New Hampshire’s Week of Code Attracts High Numbers of Students

Building on the internationally popular program organized by Code.org called An Hour of Code for Every Student, the New Hampshire Department of Education has teamed up with a local company, Intelitek, and Oracle Academy, to sponsor our own week of code with the Cyber Robotics Coding Competition.

“We wanted to build on the work of code.org as well as the success of our own robotics program launched earlier this year,” commented Commissioner Frank Edelblut. “Using Itelitek’s CoderZ software platform, we built 50 virtual coding challenges that allow students to navigate robots through increasingly difficult challenges. And, these are very engaging challenges for the students. Think Minecraft^©, but with coding and robots.”

The CoderZ cloud based software platform is accessible to a wide range of students. Beginners can code using what is called ‘block’ code, helping them build simple programs to navigate their robots through a course. Advanced users have access to line-level coding and more difficult challenges. “I cannot thank Intelitek enough for partnering with us on this project” stated David Benedetto, the STEM Education Director at the Department of Education. “They really have done an outstanding job with this project and it would not have happened without their partnership.”

“The impact we are achieving is tremendous. Thousands of students, their teachers and sometimes even their parents – are all engaged in coding and STEM activities for a period of six weeks” stated Ido Yerushalmi, CEO of Intelitek. “The competition is great way to motivate students to get exposed to STEM. We are seeing students logging in to the software platform from home. Our objective is to make STEM activities such as this competition– accessible to all”.

So far over 2,300 students and 100 teachers have been actively participating in the Cyber Robotics Coding Competition. Forty students have completed all 50 boot camp missions and are awaiting the next 20 missions to be released in the Week of Code. Qualifying schools and students will be able to compete in a grand finale competition on December 19, 2017 at Pinkerton Academy. Awards will include: Student Inclusiveness; Faculty Inclusiveness; Diversity; Top Scoring Middle School; and Top Scoring High School. The competition leaderboards keep all schools motivated to improve their ranking.

Although initiated in New Hampshire, the success of the Cyber Robotics Coding Competition – has already started catching on in other states. Over 10 states have expressed interest in holding the competition in their state in 2018. New Hampshire will look forward to hosting a regional, and perhaps a national event, as this competition becomes widely adopted.

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