The call for Ireland’s best and brightest young coders is set to go out next week as CoderDojo’s Coolest Projects opens for registration!
The event, which will take place on June 13th, allows participants in CoderDojo, which is open to children aged from seven to 17, to show off their skills and the projects they have created, from websites and apps to Scratch projects, HTML and other advanced coding languages.
It’s a mark of how successful the event has become that this year it is moving from the Helix in DCU to the RDS, the home for the BT Young Scientists Competition every year. Up to 500 projects are expected to be shown off at the event, and organisers are predicting it will grow even bigger next year.
Cofounder of Coolest Projects Noel King said the children taking part continually surprise them each year.
They have this vision that you don’t foresee when you’re teaching them throughout the year,” said Mr King. “I love seeing the children see problems that they then use what they learn in CoderDojo to solve.”
One of last year’s winners was Niamh Scanlon, who created an app that showed the location of all the e-car charging points around the country on a map, if they were currently in use and if so, how long for, all in real time. The app also provided directions to the charging points. She worked with the ESB to gather data for the app, which she designed for Android phones. She is also working on an Apple version, but the Android app is expected to get into the Play Store soon.
“I decided to make an app out of it because I thought it would be helpful for people with electric cars,” she said. “My dad really loves electric cars and wants to get one. He was saying wouldn’t it be great if I could see if someone was using the charging points.”