Young hackers get their game heads on

Saturday 06 June 2015

Youngsters are hoping to crack the code today and come up with the best computer game at the Island's first ever Junior Hackathon.

More than 140 young hackers will be battling it out online at Hautlieu School.

The primary school children will have just three hours to design and program a game using Microsoft’s Kodu Game Lab – a free programming tool they’ve been working with at school.

The event’s been organised by the Primary Coding team at Hautlieu School who are helping raise standards in IT in primary schools across the Island and using their skills to spark creativity in computing.

Hautlieu’s Deputy Head Stuart Hughes is leading the project. He said: “This Junior Hackathon is the first of its kind, certainly in Jersey, possibly anywhere. It will be a great opportunity for children to show off their programming skills to a wider audience.

“The team are now working with 25 Jersey primary schools and the support that we have received from primary school colleagues has been outstanding. The children love the work that their primary teachers and the primary coding team are doing with them and have made exciting progress. We want to give them a chance to showcase their skills and are extremely grateful to the British Computer Society for supporting this event.”

Education Minister Deputy Rod Bryans said: “This is hard evidence of our new IT strategy making a real difference. The team at Hautlieu have created fresh thinking that helps our youngest students explore just how far they can go in IT and it proves that creativity is the key.

The games will be judged by local IT industry experts and speakers at this weekend’s TEDx St Helier conference and there are laptops and tablets up for grabs for the winning teams.

Jason Wyatt from the primary coding team said: “Kodu allows for lots of creativity. Having seen the children develop their skills in school, I can’t wait to see what they will come up with for the Hackathon!”