Playing computer games in class usually doesn’t end well for students.
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But that’s changing in the Sutherland Shire, where more and more schools are starting top coding clubs.
Top coding is an activity where students code games or animations on their computers.
Competitions started popping up last year around the shire to test the skills of young coders, initiated by school teacher Robert Entwistle.
This year, top coding clubs have simply exploded with more than 40 schools from across the shire and Sydney taking part in competitions.
The 2nd Ansto Top Coder Grand Final pitted the best schools against each other this week at Ansto’s Lucas Heights campus.
The invited students worked in teams of two to create a computer game in under two hours, based on the theme clean oceans.
Padstow North Public School’s Adriana Olivera and Nikhil Warrier won the Year 5 division, while Caringbah North Public School’s Cate Chapman and India Magee took out the Year 6 title.
“We made a game where you have to free marine animals from garbage that has trapped them,” Cate said.
“Some animals are tangled in fishing line or old plastic bags or covered in oil.”
Sutherland North Public School Year 5 student Samara Don said she really enjoyed taking part in the final.
“I have been doing coding since the start of the year, there is a coding club at our school,” she said. “I want to keep doing it because I like how there is no limits.”
Her team mate Cassidy Benitez, also in Year 5, explained the idea behind their game.
“We had a guy called Pico who tried to save the ocean with his jelly fish,” he said. “But his jelly fish turns out to be evil and you had to beat him by doing a quiz.”
Ansto Top Coder Grand Final director Entwistle said part of the reason schools had been taking up coding was because it helped students prepare for jobs in the future.
“Students will be expected to have these skills in the future such as knowing how computers work and how to create websites,” he said. “Being fluent with computers is something that we need to teach and that is why schools are getting involved with us.”
The students used a program called Scratch to code their games.
