Clare students up to scratch in national coding competition

CLARE students have proven themselves to be up to scratch after getting top awards in the finals of a national competition.

The National Scratch Coding Competition was held at the University of Limerick, bringing together the top scoring teams from all over the country.

School students aged six and up across five age categories were invited to demonstrate their Scratch projects to the judges.

Students from Feakle National School and Ennis Coder Dojo took home some of the top prizes at this year’s Scratch Finals.

Jack Hogan from Feakle National School received the award for Junior infants to 1st Class Category for his project ‘March JH’.

Adiel Mickus, Ennis Coder Dojo received the 2nd Class to 4th Class Category award for his project ‘Two Player Maze Game’.

This year saw over 160 entries nationwide to the competition. According to Clare McInerney, Lero’s EPE Programme Manager, “The standard for this year’s competition has been incredibly high, it was a very difficult task for our judges this year.

“I want to say a huge congratulations to everyone that took part in this year’s competition. The Scratch programme provides young students with real, hands-on coding experience and highlights how important it is our everyday lives.”

Scratch is a visual programming language that makes it easy for young people to create their own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art – and share their creations on the web.
Using Scratch allows students to develop creative and critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills as they work collaboratively or individually on Scratch projects.

Now in its twelfth year, the National Scratch Competition has established itself among both teachers and students as a leading platform and showcase for Ireland’s aspiring digital creators.

The competition is run by the Irish Computer Society, the representative body for IT professionals in Ireland and Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software. Awards were provided by AWS In Communities, a programme of Amazon Web Services.

Frank Mockler, General Manager, Irish Computer Society said, “Events like the national Scratch competition allow Ireland’s upcoming cohort of digital creators to demonstrate their critical thinking, their creativity, and their innovation.

“We need to make sure that young people see the value and potential of technology and learn to own and control it.

“Some of the participants today may go on to be the IT professionals of tomorrow – but even if they don’t, we hope that taking part has helped them develop new skills and become empowered digital citizens. Congratulations not just to all the winners today, but to everyone who took part.”