International Coding Showcase 2021 Summed Up
Coding Lab's annual International Coding Showcase (ICS) is a collaboration with Coding Lab Japan to showcase our brilliant (and brave!) students ages 7 to 18 and their very own projects – whether it's Scratch, App Inventor or Python – and share them with the world. ICS 2021 saw Coding Lab students not only from Singapore and Japan, but also from other countries such as Germany, Indonesia and the United States!
With coding foundation and knowledge from our MIT-inspired coding classes, our students put in their blood, sweat and tears and used their ingenuity and creativity to create videos and projects that wowed the panel of judges. Today, we bring to you an exclusive blog feature of some of our top Distinction winners from ICS 2021. They clinched the top award and were featured on our Coding Lab YouTube channel – which reached thousands of viewers all over the world.
Learn all about their coding journey and watch their amazing project submissions!
Teo Han Xiang Jairus
9 years old, Singapore
Distinction and People's Choice Award, Scratch (Ages 7-9)
Hobbies: Coding! I code during my free time. Besides that, I love food!
How did you start coding? I joined a Scratch holiday coding camp at Coding Lab and I found that I liked it very much!
Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted use my creativity and my imagination. Through my experience, I learnt that winning is not important as long as I tried my best and have fun in the process.
Future coding aspirations: I want to make a famous gaming app that people love to play!
Xu Ruiheng Jacob
10 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges' Choice (Most Promising Coder and Social Impact), App Inventor and Python (Ages 10-12)
Hobbies: I like to swim, read books, make art and craft projects out of things I can find around the house. I've made stuff like ice-cream stick catapults, Minecraft paper figurines and analogue board games. I also love playing Minecraft and Forge of Empires. I also enjoy playing on Scratch with my classmates.
How did you start coding? I think I was six years old when my mum sent me for a coding workshop. I asked her to let me continue because I found Scratch very fun and easy to use because I could build programmes like how I build English sentences and Lego. I could also play games made by others.
Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted to give it a try because I like Chemistry and wanted to see what I could do with both Chemistry and coding during the December holidays. I was even coding my periodic table program while waiting for my mum to finish her perm at the hair salon! I felt that even if I didn't win, at least I gave it a try.
I learned the importance of planning a project so that the final product can be what I imagined it to be. Through this, I learned that no matter how challenging a task may seem, we will be able to do it once we break the hard stuff down into smaller pieces and solve them piece by piece.
Future coding aspirations: I would like to learn how to make online games and learn to improve my user interface to make my games more user-friendly. When I grow up, I would like to do something related to Mathematics or Science, and hopefully coding can help me to solve tough problems in those areas!
Theodore Lee Cheng Jie
9 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges' Choice (Most Promising Coder and Most Innovative), Scratch (Ages 7-9) and Python Electives (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: My hobbies are playing the piano, coding, badminton, golfing, playing chess and playing with my Rubik’s cube. During my free time, I will play chess online and try to improve my programming projects.
How did you start coding? It was by chance when my parents and I came across a coding school while window shopping. It looked interesting at first sight and my parents supported me. I started coding using WeDo, EV3, Scratch, and eventually Python.
Why did you join ICS 2021? My father shared with me about the competition. Initially, I was thinking of submitting my Scratch simulation project which I started during my free time. However, my dad encouraged me to challenge myself to re-create the simulation project using Python. I took up the challenge and I am happy that it turned out well!
I learned about resilience and never giving up when facing difficulties. There are also solutions to every problem, and failure is the only outcome if you give up.
Future coding aspirations: I want to be a doctor when I grow up. I hope to combine my programming knowledge and my medical knowledge to build and program a futuristic “nano-robot” that can be injected into the patient’s bloodstream to cure cancer and other serious illnesses in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAtv2pZrgNI&list=PLBIa3oPxScYFT8HlMtlXQOk5d7X_7-BqV&index=4
Ankit Maharana
11 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges' Choice (Best Presentation), App Inventor and Python (Ages 13-18)
International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Ankit Maharana
Hobbies: I like reading books and coding.
How did you start coding? I found my interest in learning to code.
Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted to improve my coding skills. I learnt to not give up and to debug and fix problems.
Future coding aspirations: I want to make an app from my existing code!
Kyran Tan
11 years old, Singapore
Distinction, Python Electives (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: I like to play Roblox and read books related to it. I sometimes create my own Roblox games too.
How did you start coding? I first started coding when my mother introduced me to Scratch Jr. I found it interesting as I could create simple games and animations. I started to code more frequently, learning more and more things along the way.
Why did you join ICS 2021? I joined ICS 2021 to challenge myself and to get myself out of my comfort zone. I think it was a precious opportunity to learn about more things related to coding. I have learnt to debug more effectively through my Wallety project.
Future coding aspirations: I plan to create a simple version of a messaging app like Discord or WhatsApp that will allow users to chat with full functionality without having to purchase any additional features.
My future occupation will definitely be related to coding. I hope to be a software application developer, where I can create, test and upgrade apps for others to use.
Jirapas Wongtreenatrkoon
15 years old, Singapore
Distinction and People's Choice Award, App Inventor and Python Electives (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: I really like language subjects like English and Chinese a lot. Language subjects are all about expressing one's ideas and imagination. Much like coding, it grants me the ability to express my ideas and imagination without being right or wrong. I also like to watch YouTube, anime, scroll through Reddit, as well as code.
How did you start coding? My father was the one who got me into coding. He was watching a Korean drama series called 'Start-Up' and there was this one character in there who could code. He shared about it with me and encouraged me to start learning to code.
Why did you join ICS 2021? I had some free time during the Christmas break and decided to make use of that time by joining the competition. Having made quite a few projects before, I've learned quite a lot in ICS while writing lines of code and improving from my mistakes.
All the ICS participants were also very good and watching their videos and projects gave me some ideas for my next game. In my opinion, the best part was making the video because I like recording and editing.
Future coding aspirations: Right now, I'm developing a currency rate logger, SGD to Baht to be exact. The app is personal to me. In any case, looking into the future I can really see myself doing something related to programming, especially now with the way things are advancing toward automation and Artificial Intelligence!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1SJh90khzY&list=PLBIa3oPxScYFT8HlMtlXQOk5d7X_7-BqV&index=16
Using a Windows laptop? You can download Jirapas' Genius Kitchen here.
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This concludes our 2021 International Coding Showcase (ICS)! You can check out the full list of winners here or view the playlist of videos of our top Distinction and Judges' Choices (Best Presentation) submissions.
Congratulations to all of our participants once again and we can't wait to see what else they will code! The Coding Lab team would like to give a HUGE thank you to all who participated. 🌟 We hope that our students keep on coding and creating awesome projects for the whole world to see!
Are you ready for the next run of our International Coding Showcase? Keep an eye out for it coming soon! 👀
Read all about the winners of our International Coding Showcase (SG-JP) 2020 here!
P.S. Our International Coding Showcase is open only to Coding Lab students. Interested to join in our award-winning coding classes? Check them out here.
(Written by Lech and Edited by Cheryl Tang)