School holidays are in full swing, and we are all no doubt thinking about how to best enjoy our time before the next year begins. This is where techtivities come in – activities where you can learn more about the immense possibilities of technology, while having fun at the same time! 

For December’s #TechFact, did you know that 40 years ago, the computer was named the “Man of the Year” by TIME Magazine? This is the first time the editors of the magazine selected a non-human recipient for the award. It speaks of the large impact computers had in the world 40 years ago, and clearly still persisting till today!  (Source)

Image for #TechFact (December Techtivities)

Now that we’re all warmed up, keep scrolling on to discover techtivities that you and your family can indulge in this month! ✨


Untame: Spaces to Places

With a pandemic comes hybrid classes and meetings, but have you ever heard of a hybrid festival? 😲

Untame: Spaces to Places is an annual, immersive, blended festival designed to spotlight the power of STEM. This hybrid festival allows for a unique, multi-dimensional experience including STEM-themed quests, online missions, sensory shows, games, DIY kits, activity trails and after-dark fiesta. Watch as the Science Centre becomes transformed into METANU, an immersive game world where you get to be avatars and complete online-to-offline missions and get back to reality! There are also LOCI kits with DIY STEM activities where you get to code and build a light right that ring that changes colour when a drone is flown across, build and code an electronic, instruction-responsive pet, and others. 

With so many various activities, Untame is the perfect place suitable for anyone in the family!

Image of Untame: Spaces to Places for December Techtivities

Details:
When: until 11 December 2022
Where: Science Centre Singapore
Price: Free (online), or from $15.90 onwards (depending on activity)
Learn more here.


Changi Festive Village

Up for celebrating the festive times with activities suitable for the entire family? Changi Festive Village is back with fun-filled activities ranging from various exhibitions at Jewel, to an underground festival at Terminal 3! 

In true holiday fashion, Jewel has been transformed into a winter wonderland complete with snowfall at selected times. Watch the HSBC Rain Vortex come to life with a stunning light and sound show featuring characters from Avatar. Play with adorable seals, manta rays and dolphins at the interactive screens in Canopy Park and trigger lively responses from them using your body through jumps, waves, and stretches – with the help of motion sensors! Peer down and check out how your footprints leave glowing blue bioluminescent waves on the interactive floor screen at the Petal Garden. So many interesting activities and beautiful sights and photo-spots await you at Changi Festive Village!

Image of Changi Festive Village for December Techtivities

Details:
When: until 2 Jan 2023
Where: Airport Boulevard
Price: Free (with exception of some areas)
Learn more here.


Seeing the Invisible

An exhibition without any installations? 🤔 This is only possible with the help of Augmented Reality (AR)! 

Seeing the Invisible is an AR exhibition, addressing themes about nature, the environment and sustainability. With 12 AR installations, artists are able to go beyond what physical installations are capable of and allow the interplay of the physical and virtual worlds. All you need to do is to come equipped with the Seeing the Invisible app installed on the phone. View an invisible tapestry moving with the wind, discover a hidden gateway and be transported to a parallel universe, and many more! Visit this exhibition at Gardens by the Bay for an outdoor adventure that you and your family will never forget. 🤩

Image of Seeing the Invisible for December Techtivities

Details:
When: from 12 October 2022
Where: Gardens by the Bay
Price: Free
Learn more here.


Christmas Wonderland

What better way to immerse yourself in this merry season than at Christmas Wonderland at Gardens by the Bay, where you will get to experience winter to the fullest – from snow, festive food and carnival, beautiful lights and sounds all in one? 🎄

With 6 different zones featuring various activities, watch the kinetic light display of the Whimsical Windmill move to form various patterns as they get controlled by the remote! The Walk of Lights tunnel is a must-go with 50,000 programmable LED lights illuminating a variety of colours in a multitude of patterns accompanied by sounds. Something that will intrigue everyone is the Garden Rhapsody Light and Sound Show, where the magical Supertree lights are programmed to dance to festive tunes. A one-stop-all festive spot, it is sure to be a hit for everyone in the family! 😄

Details:
When: 2 December 2022 to 1 January 2023
Where: Gardens by the Bay
Price: from $6
Learn more here.


End of Year Holiday Coding Camps

Still looking for something enriching and fun for your child to do this holidays? Look no further and lock in your plans with us here at Coding Lab! For Ages 5 to 18, dive into the world of code and discover the amazing projects your child will be able to create this holidays! 

