A gamification platform for inspiring young students to take an interest in coding

Abstract

Coding skills are widely considered an invaluable asset in today’s and tomorrow’s business landscape. However, universities in North America and Europe are expected to produce computer scientists at a rate that is well below the projected demand. This has called for initiatives like the Computer Science Education Week in the United States and the Europe Code Week in the European Union. This paper proposes a novel, engaging activity that aims at inspiring students to take an interest in Coding via a mobile phone-based treasure hunt. The main contributions of the paper are the description of the platform used to realize the treasure hunt, and the experience report of the event that evaluated its effectiveness.