Three 11th graders from Spanish River High School won the first canCode Hackathon competition. As reported by WPTV News, Luke Fisher, Maximilian Meiler and Alek Fecteur entered a computer technology contest that hopes to inspire kids to work with tech. The young teens named their team Hecor computer Science Industries and didn’t expect to win.
“Surprised we won. We ran into a lot of hiccups, we submitted with ten seconds left,” says Fecteau.
The contest has the purpose to inspire younger age groups to become interested in tech. The curriculum that teams develop is used to raise interest in elementary students. The creators of the contest, canCode, states that they have taught over 400 elementary students and engaged teens to become volunteer teachers.
“The way that they develop their curriculum is actually modular. So we can teach different parts of the game at different workshops,” says Noah Rubin who started canCode in 2016.
All three boys are surprised and eager to win the first-ever Hackathon competition. They are happy to know that the contest has a positive impact on coding.
“I think it’s great that with canCode we’re able to teach younger children just basic concepts of code with fun and engaging ways to teach them, by just making games,” says Meiler.