The #Coding4Mandela tournament was held virtually on Tuesday, 5 December, the day Nelson Mandela died ten years ago.<\/p>\n
According to a report released by the Leva Foundation prior to the competition, learners were tasked to practice on a coding app called RANGERS.<\/p>\n
The app has interactive challenges. The coders needed to direct an object to reach a destination. Teams were given 30 minutes to finish eleven levels.<\/p>\n
The winning team was the one that completed the most levels. In the event of a draw, then the team with the least number of wrong attempts wins, and the final tiebreaker is the team that did it in the shortest time.<\/p>\n
The top ten teams were:<\/p>\n
Ahead of the competition, learners gathered last week at the Astra Special School in Montevideo to practice.<\/p>\n
Randal Rousseau, who introduced the coding programme, started teaching youngsters at Belhar library using an app called TANKS which teaches coding without one needing a computer.<\/p>\n
Later, he moved to Bonteheuwel Library, where for two hours a day for two months he taught teacher assistants to teach learners coding. Rousseau also initiated mini tournaments.<\/p>\n
Ricardo Antha, lead coach of the Belhar Coding Club, said he was pulled into coding by his daughter. He started by taking JavaScript and Python diploma courses. He feels coding should be part of the school curriculum.<\/p>\n
He adapts his teaching methods to the learners. \u201cSome kids are visually stimulated, so I would use videos like TikTok just to get concepts through to them. Others are audio based, so I have to sit down and explain for hours in order for them to grasp it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antha\u2019s daughter, Keziah, started coding last year in July. \u201cI like it when I have to code my own things \u2013 my own games and animation,\u201d she says. She hopes to get a scholarship to go to a private overseas college. She encourages others to do coding as she believes it \u201ccan help them with school work and problem solving\u201d.<\/p>\n
Aidan Nissen, 15, from Belhar High, said, \u201cI enjoy coding because it expands our thinking \u2026 I like that we can also have fun with each other while learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shadwell Overmeyer, who started coaching in May this year, coaches at the Belhar Library and volunteers at Valhalla Park Library, where he says \u201cthe children needed purpose\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe alternative is drugs and gangsterism and we had to be that catalyst that brings change to the community and coding is doing a brilliant job at that,\u201d said Overmeyer.<\/p>\n
By\u00a0Qaqamba Falithenjwa<\/a><\/strong> for GroundUp. Reproduced under CC BY-ND 4.0<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The #Coding4Mandela championship was held virtually on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341078,"featured_media":519213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[91431,91419,91417,35,91433,2630,91421,91423,91435,91429,91427,91425],"class_list":["post-519209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-aidan-nissen","tag-astra-special-school","tag-coding4mandela","tag-headline","tag-keziah-antha","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-randal-rousseau","tag-rangers","tag-ricardo-antha","tag-shadwell-overmeyer","tag-sunford-primary-school","tag-tanks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341078"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519211,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519209\/revisions\/519211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read:\u00a0World’s most popular programming languages revealed<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"