With our award-winning and well-loved curriculum, your child will be able to pick up a new skill as well as have fun in class, exploring and creating projects unique to them! Carefully curated to fit each age group, Coding Lab’s curriculum ensures that all students will be able to follow along and at the same time, have fun in class with their friends. 🤗 

With classes for both beginners and the initiated, as well as having both physical and online options available, there’s definitely something for everyone! Sign up here or feel free to drop us an email, call us or WhatsApp us to get in touch.😊

Banner of 2022 EOY Holiday Camps

Details:
When: 21 November to 30 December 2022
Where: Online, Parkway Parade, Bukit Timah (KAP Mall)
Price: From $401.52

Sign up for your Coding Lab class now!


Image for #TechNews (December Techtivities 2022)

From developing key hardware for the quantum computer 🖥️ to working towards more efficient Artificial Intelligence 🤖, these world-class researchers aged 35 years and below are breaking new ground and bringing pride to our little red dot! 🇸🇬  

Read more about the achievements of last year’s Young Scientist Award recipients here. Who do you think will be this year’s recipients? 🏆


If you haven’t seen our previous techtivity recommendations, check out our November #TechtivitiesOfTheMonth, which includes more cool tech-related activities you can do with friends and family!

(Written by Thinzar)


Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger

Coding Lab’s annual International Coding Showcase (ICS) is a collaboration with Coding Lab Japan to showcase our brilliant (and brave!) students ages 7 to 18 and their very own projects – whether it’s Scratch, App Inventor or Python – and share them with the world. ICS 2021 saw Coding Lab students not only from Singapore and Japan, but also from other countries such as Germany, Indonesia and the United States!

With coding foundation and knowledge from our MIT-inspired coding classes, our students put in their blood, sweat and tears and used their ingenuity and creativity to create videos and projects that wowed the panel of judges. Today, we bring to you an exclusive blog feature of some of our top Distinction winners from ICS 2021. They clinched the top award and were featured on our Coding Lab YouTube channel – which reached thousands of viewers all over the world.

Learn all about their coding journey and watch their amazing project submissions!


Teo Han Xiang Jairus

9 years old, Singapore

Distinction and People’s Choice Award, Scratch (Ages 7-9)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Jairus Teo

Hobbies: Coding! I code during my free time. Besides that, I love food!

How did you start coding? I joined a Scratch holiday coding camp at Coding Lab and I found that I liked it very much!

Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted use my creativity and my imagination. Through my experience, I learnt that winning is not important as long as I tried my best and have fun in the process.

Future coding aspirations: I want to make a famous gaming app that people love to play!


Xu Ruiheng Jacob

10 years old, Singapore

Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Promising Coder and Social Impact), App Inventor and Python (Ages 10-12)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Jacob Xu

Hobbies: I like to swim, read books, make art and craft projects out of things I can find around the house. I’ve made stuff like ice-cream stick catapults, Minecraft paper figurines and analogue board games. I also love playing Minecraft and Forge of Empires. I also enjoy playing on Scratch with my classmates.

How did you start coding? I think I was six years old when my mum sent me for a coding workshop. I asked her to let me continue because I found Scratch very fun and easy to use because I could build programmes like how I build English sentences and Lego. I could also play games made by others.

Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted to give it a try because I like Chemistry and wanted to see what I could do with both Chemistry and coding during the December holidays. I was even coding my periodic table program while waiting for my mum to finish her perm at the hair salon! I felt that even if I didn’t win, at least I gave it a try.

I learned the importance of planning a project so that the final product can be what I imagined it to be. Through this, I learned that no matter how challenging a task may seem, we will be able to do it once we break the hard stuff down into smaller pieces and solve them piece by piece.

Future coding aspirations: I would like to learn how to make online games and learn to improve my user interface to make my games more user-friendly. When I grow up, I would like to do something related to Mathematics or Science, and hopefully coding can help me to solve tough problems in those areas!


Theodore Lee Cheng Jie

9 years old, Singapore

Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Promising Coder and Most Innovative), Scratch (Ages 7-9) and Python Electives (Ages 13-18)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Theodore Lee

Hobbies: My hobbies are playing the piano, coding, badminton, golfing, playing chess and playing with my Rubik’s cube. During my free time, I will play chess online and try to improve my programming projects.

How did you start coding? It was by chance when my parents and I came across a coding school while window shopping. It looked interesting at first sight and my parents supported me. I started coding using WeDo, EV3, Scratch, and eventually Python.

Why did you join ICS 2021? My father shared with me about the competition. Initially, I was thinking of submitting my Scratch simulation project which I started during my free time. However, my dad encouraged me to challenge myself to re-create the simulation project using Python. I took up the challenge and I am happy that it turned out well!

