This year, students across the United States can look forward to another type of March Madness. On top of cheering on their favorite collegiate basketball team, they’ll be the ones competing – in the new CoderZ League Sprint Challenge. The cloud-based robotics tournament is designed to give participating students the chance to connect with peers, improve their STEM skills and have fun while learning.
The challenge will take place in the CoderZ Cyber Robotics Learning Environment, an innovative, online platform which has a coding interface where users can activate a virtual robot, or “cyber-robot,” and watch the results in a real-time simulation.
Students will form five-member teams and compete against other teams within their school. A statewide leaderboard will also allow them to compare their progress with that of other teams throughout their state. The challenge can accommodate whatever method a school is using to deliver instruction, whether it’s in person, online or a hybrid model.
“We want to involve students in a fun, engaging activity during what’s been a really difficult school year,” said Ido Yerushalmi, CEO of CoderZ. “With school closings and various in-person and remote learning scenarios in play, students haven’t been able to interact with their friends in many of the ways that they normally would. This Sprint Challenge will enable schools to give STEM classes, various clubs or friends a healthy outlet for competition and a chance to hone collaboration skills.”
Players will use the first two weeks of March to practice coding and working as a team while using gamified lessons called “missions.” After that, they will work together on the tournament’s challenges.
The CoderZ League Sprint Challenge includes three levels – Novice, Junior and Pro – to accommodate students of every coding experience. The Novice level is for students who are completely new to coding and robotics. The Junior level is designed for students with just a little experience with coding and in grades five through eight. Competitors at these two levels will use the programming language Blockly. The Pro is for students in grades seven through 12. At this level, students can program in Blockly or Python.
Schools can take advantage of three pricing levels, with discounts offered at the class and school level:
- Team level – $49 for one team of five students and licenses for two supervising teachers
- Class level – $179 (27% discount) for five teams – 25 students and licenses for two supervising teachers per team
- School level – $399 (75% discount) for 40 teams – 200 students and licenses for two supervising teachers per team
“CoderZ League is great because it teaches my students resilience, trouble-shooting and teamwork,” said Mandy McCubbin, technology teacher, Fairfield Country Day School in Connecticut. “I also appreciate that these skills can be applied to not only coding and robotics but many subjects including history, math and English.”
For more information on the CoderZ League Sprint Challenge, go to https://coderzleague.com/sprint-challenge/.
About CoderZ
CoderZ is an innovative and engaging online learning environment. Developed for students in grades 2 and above, the gamified STEM solution allows students to work at their own pace, easily programming real and virtual robots from anywhere in the world. The platform enables students to acquire computational thinking, problem solving and creativity skills, together with coding and STEM learning, all via a flexible and scalable virtual solution. For more information go to www.gocoderz.com.
CoderZ League is administered by ISCEF, a 501(c)(3).
