At Kodecoon Academy, we believe in anchoring students’ interest in coding beyond the classroom through proactive engagement and a supportive environment. By encouraging students to participate in coding competitions, we empower them to step outside their comfort zones and tackle real-world challenges. Our dedicated Kodecoon team continuously seeks out relevant tech competitions, ensuring that students have ample opportunities to apply their skills in practical contexts. We instill in our students the mindset of active creators of technology, emphasizing that coding is not just a subject but a gateway to innovation. Through these efforts, we inspire a generation of tech-savvy individuals who are ready to shape the future as confident problem solvers and innovators.
Students can gain a variety of valuable advantages by taking part in coding competitions. As students have to come up with effective answers while working under time pressure, these competitions develop students’ creativity, logical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. Participating in such activities promotes networking and collaboration since students get to meet with people who have similar interests. Coding contests also mirror real-world situations, educating students for any practical obstacles they may face in the workplace.
Recently, we challenged our students to participate in the MIT App Inventor Summer Appathon. The contest results were announced in mid-August and Kodecoon Academy is excited to announce that…drumrolls, please….Two of our Kodecoon teams, HealBud and Personal Finance Control managed to clinch the Youth Team Finalist and Youth Individual Honourable Mentions awards respectively!
What is the competition about?
The MIT App Inventor Summer Appathon is an annually held appathon organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This competition allows anyone from around the world to participate! Participants can participate in 1 of 5 tracks: Individual youth, Team youth, Mixed team, Individual adult, and Team adult.
The Appathon is an exciting chance to use your imagination and coding expertise to tackle the problems the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about. This event gives students a chance to use technology as a force for good as the globe struggles to navigate these unusual times. Participants can have a genuine influence by creating apps that meet the needs of persons affected by the pandemic or benefit the neighborhood.
The 2023 Summer Appathon has unveiled a diverse range of themes to inspire participants’ creations. Civic engagement and justice, climate and sustainability, creativity, art, and entertainment, education and research, mental health and wellbeing, along with personal finance are the core themes driving innovation this year. The event encourages participants to delve into cutting-edge AI components like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Alexa, as well as explore Data Visualization components such as novel Charts and Spreadsheets elements. The Internet of Things realm beckons with Bluetooth Micro:bit integration. Although using these technologies won’t directly impact scoring, their incorporation is encouraged for the potential they hold in sparking ideas and enhancing app functionality.
Participants in the MIT App Inventor Summer Appathon must submit an AIA project export of their app, a presentation template, and a concise under-2-minute video explaining their app’s functionality via the Appathon server, with these materials being shared publicly for winners.
Following the result release and the excitement of our students’ wins, we reached out to them about the good news and asked them what they had to say about their overall experience participating in this Appathon!
Dylan Michael Jaya, Ethan Alexander Saputra, Nathan Tang for Youth Team Finalists: HealBud
Dylan, Ethan, and Nathan are Grade 10, 8 and 12 studying in Jakarta respectively. Dylan and Ethan have been coding since they were in Grade 5 and 6 respectively, with Dylan picking up interest later on in Grade 7. Nathan on the other hand started coding 3 months ago. At first, he was apprehensive about joining the competition considering his lack of experience. However, he was encouraged by his friends and Teacher Deddy to join and he is glad that he participated and achieved finalist in his first coding competition.
About the app:
Screenshots of the App
HealBud presents an interactive app experience aimed at promoting mental well-being. Upon launching the app, users are greeted with a “TAP TO START” button, initiating their journey. After committing to help the app’s friendly character, Bud, users access the main dashboard. Here, they can seamlessly explore different sections: “SOS” connects users with verified therapists for emotional support; the “Chat” feature enables messaging with therapists; the “Game” redirects to “Banana Bonanza,” a tilt-based game to collect bananas for purchases; the “Learn” section offers articles on mental health, rewarding users with bananas; the “Daily Survey” provides extra bananas for completing surveys, feeding AI chatbot development; and the “Shop” allows banana-based grocery purchases, with items graying out after purchase. “HealBud” merges engaging elements and therapeutic resources, prioritizing users’ mental wellness journey in an accessible manner.
Teacher Deddy asked Ethan, Nathan and Dylan more about their Appathon journey and here’s what they had to say:
How did you feel about joining this competition?
Dylan: It was a great opportunity to test my app development skills especially on App inventor. I have always wanted to do this for a year now. It was my first time creating a full-functioning app from scratch.
Nathan: With only three months of coding, I knew I was a beginner in programming. I didn’t know much and expected that we wouldn’t do very well. After receiving the results, I’m glad that we made it to finalists.
Ethan: Like Dylan, it was also my first time creating a fully functioning app from scratch. During the previous competition that I participated in with Dylan, we were unable to complete the app, so I am glad that we were able to complete this one on time.
What was the initial idea of the app?
Dylan: Indonesia is a large country 18 thousand islands and not every place has adequate access to medical treatment. We wanted to solve this issue at first. The initial app was done weeks before the themes for the Appathon were announced. Unfortunately, there was no theme on health and well-being. Hence, we decided to tweak our idea such that it would fit mental health, one of the themes for Appathon, and named the app HealBud.
How did your team come up with a cute app design?
Dylan: We wanted our app to stand out from the other submissions and create a fun and enticing app for our users. On the surface, it may not seem like a mental health app. Bud, the cute monkey character on our app allows users to play games with and to be taken care of. Every day, there is a daily survey that asks users about their mental health. For every survey done, points in the form of bananas will be rewarded which can be used to buy necessities through the app.
