A week-long campaign to promote computer science through activities such as computer game designing and using a coding tutorial ended yesterday, with 45 schoolchildren nationwide taking part in a game coding competition and 1,000 people trying their hand at programming.
The middle and elementary-school students showed great creativity in the contest, which required them to design a racing and a treasure-hunting game in 90 minutes using programming tools, said Microsoft Taiwan, which organized Taiwan’s first Kodu Kup competition as part of the global Computer Science Education Week.
The competitions help promote coding, which is important to the cultivation of coding skills, said Nelson Chu (朱楠賢), director-general of the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC), where the event was held.
“In this age of mobile devices, many new jobs in the next decade or two would be linked to the use of computers,” therefore the promotion of computer science would help make the next generation more competitive, he said.
“As a powerhouse of high-tech manufacturing, Taiwan should not by any means be excluded from this current wave of coding education,” said Vincent Shih (施立成), Microsoft Taiwan’s general manager for corporate, external and legal affairs.
The competition allowed children to learn how to code, practice collaboration and improve their problem-solving abilities, he said.
Participants had the opportunity to experiment with game programming, the organizers said.
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