Special Prize Win by DCPE Team at 13th NAPROCK International Programming Contest

10 Oct 2021

Team DCPE did it again!  Once again, its team clinched the Special Prize at the 13th NAPROCK International Programming Contest held online from 9 to 10 October 2021.  17 teams from Japan KOSEN and Asian countries took part in the Themed Division of the Contest, which was hosted by NAPROCK and jointly organised with KOSEN PROCON. The objective of the competition is to promote flexibility of thinking through programming at a very high level.  Participants were challenged to conceive, design and implement a creative educational project within a short span of two months. 

Comprising second year students Tan Wee Joe, Timothy Liau Ke Qin and Toh Siew Hean, the team implemented a Coding Game, RacerHack, that aims to provide learners an enjoyable and enriching experience while levelling up their coding proficiency at their own pace.  The students conceived their idea of RacerHack in July 2021, and started intensive programming and implementation after their semester examinations, in time for submission on 24 August 2021.  The competition culminated with the Grand Finals held over two days, from 9 to 10 October 2021, where the team presented their project idea and features, and demonstrated their working prototype to the PROCON panel via Microsoft Teams.

RacerHack was implemented using the following technologies that were subsequently integrated to a single website using iFrames:

• Unity Game Engine that is used to develop the 2D Game Engine using C# scripts to control the animation and game logic. The generated game is then exported to WebGL files;

• Firebase that is used as a NoSQL cloud-hosted database to store the learner’s login information, game scores, coding assignment questions and sample solutions;

• JDoodle, a cloud-based code compiler,  that is used compile and execute the learner’s solutions; and

• JavaScript Wrapper with REST APIs that is used to communicate with the RacerHack game engine.
  

Completing RacerHack with these web technologies was definitely no mean feat.  Team RacerHack successfully planned and executed their work by using Sprint Planning and code-sharing in GitHub, under the guidance of their mentor, Mr Isa Christopher Sherman. Congratulations to Team RacerHack!