Student coding competition comes to ASU Polytechnic
Johana Restrepo , The Republic | azcentral.com
High-school and middle-school students from all over Arizona will come together April 12–13 in Mesa for the fifth annual coding competition known as SPARK Game Jam.
Hosted by the SPARK App League and Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, students will learn the power of coding by working in teams to develop a game using Scratch from MIT, an online game-creation system. The event is being held at the ASU Polytechnic campus in east Mesa.
“This event is unlike any in the country and exposes students of all experience levels to coding with the hopes that they’ll choose computer science-related majors when they attend college,” said Derek Konofalski, multimedia analyst who runs the SPARK App League for the town of Gilbert, which partnered to create the event.
Over the two-day competition, students will receive guidance from ASU professors and mentors as they create their games. The students will be entered to win prizes based on their innovative ideas, design and code implementation.
Waymo, Google’s former self-driving project and the competition’s new sponsor, will be on site to teach the students about the vehicle and self-driving technology.
Participants will have a chance to win prizes for the best overall game, best game design, best art design, best technical design and a model citizen award.
For more information, visit sparkappleague.com/contest/.
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