Coding Lab’s annual International Coding Showcase (ICS) is a collaboration with Coding Lab Japan, designed to provide a platform for our students aged 7 to 18 to present their remarkable coding projects. Our students get the opportunity to showcase their own exceptional projects, done in Scratch, App Inventor or Python, and share their brilliance with a global audience. This not only helps our budding coders gain confidence, but also paves the way for them to build a robust coding portfolio, preparing them early for a successful future in today’s digital age. The resounding success of ICS 2022 transcended borders as we proudly featured Coding Lab students from all over the world, from Singapore and Japan to Germany, Indonesia and the United States!
Our students take pride in their solid coding foundation and enriched knowledge gained from our MIT-inspired coding classes. They have poured their hearts and souls into their projects, and their extraordinary submissions left an indelible impression on our esteemed panel of judges! We proudly present an exclusive blog feature highlighting the achievements of our top Distinction winners from ICS 2022. These students not only secured the prestigious top award, but also gained the opportunity to have their superb work featured on our very own Coding Lab YouTube channel, captivating the attention of viewers from all across the globe!
Let us embark on an inspiring journey to learn more about our students’ coding journey and watch their amazing project submissions!
David Xu
7 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Best Presentation) Award, Young Computer Scientists (Ages 7-9)
Hobbies: Reading, playing the piano and I also enjoy coding when I am allowed to use the computer in my free time!

How did you start coding? I followed in the footsteps of my older brother who is also a coder. I started coding with Scratch when I was in Primary 1!
Why did you join ICS 2022? I thought it would be fun to try and I had an idea to develop a game to help children learn science.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? Getting the chance to code with purpose! I enjoyed debugging because when I finally get it right, I feel very proud of myself!
What is your favourite thing about coding and Coding Lab? The teachers are very patient and help me learn how to code different things every week. My favourite part about Coding Lab classes is playing with the games I have made.
Future coding aspirations: I am currently taking part in the Minecraft Cup Competition 2023. I am very excited to build my own eco-friendly buildings and automatic farms, and I hope my team wins an award!
Any comments for the readers? I want to encourage all coders to not limit their imagination. Always try to think out of the box!
Nakamura Shinji
9 years old, Singapore
Distinction, Young Computer Scientists (Ages 7-9)
Hobbies: I spend a lot of time on coding. If I have more free time, I read comics and non-fiction books about coding.

How did you start coding? My kindergarten offered a robotics lesson. The robotics teacher told my parents that I was exceptionally good because I came up with the best robotics solutions without any guidance from him. My mother then signed me up for free lessons from Smart Nation’s website, where we got to know about Coding Lab. I was extremely keen to learn more about coding, so my mother signed me up for more lessons at Coding Lab!
Why did you join ICS 2022? I wanted to compete with other contestants from Japan and showcase my projects on an international level!
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? My ICS project is about a game that takes 5 days to finish. I created this simple game because my younger brother wanted to play computer games, but most games were too difficult for him. This game only requires three keys from the keyboard to play. Through this experience, I also learnt how to edit a video for my presentation, which was very fun. Maybe I can become a YouTuber one day!
What do your family and friends say when they hear that you are a coder? My grandmother is very proud of me. She tells her friends that I won awards for coding. I would like to thank her for the full support that she has given me!
Future coding aspirations: I am planning to create an advanced game that no one can replicate. I am looking forward to mastering other programming languages too!
Any comments for the readers? Follow me on Scratch and look out for my new projects!
Chen Feng
10 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Promising Coder) Award, Advanced Computer Scientists (Ages 10-12)
Hobbies: I enjoy a variety of activities, like playing basketball, playing Chinese chess and reading books. When I want to unwind, I also play Roblox and Minecraft.

How did you start coding? At the age of 7, I started playing Roblox and was awed by the designs. This inspired me to take up coding so I signed up for my first coding class.
Why did you join ICS 2022? I saw this as an opportunity to challenge myself and find out where I stand in terms of my coding skills. Earning a Distinction Award gave me a rough understanding of my abilities.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? I learnt that determination and perseverance help me through hard times. Finding improvements and flaws in the project while continuously improving it is crucial. The best part of ICS is when I finally used Tkinter to make my Stock Price Retrievers inputs, which has a Graphical User Interface, which is more interactive than just plain text.
What is your favourite thing about coding and Coding Lab? Coding Lab not only trains our coding skills, but also allows us to hone our self-learning abilities and logical-thinking skills! Through the different problems provided, I was prompted to learn and research more about different functions myself, like the “join” function!
Future coding aspirations: I hope to make an entertaining Roblox game one day and also learn to utilise Python to make useful tools. I am interested in a career related to cybersecurity or programming apps in the future.
Any comments for the readers? As a coder, the ability to self-learn is critical for success. Be willing to take on new challenges! Persevere and remain determined when faced with difficult coding problems as this is an essential part of the learning process.
Aang Winston Angkasa
11 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Creative) Award, Advanced Computer Scientists (Ages 10-12)
Hobbies: I enjoy reading books.

