Doha College Year 7 student Kobe Lewis recently won first prize in an international coding competition organised by the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) in partnership with Discovery Education.

The competition was aimed at providing students at British International schools with the opportunity to compete with their peers around the world to create their own app.

Doha College App making competition

Understanding the coding concepts

In order to create their apps, participants put into practice their understanding of coding concepts like algorithms, sequences and variables – as well as their computational thinking skills through decomposition, logical reasoning and problem-solving. The theme this year was A Difficult Journey, and it asked students to create an app that simulated a quest to find an important object, which could be made difficult or dangerous, with obstacles to overcome along the way. The competition reaches over 165,000 students globally and open to COBIS member schools in 76 countries.

Kobe said he was ecstatic that he won the COBIS app competition.

I thought I had a small chance of winning second or third prize, but never imagined that I would come first! My app was based on games like Tetris, which I love playing in my free time. For the theme of adventures, I used an idea of walls that you must dodge to reach the end goal and win a prize. I finished the game with only a few hours to spare and I didn’t think much of it. Honestly, I’m surprised out of my wildest dreams!

According to the competition judges, Kobe’s app is very user-friendly, and people of all ages can access and play it whilst facing increasing challenges. The app is deceptively simple but with a sophisticated and mature approach to design. The aims and objectives of the app are clear and easy to understand and works well both on a PC, tablet or mobile – making it very shareable and usable.

The code is, however, very sophisticated and well-designed to enable this ease of use, a range of complex code is used effectively and efficiently. A very professional and authentic design.

Head of Computer Sciences Ruhul Chowdhury shared his aim for students to embrace the creative side of today’s digital world. He said they are very pleased to learn that Kobe has won first place, and thanked COBIS and Discovery Education for giving students an amazing opportunity to participate in the event. He said that the competition provided them with a platform to create an app based on the theme given.

I believe all our students should learn how to create apps, and other digital products and services by learning to programme. They need to become creators of technology rather than just the end-users.

Kobe’s win has been acclaimed in many digital education spaces, in the websites of COBIS, Discovery Education, ICT for education and The Educator UK. Kobe has become quite the digital celebrity!

Doha College offers Computer Sciences at GCSE and A Level, alongside many related, engaging co-curricular activities. To find out more, visit dohacollege.com.


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