Theme and Prompt Ideas

Ideas can be given any theme from silly to serious.

Seasonal themes: winter, summer, spring, fall - theme it around what is happening right then and there.
Social justice themes: solving problems related to their community - make it as specific or leave it as open ended as you would like.
Educational/Research Based: students need to research a topic and make a project that teaches about it
Technical: focus will be on the code they've written vs visual output

These ideas can always be added on to with actual code in a classroom setting if that appeals to you after the Hackathon!

Design an app: without any actual coding experience, ask students to wireframe an app to solve a problem or address a certain need. Websites like Marvel App can help students create a mock-up, with no code required.
Propose a ____: ask students to imagine they have unlimited time, resources, etc (or propose some limits, depending on your theme). Ask them to create a proposal for an app/website/game/etc - they will create a written proposal, wire frame, and presentation 'pitch' to sell to the judges.

Random phrase project: IDEs like repl.it and the p5 editor will assign a random string of words as a project name when you create any new project: ask students to create a project that follows the theme of their random words. The project can do anything, but it should fit the given phrase! (Students will need to look up words they don't understand.) Not using repl.it or the p5 editor? Find a random phrase generator online and use that instead!
Remix a classic game: ask students to take a classic style of game and make their own version of it, with a twist or improvements. They can complete this in whatever language they feel comfortable using.
Extension activity: have students complete a tutorial for a topic/skill that is doable, but not part of their current curriculum, and then create a project that uses that topic/skill. (For folks working in p5 - any of The Coding Train youtube videos on using Google Teachable Machines would be great for this!)

Technical Code Challenge: Find several code challenge prompts, such as the one on CodeWars, or ones related to classic algorithms or programming challenges. Ask student teams to solve as many challenges as possible as efficiently/beautifully as possible in the given time. Share a rubric that will explain how they are scored - categories may include efficency of code, use of abstraction, use of data structures, quality of code comments, etc.
Skills Showcase: using any theme, ask students to showcase as many skills as possible and assign point values to each skill and encourage students to use as many skills that they have learned as possible. Using a class to create objects may offer more points than just creating a variable, for example.

Last updated 6 months ago