Computer Science has literally changed the world forever in the last 30 years. And coding for kids has actually become as essential as mathematics for kids in today’s world. It is probably appreciated a bit more because it enforces kids to learn mathematics practically, while mathematics itself sometimes most of us don’t learn practically at school. Today, kids all across the world are learning coding and there are many kids coding competitions running all round the calendar year.
Here is a list of a few coding competitions for primary and secondary grade children around the world.
- The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) doesn’t need any new introduction as it is the ultimate coding and computer-science competition for children. This Olympiad is conducted along with other olympiads such as the Mathematics Olympiad and the Physics Olympiad. Details of this competition and the syllabus covered for this contest are mentioned in this post.
- Zonal Informatics Olympiad (ZIO) and Indian National Olympiad in Informatics (INOI) level 1 and level 2 exams for India Coding Olympiad and for the final selections of IOI from India. More information on these exams are mentioned in this post.
- International Kids Coding Competition (IKCC) conducts a range of kids coding competitions in various programming languages and platforms and across both world-wide and regional levels.
- Canadian Computing Summer Contest (CCSC – Grades 3-12) The CCSC is a competition for students across the globe to provide an opportunity to showcase their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. There is a focus on Python in this competition but the languages accepted could change every year.
- The American Computer Science League (ACSL) is an international coding competition among over 300 schools in the US for grades K-12. Competitions occur online throughout the year and consist of four contests. Each contest consists of a written section to analyse code and a programming section.
- UnicMinds World Game Coding Competition is our own coding competition for kids in Block-based, JavaScript and Python coding. Children aged up to 15 years across the world can participate in this online coding competition and win prizes and certificates.
- Bebras Computing Challenge tests students of 6-18 years age group on various computational problems and puzzles and with grade based questioning. Students from 6 to 18 years old work through a set of tasks that focus on different topics and skills within informatics and computational thinking. They will have 45 minutes to complete as many tasks as they can, they are not expected to finish them all. The challenge has six different age categories with each their own set of tasks to keep things exciting and challenging for all students:
- Scratch Olympiad is a coding competition for kids all around the world. Students from 7 years old and adults from any corner of the planet can become participants in the Scratch Olympiad.
- NASA’s App Development Challenge is a coding challenge in which NASA presents technical problems to middle and high school students seeking student contributions to deep space exploration missions. By responding to the ADC, students take a part directly in the Artemis Generation endeavours to land American astronauts, including the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon. Grades: 9-12
- The Congressional App Challenge is a prestigious competition designed to encourage creativity. Students create and submit an app using any programming language and about any theme or topic they choose. To get ready for the challenge, we recommend your child completes app development, game development and web development courses ( HTML/CSS/Javascript). Then they can join our Congressional App Challenge Mentoring Classes to build their project for the challenge from end to end, guided by our experienced teachers. Grades: 6-12
- The Young Coders Competition is a coding contest in Scratch for young children attending school in certain parts of Europe such as Scotland and Ireland.
- Hong Kong International Coding Olympiad (HKICO) is a regional coding in South Asia. It tests on problem solving skills and algorithmic skills in informatics and computer science.
- Design Championship Online is a coding competition in India for kids 6-16 years old. The competitions are held regionally first in many age-group and programming categories such as App Design, Game Design, Web Design, Movie Making, and others. Then the national level selections happen for the finals.
There could be many kids coding challenges and competitions in individual countries that we probably couldn’t cover. But, you get the idea that today there are many coding competitions for children to prepare for and make a mark for themselves and learn from these opportunities.
Hope this is useful, thank you.
