Moonhack breaks a world record for kids coding, again
On Tuesday, 28,575 kids around the globe broke a world record by coding on the same day.
It was all for Moonhack, an event for ages 8 to 18 set up by Code Clubs Australia, a network of 1,950 volunteer-led, after-school coding clubs for children.
This year was the first time the event officially expanded internationally from its native Australia, due in part to a strange occurrence which happened after the first Moonhack last year.
"We finished off the night, and midnight had ticked over, so we all went to bed," Code Club Australia General Manager Kelly Tagalan explained before the event.
"But when we woke up in the morning, 4,000 more kids had participated in Moonhack. We left the form open. I guess we underestimated our reach."
Children from 20 different countries, including New Zealand, Korea, and Guyana, participated in the coding event. The feat was officiated by RecordSetter, which presents itself as a more open alternative to the Guinness World Records.
Moonhack's aim is to help children with digital literacy, and instill the complex problem-solving skills vital for their future careers. Tagalan said Moonhack was a way for students to draw attention to their desire to code.
"These are kids saying, we want this kind of education."
"These are kids saying, 'We want this kind of education, we want to be a part of this learning,'" she said.
"What we're seeing is more teachers taking this up as not only a one-off event, but a way of teaching in their classrooms. So it's integrating computational thinking alongside traditional ways of learning."
Kids had one day to code something for Moonhack in any coding platform of their choice. The only requirement was that a moon must feature at some point in their animation, game, or website. Or alternatively, they can complete one of Moonhack's projects in Scratch, Scratch JR or Python.
The event's name is a nod to the Apollo 11 landing, which shares the same date, July 20, as the first Moonhack event that took place 47 years later. Australia had a role in the television broadcast of the mission, where satellite dishes received signals from the moon.
Upon signup, kids can leave comments on why they wanted to take up coding.
"One of the really special quotes I read was from a little girl who said, 'I want to be like my dad, who's an engineer, and I think this type of learning is important.' I thought that was really moving," she said.
"And then we have teachers who say they want to gauge the interest [in coding] in our school. Which is important as well." Not a bad idea, these days.
