Coding competitions for middle school students and coding competitions for high school students are very popular these days. They bring a great opportunity to the students to improve their knowledge about programming and get valuable experience. These competitions are available in various forms, each of which has its own purpose.
Coding competitions for middle school students can be an excellent way to learn to program and show one’s skills to the world. Students from all over the world take part in such competitions and prove their skills in writing algorithms and creating programs to solve problems. Coding competitions for high school students are a valuable platform to demonstrate one’s programming skills and prove that one is ready for studying programming at a university or college.
In addition, it is also a great opportunity to get valuable experience that will help you get a job in the future. Before we dive into the various coding competitions for middle school students, let’s consider the benefits of coding for students.
Benefits of Coding for Students
Coding international competition for students is now welcoming students from all over the world. Coding competitions are important for students because it provides an opportunity to test their coding skills. It also helps them to learn how to code under pressure, without the help of teachers or books, which is a big benefit that they can take into college life.
Setting up a coding competition is not tough, but it does require some planning and participation from your local community. The first thing you need to do is find sponsors for your event and apply for grants and other funding opportunities. If you’re not sure where to get started, here’s a list of great sponsors:
Amazon: Amazon has created a new program called Alexa Accelerator that provides $100,000 grants to people who want to create Alexa-enabled devices for consumers. They’re looking for home automation products, smart home products, and any other product ideas that would make great Alexa skills or devices.
Google: Google’s Made with Code initiative has been very successful at promoting girls in technology and connecting the next generation of female coders with mentors and events like Made with Code Week. They’ve also partnered with Girls Who Code and Black Girls CODE to host workshops and hackathons on campus. Microsoft: Microsoft’s Youth
1: Coding helps with school & academic performance
Children that learn to code can improve and develop multiple facets of their educational syllabus including maths, writing, and creativity.
It can also help to increase their confidence at school or in other social situations.
2: Coding helps with maths & logical problem solving
From a maths perspective, coding is known to help kids visualize more abstract concepts in a fun format that lets them apply mathematics to real-life problem-solving.
Computer science and coding aren’t just about developing a program to solve or perform tasks. It’s also about logical problem solving, using the core basics of mathematics.
3: Coding helps with writing skills & creativity
When it comes to writing, computer programming can also let your child improve their written skills, developing a more concise and structured approach to storytelling and the English language.
When coding, a child will often realize that there will be more than one way to resolve a problem. Sometimes the more simple and efficient solution can be better.
By analyzing their critical thinking and solving problems, it can lead to a more meaningful application of written and spoken language.
And creativity?
By experimenting with computer code, they will learn to take a different approach to solve tasks in creative ways that might not have been thought of before.
When a child learns a coding language, they can learn to create digital content, not just consume it.
Rather than using an app or playing a video game, your child could be the brains behind imagining, planning, and developing one instead.
There’s no doubt that by problem-solving with code, your child’s brain can get stronger and more adaptable.
4: Coding helps with Confidence
Parents with children that have been on FunTech coding course or class will often report that their child’s confidence and communication have improved.
This can be put down to not just the basics of learning new tasks out of their comfort zone but also having to collaborate with other children in a classroom-based environment such as the ones we offer.
5: Coding is fun!
Whilst computer programming is very much a logic-based activity, it’s also very creative as we have already touched upon.
Much of the appeal in learning to code is the challenge and reward that comes when your child sees their code come to life.
In a classroom setting, with other children also learning, even more so.
6: Coding helps to future proof your child’s job prospects
According to research conducted by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, almost half of science, technology, engineering, and maths jobs are hard to fill.
With your child potentially reaching employment age in the next decade, having a coding and programming background could mean they are very much in demand in the 2020s. There should be no fears for them finding a suitable career.
Not only that but with there being real concerns that robots and artificial intelligence are set to phase out certain job roles over the next 10 years, there has never been a better time for your child to learn coding.
The Royal Society of Arts conducted a survey that suggested the technology could make certain mundane job roles redundant, with possibly four million jobs being at risk.
They canvassed the opinion of UK employers, with 13% thinking that more than 30% of the jobs will be automated by 2027.
The digital jobs market is one that continues to show rapid growth, with an increased demand for computer programming skills unfortunately not being matched by suitable candidates.
7: Coding helps kids with storytelling
We use a program called Scratch to teach kids to code. It’s a visual language developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is perfect for any sort of storytelling.
But why is that important?
Storytelling supports children in thinking procedurally, and these skills are very much a focus of the Scratch lessons.
When developing video games with Scratch, your child gets to code their own stories. By enriching their imagination by taking them off to far-flung places with strange characters, it can help them to deal with real-life situations.
Research shows that the type of brain activity that takes place during fictional moments is almost the same as the brain activity shown in real-life scenarios.
By reading, acting, or solving a problem in a fictional environment, your child can learn how to solve it in reality
International Coding Competitions
Coding competitions for students of high schools and coding competition for school students is very important for the students as they have to work with teams and have to compete with other students from all over the world. Organized by many organizations, a coding international competition for school students and coding competitions for high school students provide a great opportunity to showcase their talents and intelligence.
Coding competitions can be a part of a larger subject where the student has to code in order to learn about some specific topic or can be a standalone contest where the participants have to code from scratch which is then judged on the basis of performance.
