Inforama competition winners awarded

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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: Sayyidina Hussain Secondary School and Rimba II Primary School both emerged champions of the “Inforama 2012: Kodu Competition” in the primary and secondary school categories respectively in the annual ICT competition for schools nationwide, Borneo Bulletin reported.

The results were announced at a prize presentation ceremony held at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) yesterday, in the Presence of Awg Hj Suhaila bin Hj Abdul Karim, Acting Permanent Secretary (Core Education) at the Ministry of Education (MoE) as the guest of honour.

Sayyidina Hussain Secondary School beat 16 other teams from 15 secondary schools nationwide with their project “GEO Expedition” while Rimba II Primary School beat 16 other reams from 15 primary schools nationwide with their project “Maths World”.

Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed specifically for game development and provides specialised primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programmes are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behaviour.

While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct and intuitive manner.

According to the organisers, the skill competition was designed to recognise students who demonstrate excellence in a diverse range of technical, creative and game play depth and design in the use of Kodu Games Lab. “It is focused around curriculum integration, relevance for teaching and learning, making an impact on student learning development,” they added.

The competition, which began with a series of seminars and workshops earlier this year is organised by. the Science, Technology & Environment Partnership (STEP) Centre, Ministry of Education, in collaboration with Microsoft (Brunei) and supported by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, MoE.

In the first round, judges assessed all the entries and selected the top five teams from each category to go through the second round of judging. Intense live presentations were then given by teams, which narrowed each school down into the top five in each category.

Nor Erwadi bin Haji Ibrahim, Acting Head of STEP Centre; MoE, in his welcoming speech noted that they have received an encouraging response from both primary and secondary school categories. As this is their first year in implementing the competition based on the Kodu programme, he said they did not
make any restriction on the features and topic of the game itself “However, it is essential that the game content covers the school curriculum and more importantly has the potential to show an impact on student learning.” He further shared that they intend to narrow down the scope or focus of the subjects for next year’s competition.

Coming in second place in the secondary school category was Sayyidina Othman Secondary School with their project “Harmony Forest”. While the second runner-up was Paduka Seri Begawan Sultan Science College with their project “Final Piracy”.

Meanwhile, in the primary school category, another team from Rimba II Primary School was placed second in the competition with their project “Algebra Word”. While Sengkurong Primary School came in third place with their project “I Know Brunei”.

All of the prizes, which included individual trophies, school trophies, Kinect console sets and electronic gadgets, were presented by the guest of honour to the winning teams and their supervising teachers.

A talk was also delivered by Mr Joel Canoza Espiritu of Seri Mulia Sarjana School on the utilisation of Kinect education in schools. He shared his knowledge and experience on how he was able to change classroom lessons through the Kinect device, by interacting in the lesson through body movement or gestures.

Members from winning team in the secondary school category, Sayyidina Hussain Secondary School, told the Bulletin that they spent at least a week to brainstorm and execute the plans on their project.

Team members, Afham bin Jambol and Wa’ie Farid Izuddin bin Haji Kamaludin, said although they are Science Stream students, they also take much interest in computing and programming and are familiar with the Kodu program which was also an advantage for them in the competition.

Their supervising teacher, Han Annymoy Norhamimah, said both students are also taking Geography which made them choose the subject as the main theme of their project.

Explaining more on the project, they said the game revolves around an adventure theme. Its users must answer a set of questions before they can advance or unlock the next level. “It is all based on different topics of ‘0’ Level Geography such as volcanoes and weathering.”

The students said moving forward, they aspire to advance further in game programming by using other programs to continue learning. When asked if the school plans to make use of the game application for their students, Han Annymoy said as a first step, they will establish a school club to gather more students who have the same interest in Kodu programming.