Companies Work With NH DOE On Cyber Robotics Coding Competition

CONCORD, NH — The New Hampshire Department of Education is teaming up with a Derry company and Oracle to host its own "week of code" and STEM education promotion, according to officials. The program – Cyber Robotics Coding Competition – builds on the popular, global "An Hour of Code for Every Student" concept, promoted by Code.org. Intellitek and the DOE are using a cloud-based software program called CoderZ to help students create block code and help them build programs to navigate robots through a course.

NH DOE Commissioner Frank Edelblut likened the program to Mindcraft – only with code and robots.

“We wanted to build on the work of code.org as well as the success of our own robotics program launched earlier this year,” he noted in a press statement. “Using Intelitek’s CoderZ software platform, we built 50 virtual coding challenges that allow students to navigate robots through increasingly difficult challenges. And, these are very engaging challenges for the students.”

“The impact we are achieving is tremendous,” Ido Yerushalmi, the CEO of Intelitek, said. “Thousands of students, their teachers, and sometimes even their parents, are all engaged in coding and STEM activities for a period of six weeks.”

Yerushalmi added that the competition was a great way to motivate students and expose them science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“We are seeing students logging in to the software platform from home,” he said. “Our objective is to make STEM activities such as this competition, accessible to all.”

The state’s STEM education director, David Benedetto, hailed Intelitek for “an outstanding job with this project,” while adding that it would not have happened without the company working on the partnership with the DOE.

The NH DOE noted that more than 2,300 students and 100 teachers were actively involved in the Cyber Robotics Coding Competition. About 40 students have completed all 50 “boot camp missions” and are waiting for the next 20 to be released. Qualifying schools and students, the department noted, will be able to compete in a grand finale competition on Dec. 19, 2017, at Pinkerton Academy.

Image via St. Thomas Aquinas School in Derry submitted by NH DOE.