Schools organize coding competitions for their students as it helps them to develop logic skills as well as improve their programming knowledge. Coding competitions also help them to learn how to work in teams and how important it is to take each member’s inputs into account while developing a program. Many top companies organize various coding competitions for high school students across the country where students can showcase their talent and intelligence.
Imagine Cup
The Imagine Cup is one of the best-known computer science competitions for high schoolers. The competition is run by Microsoft, and, each year, students around the world compete in it. Students work in teams of up to three members to design a tech solution to a social, environmental, or health problem. The project must include a Microsoft Azure component and “take into consideration diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.”
Eligibility requirements: Must be 16 or older Prizes: Each winning team is awarded $100,000, as well as mentorship from Microsoft experts and grant money.
International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI)
One of the world’s most prestigious computer science competitions, IOI is open to secondary school students around the world. Each country sends a group of four students (who compete individually) to the two-day international competition. American students must win the USACO competition (see below) to be chosen to participate. IOI participants must know how to program (particularly in C++), be able to understand and implement algorithms, and have strong problem-solving skills.
Eligibility requirements: Secondary school students who win their national competition. Prizes: Some countries award monetary prizes to their competitors, but IOI officially only gives medals to the winners. However, the real prize is being able to put “IOI winner” on your college application, which will give you a shoo-in to most top STEM college programs.
First Robotics Competition
There are a lot of robotics competitions out there, but First Robotics is one of the most prestigious, and, as such, requires a significant commitment (of both time and funding). Students work in teams of at least 10 (along with 2 adult mentors) to design and build an industrial-sized robot (about 150 pounds). They then must program the robot to compete in a sophisticated field game at competitions. Annual team registration fees are usually about $5,000, although fundraising guidance is given.
Eligibility requirements: High school students in the US
- Prizes: Various scholarships and cash prizes for top scorers, as well as those voted to have the most team spirit, resilience, etc
CodeChef
Code chef is a coding competition platform that offers online challenges for kids. Here challenges can be solved using multiple languages including C++ and Java. Kids from around the world can participate and submit solutions to the contest questions. The best feature of CodeChef is that it gives the contestants’ ample time, sometimes even days, to work on the challenges. So for a beginner programmer, this is the perfect competition to get your feet wet before moving to advanced competitions. The website estimates 10K people participate in their competitions from around the globe. New competition dates are announced each month, for now, the current competition closes on 10 November 2020. Eligibility: anyone who can program from elementary to high school.
Google code to learn
This competition by Google offers online challenges to be solved using scratch code or an app inventor by MIT. Teachers and parents can submit the projects on the behalf of the students. Kids can access various courses on Google to familiarize themselves with the contest and the challenges. Competition is judged based on a student’s skill to use different machine learning techniques to complete projects.
Contest registration opens in April. So keep an eye out on the website for the dates of 2021.
Eligibility: students from grades 5- 12.
Code 4 fun
This is best competition for young kids just starting to code. Basic level challenges are given to kids to solve and progress through the stages. Kids can develop apps or games using any language they want. Some of the challenges are python specific. Anyone can participate from around the world by signing up on the website and competing against groups at your level. No fees are required.
Eligibility: elementary school; kids aged 10+
CoderZ league
Bebras challenges are a bit different. Instead of large scale international contests, teachers are provided with the information to carry out the competition in the school among students using their own devices. The goal of the competition is to improve computational thinking in kids. Tasks require basic coding knowledge to solve problem-based challenges using logical thinking. Bebras is engaged in 50+ countries. The fees are very minimal and vary from country to country.
Eligibility: Middle school kids aged 11-15 years.
Congregational app challenge
This challenge is very illustrious. Students are encouraged to design a unique app to present to the committee once a year, where the submissions from all the students are compared and a winner is announced. The winning teams are invited to sit in the congress to receive the award, and the winning app is displayed in the Capitol building for a year[1]. The certificates are quite valuable in a college admissions file.
Zero Robotics
For this competition, teams of 5-20 students write programs to control hypothetical robotic satellites aboard the International Space Station. Students will be able to control the satellite speed, rotation, direction of travel, and more. They’ll use programming to get their satellites to complete obstacles while conserving fuel. There are several virtual competitions, and the finalists of those rounds are invited to compete in a live challenge overseen by an astronaut aboard the ISS.
Eligibility requirements: Open to students in grades 9-12 in the US or member state of the European Space Agency Prizes: No cash awards
RoboRAVE
RoboRAVE is a computer science competition for students interested in both programming and robotics. Teams of 2-4 players (plus a coach) design, build, and program a robot capable of completing different tasks such as extinguishing candles, placing flags atop a steep incline, and traversing an elevated maze. RoboRAVE prides itself on being an open competition , and teams can compete from anywhere while using any kind of robot (that they built) and any type of programming software. It’s a great option for students who are interested in robotics but don’t yet have a ton of skills in the area, as they emphasize building computer science and robotics programming skills.
Eligibility requirements: High school division is for students 14-18 years old, although there are other age group divisions available as well. Prizes: No cash awards
Conclusion
There are a number of coding competitions for high school students and coding competitions for school students. International coding competitions have been conducted by many universities and colleges across the world. The best part about coding competitions is that it can help you to learn more about coding, which is an essential skill for any budding programmer.
Students who take part in these competitions will also get an opportunity to meet like-minded enthusiastic people. This will not only help them to develop their own skills, but also give them confidence that they belong to a community that they can turn to for help whenever they require it, no matter how big or small the problem may be.