Nathan: Additionally, we made sure that it was not only enticing to city dwellers but those living in rural areas.
What is Banana Bonanza about?
Ethan: In under a minute, it is a game where users can orientate their phone to collect bananas on the screen. Bananas collected can be used to get daily necessities such as oil and sugar.
Who came up with the cute illustrations for the app?
Ethan: I came up with a design that was simple yet at the same time pleasing to the eye. Using Canva, I designed the components before putting them in app inventor.
Were there major challenges developing this app?
Dylan: It was difficult to find a common time due to our schedules to work on our project. We overcame this problem by delegating the roles and tasks required to complete the project and in our own time complete them before coming together to discuss.
Nathan: The design was incredibly challenging. Testing the app was also another issue. The rest of the team are IPhone users and I was the only Android user. This meant that I was the tester, ensuring that the UI/UX of the app was working well. It was challenging because there were multiple pages and I had to frequently ensure it was working well.
Are there difficulties having different perspectives in a team
Ethan: We had many different ideas that we bounced around which was time-consuming.
Nathan: When I don’t want something, I just don’t want to do it. I believe that we should be decisive in this project.
What were the coding challenges faced?
Dylan: I was working on the form when suddenly my progress disappeared. Frustratingly, I had to redo the section of code I had worked on.
Additionally, on app inventor, the app looks great but when run on the device, it doesn’t look good. Adjusting the components to make it look more appealing took faster than expected. This is the constraint that many teams faced.
In hindsight, what is something you would have done differently.
Ethan: More communication would have better.
Nathan: I agree with Ethan, but it was due to our schooling schedule that was clashing. Our teamwork was great!
Dylan: We could have solidified our idea earlier so that we could have more time to work on the app.
Click here for the full interview
Jeremy Tan for the Youth Individual Honorable Mention: Personal Finance Control
Jeremy’s coding journey started 3 years ago in Malaysia. During the summer holidays, he went to coding classes. He learned Scratch during the 1 and a half months. He went back to Hong Kong, where he was based at the time, and pursued Lego Robotics. Like Scratch, he did block-based coding using EV3. Initially, it was his parents that signed him up for such programs but as his interest grew, he wanted to learn more. Over the past year, he has been learning coding with Kodecoon from Scratch to App Inventor with Teacher Jin Yi.
Coding to Jeremy is limitless, it allows him to create anything he wants. MIT App Inventor Summer Appathon is the first of many international competitions he wishes to join.
About the app:
The app was created with the intention of assisting individuals who often find themselves leaving stores with items unrelated to their original purpose, mostly for personal enjoyment. Recognizing the need for a solution, Jeremy decided to take action after realizing their own excessive spending on enjoyment. By addressing this common issue, the app aims to aid both the creator and others in their community to curtail unnecessary spending on enjoyment-related items.
Screenshots of the App
For users, the app offers a straightforward process to track spending on enjoyment. They can simply click the “Add the Amount of Money Spent on Enjoyment” button, input the item’s name and cost in USD, then submit. Additionally, users who refrain from spending on enjoyment for 7 consecutive days can click the “I Have Not Spent Money on Enjoyment for 7 Days Straight” button to earn a token. With tokens, users can access the “Shop” section where they have the choice to purchase treats – saving up multiple tokens can lead to bigger treats. The app provides clear guidance on these features through a tutorial page, ensuring users can navigate these functions effortlessly.
Teacher Deddy asked Jeremy more about his Appathon journey and here’s what he had to say:
Teacher Deddy (Left) and Jeremy (Right)
You opted out to be nominated for People’s Choice. Why?
Jeremy: I didn’t want to share my app with too many people. The app was still in its early stages of development which meant that there was room for improvement. It was lacking key features such as a 7-day timer due to time constraints.
Where did you get the inspiration to build a Personal Finance App?
Jeremy: My mom and I had a system put in place previously. If I recently achieved anything such as winning a competition, I will receive stars for it that I stick on my sticker sheet. Each star is worth 20 Hong Kong Dollars that I can redeem anytime. So far, I have accumulated 300 stars.
Using a similar concept, the same can be done with regard to personal finance. After 7 days, if no money is spent on leisure or enjoyment, the user receives a token. The token can be used to redeem a gift.
Was Personal Finance App part of your KIS project?
Jeremy: Yes, it was the same except instead of personal finance it was for sugar intake.
What were the challenges faced in creating this project?
Jeremy: The login system was challenging as each user has a unique set of information. The password could be anything the user wants but the username had to be unique. Using a database, the user’s information would be retrieved based on their username once they log in with the right password.
How did teacher Jin Yi guide you?
Jeremy: I would tell her how some parts of my app weren’t working. She instructed me to check specific parts of the code and we debugged my project together. For instance, there was a repeat code that was previously used for the sugar intake version of the project that was not needed.
What is one thing you would do differently in the app?
Jeremy: I would have another system to take away some tokens from the user when they overspend. This would motivate them further to save more money and reduce expenses on leisure and entertainment rather than solely giving them tokens. This is like how my mom would remove stars if I were to do anything bad like fight with my sister.
What would you like to say to your juniors who are also interested in coding competitions?
Jeremy: You don’t have to go based on your knowledge, skills, and expertise, you can go for competitions based on your idea and learn how to create that idea along the way.
Kodecoon Academy is extremely proud of Nathan, Dylan, Ethan and Jeremy for their efforts and wins. We congratulate our winners AND our participants and their efforts in participating in this MIT App Inventor Appathon! Great job kiddos!!