CodeCombat and Tarena Host International Coding Tournament at Stanford University

Top American and Chinese students came together at Stanford University to encourage cross-cultural collaboration and computer science education

August 18, 2019 – On Saturday, students gathered at Stanford University for the finals of Code Quest, an international tournament between American and Chinese students that began with over 5,000 students in China. After 3 rounds of competition, the top twenty six Chinese students qualified for the Code Quest final and were joined by a group of American peers. These global teams built collaborative projects that were evaluated by professional judges and volunteers from prestigious universities and companies such as Stanford, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

“It was so exciting to host these students and see their collaborative projects. It’s a real challenge to write hundreds of lines of Python and create a unique project in a tournament setting. It requires integrating multiple aspects of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math), all while communicating and collaborating with teammates across language and cultural barriers. It was truly amazing to see,” said Nick Winter, CEO and Co-founder of CodeCombat.

Students from both countries were broken into groups and jointly coded a project within 3 hours. As a team, they needed to come up with a concept, design a logic mechanism, write code in Python, and then test their design to ensure it works. Beyond that, they needed to demo their projects and present to judges.

“We ran an extremely challenging evaluation process to bring the most outstanding kids to Stanford University for the global final tournament. The students were very motivated to join the global challenge, open their minds to new experiences, and meet with American peers. It goes beyond the tournament itself, and brought value and inspiration for the kids in the long run,” remarked Patrick Pan, General Manager of Tarena.

After evaluations by a panel of twelve judges, students were presented with four categories of awards: Creativity (overall design), Computational Thinking (complexity and logic), Presentation (public speech), and Collaboration (team spirit). Each category included Gold, Silver and Bronze medals and unique prizes. Two teams were also awarded the Grand Prize, winning gifts valued at $500 for each team member.

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Grand Prize

Tarena Pick: Team Anti Hackers 反黑客 – Zhangchi Wang, Siyi Di, Neal Chohan – Play Hackathon Project

CodeCombat Pick: Dream Chaser 追梦者 – Chenning Kang, Quynh-Anh Nguyen, Tianrui Feng – Play Hackathon Project

Creativity:

Gold: Team Code Hack 代码黑客 – Feiran Zhang, Charlie Langendorf, Hongming Chen – Play Hackathon Project

Silver: Team Normal 正常组 – Hongyi Zeng, Jiaqi Zhang, Sabrina – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team YKS – Yining Wang, Yariela Lizama-Diaz, Zheyuan Li – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team Winner 胜利者 – Guofeng Liu, Ryan Cobaxin, Ke Song – Play Hackathon Project

Computational Thinking:

Gold: Code Hack 代码黑客 – Feiran Zhang, Charlie Langendorf, Hongming Chen – Play Hackathon Project

Silver: Team Kings – Owen Williams, Zhen Zhang, Minghao Wang – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team Joker – Zibo Jin, Kaustubh Pullea, Zifan Jia – Play Hackathon Project

Collaboration:

Gold: Thunder Team- Yiheng Lü, Langyue Wei – Play Hackathon Project

Silver: Team Joker – Zibo Jin, Kaustubh Pullea, Zifan Jia – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team Kings – Owen Williams, Zhen Zhang, Minghao Wang – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team The X-Men – Sebastian Vargas, Yipeng Liu, Yeyi Chen – Play Hackathon Project

Presentation:

Gold: Team Honor – Yiyang Liu, Tianci Nie, Anthony Rangel-Guerrero – Play Hackathon Project

Silver: Team YKS – Yining Wang, Yariela Lizama-Diaz, Zheyuan Li – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team ZH – Yongming Zhu, Weicheng Hua – Play Hackathon Project

Bronze: Team Little Yellow Crab – Guangxuan Wu, Jinhao Jin, Adam Zhuang – Play Hackathon Project

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“This is my first trip to the USA. I learned about the CodeCombat program nine months ago and have found it to be really exciting! I feel very lucky to be selected for the Code Quest global finals. The Stanford trip really inspires me to learn Computer Science and solve the problems facing the world. I want to study computer science at university and become a software engineer in the future,” said Yining Wang, who is studying in grade 5 in Ximajinrun Primary School in Beijing.

Congratulations to all the student coding heroes! Stay tuned  for more international tournaments for kids from America, China, and more countries in the future.

About CodeCombat

CodeCombat is a platform for students to learn computer science while playing a real game. It has been played in 200 countries around the world and has helped 12M users learn Python and JavaScript. Used by more than 41,000 teachers in more than 16,000 schools in North America. CodeCombat is a standards-aligned curriculum and an endorsed provider of curriculum and professional development for AP® Computer Science Principles (AP CSP). Teachers, students, and individuals can sign up for CodeCombat and try the first course for free.

CodeCombat is also set to launch its second game, Ozaria, this fall! To be among the first to gain access to the computer science program at launch, visit at Ozaria.com.

About Tarena

Tarena is a leading provider of professional education services in China with a core strength in IT professional education services.  It has been listed in NASDAQ with professional training experience for 17 years. Tarena has an innovative education platform combining live distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring and online learning modules.

As a leading brand in China and a subsidiary company of Tarena, Tongchengtongmei is focusing on programming education from 3 to 18 years old. To date, Tongchengtongmei has 193 domestic schools over 57 cities, and the total number of the students have already exceeded 50,000. The teaching method is small class-based method with 4-6 students.