The PACT team at Maynooth University Department of Computer Science develops resources and supports to allow teachers to teach topics in computer science at both primary and secondary school. Since Ireland became a member of the International Bebras Committee in 2016, PACT has been the official academic partner with the national Bebras organiser, the Irish Computer Society, creating Bebras tasks for the international community with experts from over 50 countries each year, promoting the Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge in Ireland, and hosting the National Bebras Finals at Maynooth each April.
We specialise in computational thinking resources and supports. Computational thinking is a set of problem solving skills that computer scientists use when they do their everyday work. It intersects with all STEM fields because computational solutions have proven to be useful in many scientific fields.
The PACT team has been active since 2012. We have engaged over 60 000 students and 1 000 teachers in computational thinking activities, with funding from Maynooth University Department of Computer Science, the Google CS4HS programme, and Research Ireland.
Primary and secondary teachers, don't forget to sign your students up now for the (free) annual Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge (9th to 20th November 2026). Our most recent seasonal tasks are Halloween tasks (2 new ones and 21 from previous years):
