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CODE4FUN Students Visit Google Australia

By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Kids
Last Thursday the top 30 students of the CODE4FUN Winter Coding Challenge went on an exclusive tour of one of the world’s most innovative companies – Google.

Google was founded in 1998 and from the beginning, their goal has been to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. Not just some. For everyone.

Google’s Mission Statement: Organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

With their Australian headquarters located in Pyrmont, we started the day with a fun group photo and were then taken inside their office for an engaging Q&A session with some Google employees (known as “Googlers”). Students were given the opportunity to ask lots of questions to the Googlers who shared their passion and excitement for tackling the hard problems in technology.

The students were then taken on a guided tour across three incredible levels of Google HQ. The space is edgy, fun and colourful, and designed to foster a culture of creativity and collaboration.

We took an eye-opening look inside the Google Makers Space where Googlers can experiment with gadgets and tools and possibly invent the next Google product used by millions of people around the world! With cafes, free food, chill-out zones, gaming rooms, a Lego play area and even a rock-climbing wall, it’s easy to see why Google is regarded as one of the best places to work in the world.

Congratulations once again to the top 30 students. We hope you enjoyed the visit and were inspired to continue exploring the wonderful world of coding and technology.

Check out some of the photos from the day below.

We will be announcing the details of the Christmas Coding Challenge in early September. We invite all our students to participate in the next challenge for their chance to win fantastic prizes, visit a leading technology company and of course, learn and have lots of fun along the way!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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CODE4FUN Winter Coding Challenge 2018: My First Business App Prototype. Winners & Their Projects

By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in KidsTags:
CODE4FUN Winter Coding Challenge 2018 Winners copy

We are excited to announce the results of our Winter Coding Challenge 2018: ‘My First Business App Prototype’.

Our students were encouraged to make their first step into the World of Startups. We wanted them to think as Inventors and Entrepreneurs, and being ready to launch their first business and change the world!

The main goals of this challenge were to:

– Expand our students’ Design Thinking

– Enhance their Creativity and their ability to Invent new things

– Teach our students how to define a problem, find a solution and (this is the most challenging part) how to turn an amazing idea into a working App prototype.

This challenge required a lot of brainstorming, coding and testing. We wanted our students to go through a real software development cycle and to see what an Iterative or Agile software development approach really means.

After 12 weeks of a very hard work,  212 students from 26 schools submitted their business app prototypes. You are very welcome to check out all the projects in the Scratch Studio here: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/4831739/.

All students did very well. We are very excited to see how creative and innovative our students are, what problems they decided to solve, and what solutions they offer.

We congratulate our Top 3 winners, who won Programmers of the Year award and new laptops.

Here are the winners:

Sophia Gionis, Maroubra Junction Public School class

The Cakery. Bakery Management App
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/212660772/
Coding Teacher: Declan Dwyer (Scratch Intermediate Course)

Ava Maccan, Mosman Art Gallery classes

Thinkchrinicity. Classes Schedule Matching App
Ava is keen to develop her App further, therefore has decided to un-publish her project at this stage).
Coding teachers: Andrew Diggins (Unity 3D course) and Jesse Clark (Crypto Currency Course)

Oliver Bone, Birchgrove Public School class

Platformer Level Maker App
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/211423190/
Coding Teacher: Jonathan Serebro (Snap! and Scratch Advanced Course)

 

Our huge congratulations also go to our five Finalists:

Renata Starodubtseva, Granville

Art Stuff. Drawing App
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/223986449/

Mateo Smith, OLGC

Bit Cash. Bitcoin trading app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/207647841/

Conrad Borg, Glenhaven

Do List. Time management app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/211698021/

Indiana Pixton, Granville

What pet to buy app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/207459488/

Abigail Tyler, PLC

Homework making app
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/209843344/

In addition, our top 30 coding students received an invitation to visit Australian Google HQ on 2nd August. This is a very exciting opportunity, and we believe our students will enjoy and learn from that excursion a lot. Parents of the invited students will shortly receive a separate email with all the details.

A big thank you to all CODE4FUN Winter Coding Challenge participants, who put a great effort and submitted their amazing projects. Very well done to all of you!

Keep on coding! We strongly believe that students’ progress much faster when they start practicing coding themselves at home and applying all the skills they learn in class by coding their own projects independently.

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Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Course for High School Students

By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in KidsTags:
Blockchain And Cryptocurrency Course For High School Students

We are proud to be the first coding school in Sydney offering a new Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Course for High School students. This course is suitable for digitally savvy Y6 – Y11 students, who are keen to learn this cutting edge technology.

The students will learn the basics of different blockchain technologies and how the famous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether work. Our Head of Teaching Jesse Clark will code our own cryptocurrency simulator specifically for this class in order to simulate cryptocurrency blockchain transactions between students.  The students will interact with each other using the simulated cryptocurrency market and learn the essentials of crypto economy and blockchain. They will learn the key terms of blockchain & crypto world such as distributed systems, hash functions, blocks, nodes, proof of work, double spending problem, and many others.

Pre-requisites: The course is for Y6 – Y11 students.

Location: Mosman Art Gallery, Art Gallery Way & Myahgah Road, Mosman NSW 2088
Time: Every Thursday, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Duration: 8 weeks, from 3 May till 5 July (14 & 21 June there are no lessons)
Fee: $176 per student per term (GST inclusive).
Level: Y6 – Y11 students with proven coding experience
All equipment is provided
Enrol Now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We look forward to seeing you soon.

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CODE4FUN 3rd Annual Coding Challenge: Top 40 Participants visit Atlassian

By Code4Fun No CommentsPosted in Kids
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Each year CODE4FUN has a Christmas Coding Challenge and the entries and prizes keep getting better!

This year a theme was ‘Time Machine’, our students used the skills they learned in a class to create apps, games, and animations. There were two challenges set; the first was to develop original stories and games in Scratch and the second was to use professional game engine Unity3D to build individual projects.

The jury had a tough time picking the winners as the work submitted was at such a high quality. All participants demonstrated solid coding skills and endless creativity – we hope our students are as proud of their work as we are.

Three students were awarded Programmers of The Year: Finn, Patrick, and Renata. They each took home a new laptop.

In addition, our top 40 participants had the opportunity to visit Atlassian headquarter, Australia’s leading technology innovator! We are so thankful to Atlassian’s team for having our students and for sharing their passion for innovation and technology in such an inspiring manner. There is no surprise, most of our children are certain now – they want to work at Atlassian.

We hope all the students had a great time participating in the challenge, it is extremely popular amongst our students! If your child has missed out on the CODE4FUN coding challenges this year or can’t wait to get stuck into it again – we will announce our next big Challenge theme on the first week of the Term 1. 2018. As usual, we invite all the students to take part in the next challenge.

In the meantime, we encourage you to take a look at the excellent work produced by our students this semester here.

Here are the top three award winning projects:

Finn Howard, The Traveller

 
Patrick Nixey 
 

 
Renata Starodubtseva
 

 
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