is secure
Years 7 to 8	1. Something built	A working thing exists, however small
Years 9 to 10	2. Something measured	The student can say how well it works, with numbers
Years 10 to 11	3. Something found out	A result surprised the person who built it
Years 12 to 13	4. Something explained	Five minutes, scripted, with the failures included

If entry closes soon

Write the script before filming. Count the words, read it once with a timer, then record.

Do not cut the section on what went wrong. It is the part judges read most carefully.

If the school is independent

The eligibility rules exclude independent school students except at SEND independent schools, so check before starting a term of work.

Coolest Projects has no such rule and no ranking, and every checked entry is shown.

The full list

Courses behind a technology project

Grouped by what the project needs to do, with the syllabus behind each card.

I

Building it

Ages 11 to 16

BBC / A / 01

Python from start to finish

The language most entries are written in.

Open the syllabus

BBC / A / 02

App development

An interface somebody who is not you can use.

Open the syllabus

BBC / A / 03

Full stack web development

A working site, with the database it needs.

Open the syllabus

II

Measuring it

The evidence a judge wants

BBC / B / 01

Data science with Python

Real measurements, honestly presented.

Open the syllabus

BBC / B / 02

Statistics and probability

How much a result actually shows.

Open the syllabus

BBC / B / 03

Maths through coding

Checking a method rather than trusting it.

Open the syllabus

III

Modelling it

For projects with AI in them

BBC / C / 01

AI and machine learning for teens

Training a model and reporting it honestly.

Open the syllabus

BBC / C / 02

Algorithms and data structures

Choosing a method and justifying it.

Open the syllabus

BBC / C / 03

Python and AI for kids

The younger route into the same ideas.

Open the syllabus

IV

Alongside school

Qualifications

BBC / D / 01

GCSE Computer Science

The exam running underneath, board by board.

Open the syllabus

BBC / D / 02

A-level maths

For a senior entry with modelling in it.

Open the syllabus

BBC / D / 03

Scratch for kids

For a younger sibling starting out.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Project teaching, weekly, with the write-up in mind

Lessons are live on video from India, five and a half hours ahead of the UK in winter and four and a half in summer, at a time agreed and kept in UK time.

Early weekday evening

For Years 7 to 9.

Later weekday evening

For GCSE-age and sixth-form entrants.

Weekend morning

For a long session on a build or a script.

Evidence built in

Every project we teach records how it was tested, because that is the section entries lose marks on.

Scope kept honest

We help a student cut a project to something finishable, which is most of what a deadline needs.

Five to ten learners

Enough for ideas to cross the room, few enough that every project gets looked at.

The student owns it

We teach and review. The project is theirs and the entry is theirs to submit.

One to one when useful

For an ambitious build or a student preparing a video.

No role in the entry

We do not submit entries and have no relationship with EngineeringUK.

Student work

What our students have built

Four things our students built, finished and put online, outside any competition. They are collected on the student labs page.

AI and ML

NutriLife

An AI nutrition coach that reads what you eat and works you toward a target.

by Bhavya · Open it

AI and ML

Misti

A chatbot that answers mathematics and programming questions, built and deployed by a student.

by Harshit · Open it

AI and ML

GuardianX

An assistant that helps a young person recognise unsafe situations online.

by Vivaan · Open it

Web app

SkyCast

A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

by Krish

Fees

Charged monthly in US dollars, one rate everywhere but India, with nothing to pay up front and no term to sign.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

One real lesson on the build
An honest answer about the deadline
No payment details asked for

Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

Five to ten students at one level
The same teacher weekly
Projects reviewed as they grow
A certificate at the end

Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

A teacher working with one student
Shaped around the build
Useful in the weeks before entry closes

Enquire

What families say

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Families' reviews from our Google profile, quoted as left.

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Parent

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"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."

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Student

★★★★★

"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."

Vansh Agarwal

Student

★★★★★

"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."

Sonam Oswal

Parent of Dhairya

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."

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Parent

★★★★★

"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."

Ritu Kedia

Parent

Big Bang Competition questions

What students and parents ask

Who can enter the Big Bang Competition?

