CoolThink@JC Competition 2025
Background and Objectives
CoolThink@JC Competition 2025 (“The Competition”) is created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, co-created by The Education University of Hong Kong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and City University of Hong Kong (“The Organisers”), co-organised by Association of Computational Thinking innoCommunity Teachers, and supported by Education Bureau, Hong Kong Education City, Association of I.T. Leaders in Education and The Hong Kong Association for Computer Education. The competition targets all Primary Four to Primary Six students and aims to promote Computational Thinking (“CT”) Education, enhance students’ awareness and interests on CT through coding and problem solving skills, enable students to apply their knowledge and skills on CT to solve problems, enhance creativity, innovation and coding techniques as well as encourage collaboration.
Competition Rules & Schedule
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9 December 2024 (Mon) |
Briefing Session |
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10 December 2024 (Tue) |
Registration Starts |
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10 February 2025 (Mon) |
Deadline for Registration |
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5 January 2025 (Sun) – 20 February 2025 (Thur) |
Entry Submission via Google Form, including a 3-min video (in mp4 format, less than 300MB) / slide presentation (not more than 15 slides), submission form and parents’ consent form, Deadline: 20 February 2025 (Thur) |
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8 March 2025 (Sat) – 15 March 2025 (Sat) |
First Round Assessment |
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26 March 2025 (Wed) |
Notification of Shortlisted Finalists |
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26 March 2025 (Wed) –
4 April 2025 (Fri)
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Finalists will have to:
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11 June 2025 (Wed) |
Finalists will have to:
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23 June 2025 (Mon)
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Finalists will have to:
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5 July 2025 (Sat) AM |
Final |
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5 July 2025 (Sat) PM |
Grand Final and Awards Presentation Ceremony |
Rules of the Competition
- Participating schools and teams must attempt with their best effort in the competition.
- Each team can submit only one solution for the competition.
- The App must be developed by members of the team using Scratch or App Inventor and operated properly. If participating team choose to join Scratch Category, please note that only MIT Scratch (online version) (https://scratch.mit.edu/) or MIT PRG AI Blocks platform (https://playground.raise.mit.edu/main/) can be used. If participating team choose to join App Inventor Category, please note that only MIT App Inventor 2 can be used (https://appinventor.mit.edu/). Other version of Scratch and App Inventor will not be accepted.
- All entries must be originally created by the students and have not been previously published or submitted in any prior competitions.
- If participating teams have used generative AI tools in their entries, they must declare which parts were generated when submitting the works. If no declaration is provided, the Organizers will consider the whole submission as the team’s original creation. Should the Organizers find generated content that was not declared, the team may be disqualified.
- Finalists must demonstrate their entries onsite at the competition venue.
- Each team will only be allowed to change one team member once, and must notify the Organisers in advance.
- Participating teams should not disturb other participants.
- Damage to any facilities is not allowed.
- Food and Drinks are prohibited in the competition venue.
- Illegal and improper behaviour is prohibited.
- Team may be disqualified if found to have violated the above regulations.
- The Organisers reserve the rights to make final decision.
Eligibility, Format and Judging Criteria
Eligibility
a) The competition accepts entries from teams from all Hong Kong schools, each team to be formed by three students (limited to Primary Four to Primary Six students in the academic year of 2024/2025). Each school may send at most five teams.
b) Each team must be registered to the competition through their responsible teacher.
c) Each participant must gain their parent/guardian’s consent to participate in the competition.
Format and Judging Criteria
First Round
- The participating team will identify a problem they encounter in daily life (Please click here for an example) or a need in subject learning and produce a 3-min video (in mp4 format, less than 300MB) or in slide presentation format (not more than 15 slides) to describe the problem and the solution using computational thinking and coding technique (Scratch or App Inventor), and submit the video or slide presentation (either one format, zipped file not accepted) via Google Form provided by the Organisers, together with a completed submission form and parents’ consent form before the deadline.
- There are two categories in The Competition, including Scratch Category and App Inventor Category. Each participating team can choose either ONE Category upon their preference.
- If participating team choose to join Scratch Category, please note that only MIT Scratch (online version) (https://scratch.mit.edu/) or MIT PRG AI Blocks platform (https://playground.raise.mit.edu/main/) can be used. If participating team choose to join App Inventor Category, please note that only MIT App Inventor 2 can be used (https://appinventor.mit.edu/). Other version of Scratch and App Inventor will not be accepted.
- All entries received from the First Round will be assessed by Assessors. 20 entries from each category (40 in total from 2 Categories) will be shortlisted for Final.
- Shortlisted teams entering the Final competition will use Scratch or App Inventor, based on their selected category, to develop solution in a specific period.
Final
- Finalists will present their solutions and the Apps they developed to the Judging Panel.
- The Judging Panel will select 4 teams from each category (8 teams in total from 2 Categories) to enter into the Grand Final.
Grand Final
- 8 Grand Finalist Teams will present to the Grand Judging Panel.
