Creative Hut delivered the PartyRock Hackathon with Amazon InCommunities and the AWS PartyRock team. The format was built for teenagers with no coding background: describe the app you want in plain words, and AWS PartyRock builds it.
100+ Students Reached
30 teams of three or four
4 schools
In February 2026, Ireland’s Department of Finance reported early evidence that AI is weakening job prospects for young graduates, with tech employment among 15–29-year-olds down 20%. In June, the National Youth Council of Ireland’s youth juries found teenagers as young as 13 worried about what AI means for their careers, and calling for better education around it.
Creative Hut’s approach is hands-on first: students learn what the technology does by making something with it. So the idea behind this day was simple. Give teenagers with no coding background half a day to build a working app against a real-world brief, using a tool that turns a plain-language description into the app itself. The risk was the label. Words like robotics, coding, and AI can put off students who don’t see themselves as techy, and this day needed all of them in, across around 30 teams at once.
It took place on Tuesday 13 October 2026 at Amazon’s offices in Dublin. Transition Year students from Tallaght Community School, Rath Dara Community College, Marian College, and Ballymakenny College registered, 106 students and seven teachers in all, and worked in teams of three or four. Creative Hut shaped the format and run of the day alongside Amazon InCommunities (Think Big Space) and the AWS PartyRock team.
You can do things that you wouldn’t have thought was possible, and then you start really thinking, hold on a sec, could it do this, and then it does it, so they just keep working on it.
— Ross MaguireCreative Hut
How the day ran
Creative Hut recruited and looked after the four schools, handled school communications and media consent, wrote the risk assessment, PAT-tested the kit, and supplied the laptops. Schools were also offered Amazon Future Engineer’s 45-minute AI career tour, with a Kahoot version, so students could arrive knowing what PartyRock is.
On the day, Amazon leadership welcomed the students and the PartyRock team gave a short introduction to the tool. Teams then planned their ideas on paper before anyone touched a laptop. Once the building started, they had support from the PartyRock team, Creative Hut facilitators, and Amazon volunteers.
Judging was science-fair style. Leaders and guests walked the room and talked to teams at their laptops instead of sitting through formal pitches, which with around 30 teams would have used up the day. PartyRock’s own measures, such as how much a team tested its app, helped narrow the field, and a panel made the final call. The day closed with a panel discussion, awards, and photos. Tallaght Community School took first place and Rath Dara Community College second, with prizes and certificates prepared by Creative Hut.
It was a first for PartyRock too. The team usually works with university students and graduates; this was its first event of this kind.
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