Launching our birthday giveaway!

Ten years ago the first CoderDojo session was held in Cork, Ireland by teenager James Whelton and entrepreneur Bill Liao. In previous years, we’ve run a spooky challenge during October. This year, we want to mark the 10 years of CoderDojo by encouraging young people to join in with the celebrations with birthday-themed coding projects! So, today we are launching the CoderDojo birthday greeting giveaway!

What is the birthday greeting giveaway?

Young people (aged 7–17) from Dojos worldwide, as well as those new to CoderDojo, are invited to create a project during the month of October with a birthday or celebratory theme.

They can work on a project individually or in a team of up to five young people. Their project could include famous birthdays, anniversaries, celebrating their Dojo or volunteers, cake, balloons, parties, or other festivities!

Young people can create their project using whatever coding language they want, such as Scratch, Python, HTML/CSS, App Inventor, or Blender! Projects don’t need to be 100% finished to be entered by the 31 October deadline.

Enter a project now

Giveaway, you say?

It wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without some presents now, would it? Every young person who takes part will receive a certificate to highlight their participation. There will be a number of randomly allocated prizes, and also age-category prizes which include a variety hardware kits and CoderDojo goodies! In addition, we will be celebrating a selection of young people and their projects on our social channels and blog. We’ll also be highlighting an assortment of projects as part of the birthday livestream on 28 October!

Entries will be reviewed by members of the Raspberry Pi Foundation team, recognising:

  • The creativity or originality of the project idea
  • How they present or describe the project in the submission
  • How the project reflects the theme
  • The use of code

 

Can my Dojo take part?… Yes!

With many clubs paused over the last year, this is a great opportunity to encourage Ninjas’ creativity. Whether you’re running your sessions online, emailing out activities remotely, paused for now, or in the process of returning to in-person events, young people in your club can take part! 

You may like to host a special online session to get your Ninjas creating something with a festive theme or simply send this blog to parents so that young people can get started on their ideas at home. If your club has been paused, this is a great opportunity to reach out with this giveaway and check in to see how they are getting on. There are lots of ways to get involved!

Key information:

  • All levels of projects are accepted
  • Any young person aged 7–17 can enter
  • Projects should include a birthday or celebratory theme
  • The deadline is Sunday, 31 October 2021
  • One project entry per young person or team
  • Young people can create a project using whatever coding language they want
  • Projects need to be entered by a parent or guardian (or CoderDojo volunteer with the parent/guardian’s explicit permission)
  • Projects are submitted as a weblink; this can be the Scratch project url (make sure it is public), a Trinket url, or alternatively young people can present and record their project, upload the video to YouTube, and submit the YouTube video url (make sure the video link is viewable to those reviewing it). Projects being presented as a video should be presented either in English or with English subtitles.

Enter a project now!

 

Need some inspiration? 

Check out and adapt these projects:

Or have a look through all our projects for ideas you can adapt!

 

Birthday-themed digital assets

You can download digital assets, such as the 10 Years of CoderDojo logo, cake image, characters and more to use in young people’s entries.

Keep up to date with our newsletter

You can unsubscribe at any time.