Young Programmers Competition 2022

On Thursday of week 2, a select group of children traveled up to Nairobi to compete in the Young Programmers Competition held at Peponi School on Friday 6th May 2022. Facing off against other IAPS Schools, Hillcrest, Banda, Kenton, Peponi and Braeburn Garden Estate. Our team was split up in to the under 11s, made up of Shay, Arjan and Dennis, and our under 13 contingent consisting of Tung’a, Kate and Ana. Each group faced a number of computing challenges throughout the day.

Under 11 Challenges

• Coding Skills – Creating a game in scratch
• Computational Skills - Solving a cryptographic treasure hunt
• Modelling Skills – using Kodu to create a game in a 3D environment

Under 13 Challenges

• Modelling Skills – Using Paint 3D or Sketch-up to design a Trophy
• Coding Skills – Using Python to create a simple program or HTML to make a webpage
• Computational Skills - Solving a cryptographic treasure hunt

Only First and Second place awards were given out for each activity in each age group. Sadly, no medals for us this time round, but the judges did tell me that our students were consistently getting third place (almost second) in every event, proving that we did not have any great weaknesses. The other teachers also commented that Braeburn Mombasa had the “coolest bunch of kids” because they were always smiling and working together as a team, whether things were going well or not. The Head Teacher of Peponi said that the aim of the event was to have fun and learn something new, and in that respect the trip was a complete success.

Thanks go to Peponi for hosting another great event, to the parents for your support, the staff here who helped organise the trip, and of course the students themselves who were simply amazing. I am really proud of our students, the way they performed, the way they behaved and represented our school. They had a positive attitude from start to finish. I give the final word to our students who had this to say about the trip…

"I really enjoyed the stay at BGE and the competition at Peponi it was really fun". - Tung’a

"I love the competition we had so much fun I wish there was going to be a another one". - Denis

"We had a nice time at Peponi school and the food was also very good at BGE". - Shay

"Everyone at the competition was friendly and we had a great time". - Ana

"We enjoyed working as a team and trying to figure out the answers. I enjoyed staying at BGE". - Kate