- The winning teams, including Champion, First Runner-up, Second Runner-up, Merit Team from each category and the following Awards (as below table) selected from 40 participating teams, will be decided by the Grand Judging Panel. The competition result will be announced immediately on the same day, followed by the awards presentation ceremony. The Grand Judging Panel will be comprised of prominent members of the society, and professionals from the education, information technology sector and business sectors.
Judging Criteria
Judging criteria include creativity, innovation, functionality, interface design, coding skills and use of technology as well as team collaboration.
Awards
Champion (Scratch) |
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Champion (App Inventor) |
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First Runner-Up (Scratch) |
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First Runner-Up (App Inventor) |
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Second Runner-Up (Scratch) |
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Second Runner-Up (App Inventor) |
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Merit (Scratch) |
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Merit (App Inventor) |
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The Most Creative and Innovative Award (Scratch) |
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The Most Creative and Innovative Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best Functionality and Design Award (Scratch) |
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The Best Functionality and Design Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best Coding Technique Award (Scratch) |
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The Best Coding Technique Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best Use of Technology for Subject Learning Award (Scratch) |
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The Best Use of Technology for Subject Learning Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best Team Collaboration Award (Scratch) |
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The Best Team Collaboration Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best AI Application Award (Scratch) |
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The Best AI Application Award (App Inventor) |
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The Best Value Education Award (Scratch) |
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The Best Value Education Award (App Inventor) |
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Outstanding New School Entry Award (Scratch) |
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Outstanding New School Entry Award (App Inventor) |
- Each team member of the above awards will receive a medal/certificate and prizes.
- Each team of Champion, First and Second Runners-up awards will receive a trophy.
All finalists will be awarded:
- Certificate
All participants will receive an e-Certificate of Participation.
Registration and Other Information
Registration
Interested students can register online through your school teacher on or before 10 February 2025 (Mon).
Others
- Copyrights of the ideas/Apps are owned by the participants themselves.
- The Organisers reserve the right to amend, extend and interpret the competition guideline and rules without prior notice.
- The Organisers reserve the rights to exhibit students’ ideas/Apps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can the participating teams be formed by students from different grades (e.g. One P.6 students with Two P.4 students)?
A: Yes, as long as the team members are students from P.4 – P.6 in the academic year of 2024-2025, they would be eligible.
Q: Can the video be submitted via YouTube, Vimeo or even mailed in a USB drive?
A: No, the video must be submitted via the Google Form provided by the Organisers, the format of the video should be mp4 and not greater than 300MB in file size.
Q: Are teams needed to present the same thing they did at the Final if they enter the Grand Final in which the Final and Grand Final will take place on the same day?
A: Yes. And if the team feels that they have much to improve after the Final, they might well demonstrate an improvement in the Grand Final.
Q: Are English and Putonghua also permitted to be spoken during the competition, aside Cantonese?
A: Yes.
Q: Where may I find the submission form and the parents’ consent form?
A: Registration will start from 10 December 2024 (Tue). For each team, you are required to provide the names and classes of the three students, as well as contact information of the teacher-in-charge. After completing the registration, you will receive a confirmation email. The e-mail will include a Google Form link and other relevant documents. Please fill in the Google Form, as well as upload the 3-min video (in mp4 format, less than 300MB) / slide presentation (not more than 15 slides), parents’ consent form and submission form to the Google Form on or before 20 February 2025 (Thur).
Q: Is there a definition with regard to “Daily Life Problems”?
A: No, there isn’t a strict definition. Daily life problems can range from home, school and community. The participating teams may think from the perspectives of parents, teachers, students, persons with disability, pets, and even general end-users, trying to imagine what kind of “Daily Life Problems” they are encountering. Please click here for an example.
Q: During the First Round, would the Assessors be assessing the film editing skill or shooting technique employed?
A: No, film editing skill and shooting technique would not be assessed during the First Round. The 3-minute video aims at describing a daily life problem and the solution using computational thinking and coding technique.
Q: Are the developed Apps allowed to connect with external devices or sensors, e.g. mBot, Arduino, METAS?
A: The organiser has no objection to connecting external devices to the developed Apps, but please note that if your team choose to participate in Scratch Category, only MIT Scratch (Online Version), or MIT PRG AI Blocks platform can be used. If your team choose to join App Inventor Category, only MIT App Inventor 2 can be used. Other version of Scratch and App Inventor will not be accepted.
Media Coverage
About CoolThink@JC
Seeking to inspire digital creativity among students and nurture their proactive use of technologies for social good from a young age, CoolThink@JC is a computational thinking education initiative created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and co-created by The Education University of Hong Kong, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and City University of Hong Kong. In collaboration with local educators and the world’s leading experts, CoolThink@JC empowers teachers with high-quality teaching materials, learning platform, and professional development programmes. Since 2016, CoolThink@JC has trained more than 1,000 teachers from 178 primary schools and benefited over 73,000 primary students with CoolThink classes.
The CoolThink@JC approach prepares students for a fast-changing digital future through a hands-on, minds-on, and joyful learning experience. An independent evaluation has found that students participated in CoolThink@JC grew twice as much in problem-solving skills when compared with non-participating students. Following the successful implementation of the four-year pilot, the second phase of the CoolThink@JC has been launched in 2020, with the aim of mainstreaming computational thinking education.
