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The fourth annual CoolThink@JC Competition, which encourages primary students to use their digital creativity, was held in October. Competing students used their computational thinking skills to create games or apps which solve everyday problems.

The competition was organised by CoolThink@JC. The project, initiated and funded by the Club's Charities Trust in 2016, equips upper primary students in Hong Kong with computational thinking and coding capabilities from a young age.

The project aims to empower students to go beyond simply consuming technology to using technology to solve problems in an innovative manner. It inspires students' digital creativity and nurtures the proactive use of technology for social good from a young age. Building on the success of the initiative, the second phase of CoolThink@JC commenced in September 2020.

The competition, which targets primary four to six students, attracted close to 100 teams from different primary schools this year. A total of 40 teams were shortlisted to present their entries to the judging panel. Eight teams were then selected to go on to the grand final where they competed for various awards.

Champion of the "App Inventor" category went to the team from Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School. Their outstanding app "Smart Home Pandemic Fighter" acts as a one-stop reminder about the anti-epidemic measures app users should follow as soon as they enter their homes. The measures include washing hands, showering, and disposing of masks to minimise the risk of exposure to COVID-19. The team from King's College Old Boys' Association Primary School No.2, who created the "Tata Germs, Toilet" app, was the champion in the "Scratch" category. The app helps users minimise contact with the toilet seat, reducing the risk of exposure to COVID-19. It can also make use of data collected to enable automatic toilet flushing.

This year's presentations occurred online for the first time in light of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the students did a great job in introducing the games or apps they invented, and described how computational thinking and coding techniques were applied in their creations.

A number of submissions were themed around the pandemic, showing students were aware of social issues and willing to address them using the knowledge or tools they had acquired.

For the full results of the competition, please visit: https://ctc.coolthink.hk/