Mandela Day Coding Tournament coming up; 14 schools to compete
Primary school children find their niche in computer sciences.

Learners are introduced to unplugged Coding using the TANKS App in one of the sessions.
“My Secret Out App” is a mobile application that allows you to share your secrets with me.
On Friday, June 3, a girl in Grade 7 named Oteng Mogapi, who was attending a Coding session at Mogalithwa Primary School, surprised the entire class when she announced that she wants to design an App called “Secret Out App.”
The entire class was taken aback and chuckled at the concept, but she stuck to her guns, and she was pressed to clarify on the App’s purpose and how it will help.
“Criminals kill and hide individuals. In South Africa, we hear about a missing person every day, old and young, even babies are sometimes found dead or very ill alongside the road or in garbage bins. There’s a chance that no one will ever be found after they’ve been reported missing in some cases, so my App could be the best option for finding missing people,” she explained.
“But how?” She was interrupted by the rest of the class.
She went on to say that while murderers do not want to be apprehended, they may want their victims’ remains found and buried.
As a result, these criminals can utilize the App to remain anonymous or use pseudonyms to reveal where they left the body, allowing the families to locate their loved ones.
“When the secret is out, my App will be linked to murder case investigation officials so that they can at least figure out where the body is hidden, which will help them speed up the process of finding the body and investigating the crime,” she explained.
Before they are introduced to coding, all learners are invited to brainstorm and share their ideas in this session.
Above all, this session is critical for students and teachers to ensure that students understand why Apps are produced and why programming is taught.
Mogalithwa Primary School is one of 14 schools that have signed up to compete in the Mandela Day Coding Tournament at Witbank High School on July 18.
Four teams are chosen to represent the school in the tournament, in which learners will use a Tanks Coding Tool to code.
Under the supervision of Prof Jean Greyling, Byron Batterson, a Computer Science honours student at Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences, developed Tanks.
The Tanks Coding Tool combines puzzle pieces with a smart phone app to teach kids how to code while they play.
“I enjoy Tanks because I see these learners interacting, scheming, talking, and working to move from one level to the next without our intervention as facilitators. One child in a Grade 3 class came to me during one of the coding workshops and exclaimed, “Mam, I am winning,” which made me even more pleased because she had truly progressed from one level to the next in Tanks,” said Nomusa Keninda, founder of the Mpumalanga ICT Club, an eLearning specialist for the Mpumalanga Department of Education, a Master Student of ICT in Education at the University of Johannesburg, a National Trailblazer Award winner 2021 and a Regional Coordinator for Tangible Africa’s Mandela Day Coding Tournament.
Tanks has 35 levels, ranging from the easiest to the most difficult, and these students work very hard to crack the code all the way to the end.
They step up at some point and physically demonstrate how they will be able to correct their code.
“We are looking forward to witnessing our club’s first Coding Tournament,” Duduzile Mashinini exclaimed. She is one of Mpumalanga ICT Club’s facilitators and a Coding Evangelist. We have about 24 teams of six learners that will be joining the Mandela Day Coding Tournament. By now we can confirm that schools from eMalahleni like Vuma Combined, Duvha Primary, Moruti Makuse Primary, Hlangu-Phala Primary, and Khayalethu Primary will be joining the tournament with their teams. Other schools will come from outside eMalahleni, but are all from the Nkangala District.
Source: Witbank News