They were mostly aged 9 or 10 but there was a class of students aged around 14.
Now I’m settled back home, I’ve taken a closer look at Don’s scoreboard and it shows another issue with the voting system. The 3rd place most humanlike bot was Anna. This shouldn’t have even been included in this part of the voting, as it was a Facebook Messenger bot and internet access is not allowed. It was pretty clear that it wasn’t a person on the other end of Facebook typing back but the contest rules need to be strictly followed in order to eliminate even the remote possiblity of cheating.
Likewise, Talk2Me, Skynet-AI, Eva, Jason and Hanah also used the internet and should only have been included in the Best Overall Bot award.
It would be unreasonable to expect the public to know which ones were using the internet but these votes shouldn’t have been included in the final tally.
Some changes definitely need to be made for next year.