The rules say entrants must be aged between 11 and 18 when the project is entered, and must be in full-time state funded secondary education, home educated, or entering as part of a community group.

Can independent school students enter?

No, except at SEND independent schools. Joint entries combining independent and state school students are permitted where the numbers from each are equal.

Is it free?

Yes. The organiser describes the competition as free and open to students aged 11 to 18.

How big can a team be?

Any size. The rules say projects can be completed by teams of any size, so a whole club can enter one project.

What are the streams and age groups?

Three streams, Science, Engineering and Technology, and three age categories: Junior for Years 7 to 9 in England and Wales, Intermediate for Years 10 to 11 and Senior for Years 12 to 13.

How do you enter?

Online only. The organiser says entry is through the online form, which opens in the autumn term, and entrants submit written entries and, or, videos of up to five minutes with word limits per section.

How long should the video be?

Up to five minutes, which is a smaller budget than it sounds. At an ordinary speaking pace of about 130 words a minute that is roughly 650 words, about a page and a half, for a whole project.

How should those five minutes be spent?

Our suggested split of 650 words is 98 on the problem, 195 on what was built, 162 on how it was tested, 130 on what went wrong and 65 on what comes next. Students cut the failures first and judges want them most.

What are the awards?

The titles are UK Young Engineer of the Year, supported by Thales, UK Young Technologist of the Year, supported by Siemens, and UK Young Scientist of the Year, awarded at The Big Bang Fair in June. Cash prizes are published by the organiser in pounds and we do not print them.

What makes a strong project?

One where something was built and then something was found out. A result that surprised the person who built it is the clearest evidence a judge can see, and a project made and tested for one real person beats a more ambitious one tested by nobody.

Related pages

Other places to show a project

A showcase with no ranking, challenges with a clock, and the whole year in one table.

Coolest Projects UK

No ranking, no school rule, every checked entry shown.

Astro Pi Mission Zero

Run a Python program on the space station.

UK Olympiad in AI

A free three-hour exam for secondary students.

UK competitions calendar 2026-27

Every competition we could confirm, laid out by month.

Coding classes in the UK

The four school systems, and every UK page.

Student labs

Projects our own students have finished and published.

Start here

Book a free project lesson

Tell us the year group and what the project is meant to do. The free lesson works on the build, and afterwards we say honestly whether it will be finished in time.

Rather read first? Syllabuses are on the course pages, the method on how we teach, and the topic order on the roadmap.

WhatsApp us · +91 91233 66161 · contact@modernagecoders.com

WhatsApp is the quickest way through and free from a UK mobile. The number is an Indian one, which we always say, and we have no premises in Britain.

Three courses for a technology stream project

Python from start to finish

Data science with Python

AI and machine learning for teens

Three streams, three age groups, and a rule about schools

Five minutes is a word budget

Testing gets more than you think

What went wrong gets a minute

The problem gets forty-five seconds

Projects that fit a school year and survive a judge

Four rungs to an entry that explains itself

If entry closes soon

If the school is independent

Courses behind a technology project

Building it

Python from start to finish

App development

Full stack web development

Measuring it

Data science with Python

Statistics and probability

Maths through coding

Modelling it

AI and machine learning for teens

Algorithms and data structures

Python and AI for kids

Alongside school

GCSE Computer Science

A-level maths

Scratch for kids

Project teaching, weekly, with the write-up in mind

Evidence built in

Scope kept honest

Five to ten learners

The student owns it

One to one when useful

No role in the entry

What our students have built

NutriLife

Misti

GuardianX

SkyCast

Fees

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

What students and parents ask

Who can enter the Big Bang Competition?

Can independent school students enter?

Is it free?

How big can a team be?

What are the streams and age groups?

How do you enter?

How long should the video be?

How should those five minutes be spent?

What are the awards?

What makes a strong project?

Other places to show a project

Coolest Projects UK

Astro Pi Mission Zero

UK Olympiad in AI

UK competitions calendar 2026-27

Coding classes in the UK

Student labs

Book a free project lesson

Keep exploring Modern Age Coders

Related courses and guides

Free resources

From the blog

Start here