FIVE budding whizz kids are celebrating their innovative flair this week after scooping first prize in a major national computer programming competition.
Jake Farrell, Leon Holmes, Nathan Crawford, Brendan Winters and Jack Faherty, who are all aged between 10 and 12, developed a new computer game that won first prize worth €500 in the national Scratch competition in Tallaght Institute of Technology last Saturday.
Scratch teaches computer programming concepts to young people and is administered by LERO, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.
Gort Family and Community Resource Centre recently ran a computer programming course for young people, which was facilitated by volunteer Steve Holmes.
The five boys, who are all from the Gort area, were never involved in computer programming before and designed and developed an award-winning game.
Steve, who works as a computer programmer in Avaya, a Galway-based global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services, got the idea for the project while watching his son, Leon, completing his homework and suggested it could be done with the help of a computer programme.
He got the five boys together and they came into the centre one night a week over the winter learning the basic concepts of computer programming.
Bit by bit, the children learned the foundations about how to develop a new game where space invaders shoot up at a spaceship and this in turn shoots back.
Steve taught them how to download various applications and images to develop the programme.
“Most children are natural with computers, they like playing around and experimenting with technology and once they develop a new skill, they are anxious to use it.
“All the boys are very savvy computers users, they are well able to use the internet and can put videos on You Tube. I felt we had a good project but I didn’t know what we were up against. It was a great achievement for the lads.
“Having attended Scratch, I found the teachers didn’t have my computer background, which was probably a big advantage to the lads.
“Ireland is one of the leading software producers in the world and learning these new computer skills could help the boys get a job in this industry and keep them at home in the future,” he said.
The game can be played at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/gortfrc/1724300.