I learned about resilience and never giving up when facing difficulties. There are also solutions to every problem, and failure is the only outcome if you give up.

Future coding aspirations: I want to be a doctor when I grow up. I hope to combine my programming knowledge and my medical knowledge to build and program a futuristic “nano-robot” that can be injected into the patient’s bloodstream to cure cancer and other serious illnesses in the future.

Read: Theodore was featured on Lianhe Zaobao with Coding Lab in Coding as a New Literacy in the Digital Age


Ankit Maharana

11 years old, Singapore

Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Best Presentation), App Inventor and Python (Ages 13-18)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Ankit Maharana

Hobbies: I like reading books and coding.

How did you start coding? I found my interest in learning to code.

Why did you join ICS 2021? I wanted to improve my coding skills. I learnt to not give up and to debug and fix problems.

Future coding aspirations: I want to make an app from my existing code!


Kyran Tan

11 years old, Singapore

Distinction, Python Electives (Ages 13-18)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Kyran Tan

Hobbies: I like to play Roblox and read books related to it. I sometimes create my own Roblox games too.

How did you start coding? I first started coding when my mother introduced me to Scratch Jr. I found it interesting as I could create simple games and animations. I started to code more frequently, learning more and more things along the way.

Why did you join ICS 2021? I joined ICS 2021 to challenge myself and to get myself out of my comfort zone. I think it was a precious opportunity to learn about more things related to coding. I have learnt to debug more effectively through my Wallety project.

Future coding aspirations: I plan to create a simple version of a messaging app like Discord or WhatsApp that will allow users to chat with full functionality without having to purchase any additional features.

My future occupation will definitely be related to coding. I hope to be a software application developer, where I can create, test and upgrade apps for others to use.

Read: Kyran Tan’s feature after clinching 1st Place in the Python (Ages 10-12) Category in the previous International Coding Showcase 2020

Read and Watch: Coding Lab Student Feature on Kyran Tan, 12


Jirapas Wongtreenatrkoon

15 years old, Singapore

Distinction and People’s Choice Award, App Inventor and Python Electives (Ages 13-18)

International Coding Showcase 2021 - Photo of Jirapas

Hobbies: I really like language subjects like English and Chinese a lot. Language subjects are all about expressing one’s ideas and imagination. Much like coding, it grants me the ability to express my ideas and imagination without being right or wrong. I also like to watch YouTube, anime, scroll through Reddit, as well as code.

How did you start coding? My father was the one who got me into coding. He was watching a Korean drama series called ‘Start-Up’ and there was this one character in there who could code. He shared about it with me and encouraged me to start learning to code.

Why did you join ICS 2021? I had some free time during the Christmas break and decided to make use of that time by joining the competition. Having made quite a few projects before, I’ve learned quite a lot in ICS while writing lines of code and improving from my mistakes.

All the ICS participants were also very good and watching their videos and projects gave me some ideas for my next game. In my opinion, the best part was making the video because I like recording and editing.

Future coding aspirations: Right now, I’m developing a currency rate logger, SGD to Baht to be exact. The app is personal to me. In any case, looking into the future I can really see myself doing something related to programming, especially now with the way things are advancing toward automation and Artificial Intelligence!

Using a Windows laptop? You can download Jirapas’ Genius Kitchen here.

When downloading this .exe file, the app may be flagged as an unusual file as it does not have many downloads yet. Press ‘Keep’ to continue your download. When launching the app, Window Smart Screen may stop you from launching, simply select ‘more info’ then ‘launch anyway’, this is because the app is not registered with Window yet. Other than that, thank you for downloading and enjoy!

Note: this app can’t be downloaded on iOS.


This concludes our 2021 International Coding Showcase (ICS)! You can check out the full list of winners here or view the playlist of videos of our top Distinction and Judges’ Choices (Best Presentation) submissions.

Congratulations to all of our participants once again and we can’t wait to see what else they will code! The Coding Lab team would like to give a HUGE thank you to all who participated. 🌟 We hope that our students keep on coding and creating awesome projects for the whole world to see!

Are you ready for the next run of our International Coding Showcase? Keep an eye out for it coming soon! 👀

Read all about the winners of our International Coding Showcase (SG-JP) 2020 here!

P.S. Our International Coding Showcase is open only to Coding Lab students. Interested to join in our award-winning coding classes? Check them out here.

