Starting from SCRATCH!
The Interschool Compuskills Championship 2017 – 18 was conducted by the Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School. The competition was based on using SCRATCH as a tool. It gives the students an opportunity to share ideas and interact with each other while developing a healthy team spirit. It also encourages them to discover their talent and evaluate themselves among their peers.
The competition required the participants to present a story or create a game lasting for 2 to 4 minutes. They were given three topics to choose from : Traffic Discipline, Healthcare using Yoga and My Friend.
In the first round, the participants were expected to submit their project within 3 weeks. 5 teams comprising of 2 participants each, of Walnut School, Shivane entered this competition. They were competing in the Junior Category for Std. 5 to 7. There were a total of 220 teams who participated in the first round, of which only 50 teams made it to round 2!
We were happy to know that all the 5 Walnut teams made it through to the second round.
As part of the next round, the participants had to display their projects to the judges, who were all from the IT field, and answer questions based on the projects. This was held at the Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School.
In round 3, there were only 4 finalist teams. These were from the schools – Walnut School, Kalmadi Shyamrao High School, Millennium National School and Vikhe Patil School. Parth Mayadevo and Om Kulkarni from Std. 6 represented Walnut in the third and final round. This round was conducted in Tilak Smarak Mandir on Saturday, 2 September 2017.
In this round as well, they had to present their projects in front of judges and face a Q and A session. Parth and Om had chosen the topic ‘Traffic Discipline’ for their project. Both the boys have lived a part of their lives in the USA, and so chose to show a comparison of the traffic discipline that exists in USA and India. “When I first came to Walnut three years ago, I didn’t know how to use Scratch until the second half of my second year. With the help of my friends, I learnt Scratch and made some games. Then I showed my computer teacher Shraddha Miss a game that I made. After seeing it, she said that I should participate in the Scratch competition 2017 -18,” recollects Parth. “We made a story based on a man from the U.S who gets a job in India, sees the traffic and decides to quit his job. We added in a quiz at the end, based on traffic discipline.”
Both boys recount that they put in a lot of efforts to create their project, and while it was fun, it was equally challenging managing their routines. They also edited and re-edited their script multiple times to arrive at the winning version!
Parth says, “We went to the computer lab in all our free periods and sometimes even ate our tiffin quickly just to make the most of our free time!” It was a thrilling moment for Om and Parth when they received a call that confirmed their selection into the final round.
The participants were given 4 minutes to present their project and were warned about points’ deduction if they extended the presentation. Parth and Om thought back to the second round, when the judges had cut them short since they went on longer than expected. They took the quick decision of eliminating the quiz at the end, in order to stay within the given time limit, this time.
They were posed questions like “If you had another week to work on your project, what would you change or improve in it?” “Why did you choose this particular topic?” etc.
Their presentations were followed by the Senior Category participants…and after a long wait, it was time for the announcement of the winners! As the names for 1st and 2nd Runners-up were announced, the boys became nervous. Kalmadi Shyamrao High School were winners of the 2016-17 competition, so Parth and Om gave up any hopes at winning.
Imagine their surprise when the announcement “….And the winner is the Walnut School Team!” was made!!