How did you start coding? I attended a class conducted by Coding Lab in 2017 when I was just 6 years old.
Why did you join ICS 2022? I wanted to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone and put what I had learnt to the test.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? Coming across many python functions I did not know of previously, such as “webbrowser”, during my research. I added these new functions I had learnt into my project!
What do your family and friends say when they hear that you are a coder? My family members are very supportive and always encourage me to pursue my dream to be a coder!
Future coding aspirations: I want to be a programmer so I can make a simpler programming language that would help other programmers save time when writing their code!
Jacob Xu
11 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Best Presentation) Award, Advanced Electives (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: Reading, coding and playing Minecraft! I also enjoy competing in Math Olympiads and even achieved a Silver in the Asia Pacific Mathematical Olympiad for Primary Schools Singapore in 2023.

How did you start coding? I started coding when I was 6. My parents sent me to Coding Lab’s holiday camp to learn Scratch. After that, I progressed on to Python when I was 8 or 9!
Why did you join ICS 2022? I wanted to use my coding skills to raise awareness for the Russo-Ukrainian War.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? Being able to make codes that can be used by anyone. My biggest motivation is for people to interact with my projects!
What is your favourite thing about coding and Coding Lab? I am pushed out of my comfort zones to solve problems such as bugs, formatting, and even in language.
Future coding aspirations: I aspire to be a mathematician or a quantum physicist. I hope that my coding skills can be applied in these fields to solve real-world problems, for the good of humanity!
Any comments for the readers? Try your best and when in doubt, Google is your best friend.
Han Jo Xi
13 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Most Promising Coder) Award, Python (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: When I am free, I normally play video games or listen to music. Sometimes, I also interest myself in some personal coding projects. For example, I’ve been working on a new programme that simulates the basic levels of the economy in real life. Using Python, I’ve created what I call the “economy simulator”, where users can run certain commands within the programme to change the economy!

How did you start coding? I started coding when I was Primary 2, with my first programming language being Scratch. From there, I moved on to Python and other programming languages.
Why did you join ICS 2022? I wanted to test my capabilities and challenge myself to create a programme that would appeal to the outside world. I feel that one of the most important aspects of programming is the readability of the code. Instead of just programmers being able to understand your code, non-programmers should also be able to.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? The ability to communicate with confidence. I was nervous during the presentation, but after a few retakes I mustered up the courage to present confidently and effectively.
What do your family and friends say when they hear that you are a coder? When I first expressed interest in coding, they were shocked. After some time, they enrolled me in coding classes. When I show my family members what I do, they are amazed at how much a few lines of code can do. In fact, one of my main motivations for creating my project is my family. They are my biggest supporters and their unwavering belief that I can win the showcase pushed me on.
Future coding aspirations: I aspire towards a job in computer software programming. I feel that my interests, combined with my current skill set, can tackle the industry’s problems.
Any comments for the readers? Take things step-by-step! When I first started out coding, I was bombarded by multiple problems, like not being able to debug my code. However, I’ve overcome these problems as my knowledge about different programming languages grew, making it easier to solve issues within the code.
Linus Lim Jiarui
14 years old, Singapore
Distinction and Judges’ Choice (Best Presentation) Award, Python (Ages 13-18)
Hobbies: I code, play some computer games and musical instruments.

How did you start coding? Initially, I applied for my school’s infocomm club but got rejected. Instead of giving up, I researched other ways to explore my area of interest and my passion for coding developed from there.
Why did you join ICS 2022? I wanted people to see what I can create with my coding skills and knowledge.
What’s your biggest takeaway from ICS 2022? Filming the presentation video was a new and interesting experience. It was fun making projects related to my areas of interest!
What is your favourite thing about coding and Coding Lab? I like the teachers who are always there to guide me and answer any questions I have.
Future coding aspirations: I want to improve on and optimise my current code while learning more about different topics. In the future, I would like to work in an exciting field in a job related to coding!
Any comments for the readers? The internet is a great place to learn coding. As long as you start somewhere, you are bound to do great things!
This concludes our 2022 International Coding Showcase (ICS)! Don’t miss the chance to check out our full list of winners here or view the playlist of videos of oour top Distinction and Judges’ Choices submissions.
The Coding Lab team would like to extend an immense THANK YOU to all our talented students who participated in this event. We appreciate the tremendous effort each and every one of you have dedicated to your projects! Congratulations to all our students for their outstanding achievements, and we look forward to seeing what other innovative projects they will come up with in future! Let us keep the flame of coding alive as we continue to hone our coding skills!
Keep a lookout for our International Coding Showcase 2023, coming soon! Brace yourselves for yet another awe-inspiring showcase of coding excellence!
Read all about the winners of our International Coding Showcase (SG-JP) 2021 here!
P.S. Our International Coding Showcase is only open to Coding Lab students. Interested in our award-winning coding classes? Check them out here.
(Written by Lech and Edited by Cheryl Tang)
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