(Written by Lech and Edited by Cheryl Tang)


Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger

We know that you’ve got lots of things to do, so we’ve hunted down and made a list of 5 Educational Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Games for Children – so you don’t have to search for them yourself! Now, screen time can be productive and educational, and the family can relax and wind down together after a long day.

Get your phones and tablets ready to download – and let’s take off into the world of educational games! 🚀

1. Smart Tales

For Ages 1-5

Learn STEM concepts through interactive animated stories and games with this award-winning app!

Smart Tales is a combination of STEM and the arts! Develop reading, logic and counting and learn important life lessons on respect, environment, using technology safely and more. With more than 300 fun lessons, this is the ideal educational app for your tiny tots to enjoy picking up STEM concepts through colorfully illustrated stories of animal friends!

Our Favourite Feature: Experiencing colourful, unique stories with fun characters every episode! 📗

Smart Tales is available for free (with in-app purchases) on App Store & Google Play

2. The Robot Factory

For Ages 6-8

TheRobotFactory Screenshot - Top 5 Educational STEM Games for Children
Choose your parts and build your robot!

Build your very own digital robot and bring them to life! 🤖

Ever wanted to design your personal robot? With The Robot Factory, players can choose the color and type of parts they want to piece their robot together with. Collect robots, test their performance in obstacle courses, and record their unique robot sounds as you develop creative-thinking, problem-solving and storytelling skills.

Our Favourite Feature: The satisfaction of finally equipping your robot with the right parts to successfully complete the obstacle course! 🎉

The Robot Factory is available for SG$5.98 on App Store

3. Lightbot: Code Hour

For Ages 4-12

Lightbot Screenshot - Top 5 Educational STEM Games for Children
Give commands to Lightbot to light up all the tiles!

Learn to solve problems using programming logic!

Want to pick up new skills or continue testing the coding skills you learnt at Coding Lab? Train your little one’s puzzle-solving skills while they apply their knowledge of programming logic in this beginner-friendly game! The goal? To guide Lightbot the robot to light up tiles and solve 20 levels with commands that are common in coding, such as loops and conditionals. Remember to take eye breaks as solving these puzzles can be slightly addictive as they increase in difficulty.

Our Favourite Feature: The whirring sound effects that accompany Lightbot’s every action! 🚁 (Special mention to the sound the rising platform makes at the start of each level!)

Lightbot: Code Hour is available for free on App Store & Google Play

4. STEMWerkz

For Ages 5-12

STEMWerkz Screenshot - Top 5 Educational STEM Games for Children
Interact with a colourful cast of characters and learn STEM concepts!

Learn STEM through play and interactive videos!

Featuring more than 3,200 concepts across three zones: STEMWerkz Quests, STEMWerkz Channel and STEAMvalley, there’s something new to learn during every gaming session! Pique your child’s interest in STEM as they build their own towns and develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills. If you enjoy the free content, you can also consider getting their subscription plan to unlock more educational and engaging content such as live interactive lessons.

Our Favourite Feature: You get to interact with a wide cast of characters with interesting designs and stories! 👦👧

STEMWerkz is available for free (with in-app purchases) on App Store & Google Play

5. Khan Academy

For Ages 2-8 for Khan Academy Kids
For All Ages for Khan Academy

Interested in Math, logic, reading or just want to inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery?

Khan Academy has educational and fun programmes – not just limited to STEM – with thousands of activities and books for all! For little ones, the Khan Academy Kids app has thousands of colourful books, adorable characters and kinaesthetic activities such as yoga and dancing to accompany your child’s learning. Older ones can embark on their learning journey on Khan Academy (yes, even parents can use it too!), which is an extension of the web version, and teaches a range of topics through interactive exercises and videos.

Our Favourite Feature: The app contains topics for all ages, no matter the different interests, so learning is an exciting and educational time for all! 🌟

Khan Academy Kids is available for free on App Store & Google Play
Khan Academy is available for free on App Store & Google Play


Check out our specially curated Resources page for more on coding!

Interested to learn coding in a way that feels just like gaming? We teach Ages 5 to 18 age-appropriate coding in fun and engaging ways! Find out about our courses here.

(Written by Lixin Foo, Edited by Cheryl Tang)


Best-in-class Curriculum for Coding

We are honoured to be the winner of multiple awards.
Thank You for your support.

Hop on board the Coding Lab train! Click here to get our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox.

Ages 5-6 | Ages 7-9 | Ages 10-12 | Ages 13-18

Call us at +65 6977 9641
Email us at [email protected]
Chat with us via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger