Winners of Second Annual New Hampshire Cyber Robotics Coding Competition Announced

DERRY, NH – The New Hampshire Department of Education and the Intelitek STEM and CTE Education Foundation (ISCEF), along with sponsors Intelitek, the University of New Hampshire (UNH), New Hampshire 4-H, Yaskawa Motoman, and Oracle Academy, are announcing the winners of the state’s second annual Cyber Robotics Coding Competition (CRCC) finals. The finals took place on Dec. 15, 2018, at the UNH campus in Durham.

The St. Thomas Aquinas School located in Derry emerged as the CRCC champion, winning the gold medal for overall first place. Monadnock Regional High School in Swanzey won a gold medal for placing first in the high school category.

The finals were the culminating event for eight weeks of virtual competition in which more than 4,200 students from 61 middle and high schools used CoderZ, a cloud-based coding platform, to complete 103 difficult missions in the weeks leading up to the finals. The students of New Hampshire completed more than 30,000 missions and 55 students completed all 103 missions. In addition to prizes for inclusiveness and female participation, the top schools competed all day at the UNH campus for first, second and third place.

“The increase in student involvement for the second year of this program is impressive and exciting,” said Frank Edelblut, the commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education. “Seeing all of the students at the finals at UNH – as well as the teachers who helped them compete – was inspiring. With continued focus and work, I’m sure we’ll reach our goal of having a million students, around the world, learning valuable coding skills while also having fun.”

The following awards were also presented:

• Inclusiveness Award (for highest student participation) - North Hampton School (95 percent participation)
• Grace Hopper Award (for highest female participation) - Litchfield Middle School (55 female competitors)
• Second Place (Silver Medal) - Litchfield Middle School
• Third Place (Bronze Medal) - Elm Street Middle School in Nashua

New Hampshire was the first state to hold the competition. That event, held at the end of 2017, gave rise to an international phenomenon that has resulted in more than 150,000 students all over the world participating in similar events. To date, more than 37,500 students in 590 schools across 26 states in United States have been able to participate in CRCC events.

Ido Yerushalmi, CEO of Intelitek, said one of the company’s main goals in developing the CoderZ platform was introducing robotics and coding in a way that would be easily accessible to all students.

“We launched CRCC in 2017 in New Hampshire and it is so appropriate to end the 2018 season in New Hampshire after a successful roll-out country wide,” he said. “There are lots of STEAM-based activities happening in informal educational environments, like after-school robotics clubs. These activities have been able to capture the interest of many students, but how do we create something that is scalable to nearly every single child? We believe it’s through events like CRCC!”

Parties interested in organizing Cyber Robotics Competitions for their school, district or state can contact ISCEF at info@iscefoundation.org.